MR. COBDEN.
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that their true and permanent interests are indissolubly united, and their surest basis in freedom of trade and industry."
Mr. Hamer Stansfield, mayor of Leeds, then proposed "The healths of Richard Cobden, Esq., and John Bright, Esq., the undaunted and untiring champions of free trade, with the warmest thanks for their invaluable exertions."
Mr. Cobden, after speaking on the general question, said:
"We are not politicians or statesmen, and have never aimed at being such. We were driven from our business quite unexpectedly to ourselves; for I declare solemnly, if I had thought five years ago that I should have been gradually and imperceptibly brought to the station! now occupy, and from which I see no way honourably to return (loud cheers)—I say, if I had foreseen, five years ago, that the struggle in this cause would have involved sacrifices of health, of time, of domestic comfort—ay, and other sacrifices, too, which men of business can comprehend—I believe, much as I felt upon the question, I should not have dared, in justice to myself, or to others to whom nature has given a claim upon me, to have taken a part. (Loud cheers.) But our question bas been advancing until it has become a great national and a great political question; and 101, when we find one cause lifted to the first rank in the sedate, we want men there—men having established character as statesmen—men to whom privileges appertain, and to whom the people are inclined to look as leaders, statesmen, and politicians. We want these men in the House now, to take charge of this great cause. (Cheers.) And if there was one sentiment that more pervaded my mind than another, as I came to this place, it was the strong hope which I entertained, knowing that I was coming here to meet the distinguished statesman to whom his countrymen are inclined to look as much as—I had almost said more—than any other living statesman (cheers) for the future conduct of the nation's interest in the House of Commons:—I say, the sentiment which pervaded my mind most strongly was, that coming to the West Riding of Yorkshire, I should find the man who would be the Moses to conduct ns through the desert to the land of promise. (Loud and long-continued cheering.) I say it most emphatically, in the name of my colleagues and myself, that most happily should we surrender our cause into the keeping of such a man, if he advocated our principles in the House of Commons. Most gladly would we have toiled in the ranks out of doors, where we can be of efficient services, and where we would have cheerfully sided such a statesman in identifying his name with the greatest commercial reform—nay, the mightiest resolution that this world ever witnessed. (Cheers.)
