Although the agitation for repeal was in Cobden’s mind only a part of the broad aims of peace and social and moral progress for which he strove, he was too practical to put forth his thoughts on too many subjects at once.  He confined his enthusiasm to repeal until repeal was accomplished.  But his efforts left him no time to attend to his own business, which was falling to pieces under the management of his brother Frederick.  In the autumn of 1845 he felt compelled to give up his work as an agitator on account of his private affairs, but Bright and one or two friends procured the money that sufficed to tide over the emergency.

The cause was now on the eve of victory.  The autumn of 1845 was the wettest in the memory of man.  For long the downpour never ceased by night or by day; it was the rain that rained away the Corn Laws.  The bad harvest and the Irish potato famine brought the long hesitation of Sir Robert Peel to an end.  Soon after the opening of the session of 1846, he announced his proposals.

The repeal of the Corn Laws was to be total, but not immediate.  For three years there was to be a lowered duty on a sliding scale, and then the ports were to be opened entirely.  “Hurrah!  Hurrah!” wrote Cobden to his wife on June 26, “the Corn Bill is law, and now my work is done!”

IV.—­In the Cause of Peace

Cobden was now absent from England for fourteen months, travelling on the Continent.  His reception was everywhere that of a great discoverer in a science which interests the bulk of mankind much more keenly than any other, the science of wealth.  People looked on him as a man who had found out a momentous secret.  He had interviews with the Pope, with three or four kings, with ambassadors, and with all the prominent statesmen.  He never lost an opportunity of speaking a word in season.  They were not all converted, but they all listened to him; and they all taught him something, whether they chose to learn anything from him in return or not.

On his return he joined with Bright in an agitation for financial and parliamentary reform.  While he believed in an extension of the franchise as a means of attaining the objects he had in view, he was essentially an economical, a moral, and a social reformer.  He was never an enthusiast for mere reform in the machinery.  He made it his special mission to advocate financial reform, and left the advocacy for franchise extension very largely to his colleague.

Retrenchment was the keynote of the financial reform urged by Cobden; and retrenchment involved the furtherance of international peace and the reduction of British armaments by means of the abandonment of the policy of intervention in European disputes and the policy of “clinging to colonies,” with the consequent expenditure upon colonial defence.  From 1846 to 1851 Lord Palmerston was at the Foreign Office, and was incessantly active in the affairs of half the countries of Europe.  To this policy of interference Cobden offered resolute opposition.  He was especially energetic in protesting against the lending to Austria and Russia of money that was in effect borrowed to repay the cost of the oppressive war against Hungary.  It is impossible not to admire the courage, the sound sense, and the elevation with which Cobden thus strove to diffuse the doctrine of moral responsibility in connection with the use of capital.