ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses both the substance and the form of the only kind of controversy which had for Cobden either attraction or meaning. Few reformers of society have been so self-dependent and self-contained as Cobden, and none deduced his principles of action, so far as they went, more completely from his own independent observation, experience, and reflexion. Cobden spoke of himself as early as 1836 as “fond of digging deep into the foundations of causes.” Perhaps, by all the rules of literary technique, the characterization of him as a controversialist and a parliamentary and platform figure which is proposed should follow rather than precede the exposition of his teaching. Meanwhile, Cobden’s greatest wonder was that the workers, who might be so powerful in union if they only knew it, were willing to tolerate so patiently the disparagement and contumely from which they suffered.
