X. (1)

A word more in conclusion: I cannot but believe that all this agitation about the labour question shows that the larger part of the people are feeling their way to a condition far higher and better than they have hitherto occupied. But they do not hit at once upon the right way. They feel themselves suffering under something, and they call it the tyranny of capital, and they organise themselves in opposition to capital. But this tyranny is really the tyranny of a man's own stomach; you must eat every day, and as long as you have no accumulated wealth, no savings, you must find work every day. You cannot help yourselves, and are at the mercy of the capitalist, who alone can give you work. But all this is changed for the man who has even a moderate amount of savings. Not only does he disarm sickness or misfortune of half its terrors, but he may also, by co-operation, become his own employer; and then he will, I presume, cease to complain of the tyranny of capital. I hope for the working-men of this country more than they generally hope for themselves: that they may become in a great degree their own capitalists, and may be the builders of their own fortunes.

I have the honour of a very remote connection with the name of Mr. Cobden, as I fill the office of the Cobden Lectureship, established at Owens College as a memorial of his services to the people of this country. I have been charged by Mr. Macdonald, of the Trades Unionists' Political Association, with holding doctrines unworthy of the name of Cobden; but I beg to challenge anyone here to give a proof that my opinions are at variance with the opinions of Mr. Cobden as regards the freedom of trade or the freedom of labour. And to show you what were his views of the mode by which the people may raise themselves, I will end by quoting a sentence or two from a speech of his delivered at Birmingham on the 13th of November, 1849, at a time when he was in the full career of usefulness, success, and popularity.

He said: “I wish to see the great mass of the working-classes of this country elevate themselves by increased temperance, frugality, and economy. I tell you, candidly, that no people were ever yet elevated except through their own advancing wealth, morality, and intelligence; and anyone who tells the working-men of this country that they may be raised in the social scale by any other process than that of reformation in themselves, is interested either in flattering or deceiving them.”—Speeches of Richard Cobden, Esq., M.P., on Peace, etc., delivered during 1849, revised by himself, p. 171.