Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/198



"on land and sea, and always with success, who have forced themselves, by a treaty of commerce, to drink its coarse and filthy wines, which no other nation cares to taste, are the most unpopular people who visit Portugal.'"

The lowering of the duties on French wines has had an effect very different from the treaty of commerce with Portugal. The introduction into England of French wines is beneficial to the bodily health of the English; it has also a pacific tendency in proportion to the quantity of claret and other French wines consumed in England and the consequent numbers of Frenchmen, from the capitalist to the labourer, interested in the wine trade between France and England. And though treaties of commerce are not strictly in agreement with the principle of Free Trade, the commercial treaty which Mr. Cobden negotiated with France may be admitted to have had a beneficial and a pacific tendency in regard to the two great nations concerned in it.

I will now give Mr. Bright's letter from which I have quoted a few words:—

"'The man,' says Mr. Bright in a letter to a friend in"