Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/267

 there was but "one human being who was able to mislead that far-sighted and sure-footed judgment."

Now, with all respect for the Prince Consort and for Mr. Cobden, I do not feel myself under any obligation to accept the opinion of the Prince Consort or the opinion of Mr. Cobden, that Sir E. W. Watkin shall efface the insular character of Great Britain and place it in precisely the same relation to France that Germany is. Such a proposal indicates an amount of arrogance and presumtion [sic] that reminds us of the extravagant assumptions of an Oriental tyrant or a Roman emperor. Speculating traders think of nothing but filling their pockets. But there are other things to be thought of besides raising the dividends of railway companies, when the price of the rise may be a nation's ruin. A glance at the map will show that if the English Channel be filled up, London will be within an easier distance of Paris than Berlin, and when the cry of "to London" shall arise, as in 1870 the cry "to Berlin" arose, England may not have the good fortune to have such a general as Moltke, and such an army as Moltke had organized.

Whether or not it was the desire and the design of the Prince Consort to plunge England into the Crimean War, I do not presume to say. A writer,