Nor, in more recent times, has Manchester abated her zeal or her vital energy in every phase of English political life. The greatest, most temperate, and statesmanlike Liberal newspaper in England is night by night printed within your walls; so that, at least in one phase of our national life and amongst one group of our fellow-citizens--the Liberal party, that is to say--it is literally true that what Manchester thinks to-night London thinks to-morrow. And a certain election the other day, and the overflow meetings which, I understand, have been held in favour of Tariff Reform within the sacred precincts of the Free Trade Hall itself, give a further proof that here in Manchester you are not petrified in your opinions, but that the stream of your political life flows fresh and from the fountain-head. Judge then, gentlemen, whether it was not with some concern that I looked forward to this occasion; judge whether it was not with some searching of the heart that I reflected upon what I have this afternoon to say to you. For does it not appear at first sight as if what I have to say is not merely antagonistic to the teaching of the two greatest names of the Manchester School, John Bright and Richard Cobden, but is in every way the contradiction of the characterizing ideas and the traditions associated with this city itself? For I come before you to-day to advocate the necessity of National Service; to affirm once more that the "Nation in Arms" is the only worthy and sure bulwark of this Empire and these islands.[2] Cobden, on the other hand, has left it on record that he considered it the glory and the exceeding great reward of all his labours that he had contributed, in however small a degree, to that universal disarmament of Europe, which, he sanguinely hoped, would be the result of Free Trade and of expanding commerce and the organization of labour. And John Bright, his great colleague, in one speech after another, added the lustre of his eloquence to that same high and flattering anticipation. I can remember easily the ardent and sympathetic reception which those anticipations met in the France of Louis Napoleon; I can remember also the added weight which France's enthusiasm gave to those happy anticipations here in England. War, indeed, seemed at an end. To-morrow, it seemed, we should be turning our barracks into granaries and our arsenals into banking houses.