even condemned the policy of the Treaty as unsound.[61] The Queen was not sanguine about the matter, and the Prince Consort saw in the Treaty only a device for giving France the supply of coal and iron which she needed to compete with England in the markets of the world, whereas England surrendered valuable sources of revenue, without any adequate compensation. The strongest point against the Treaty was made by Lord Derby. He complained in the House of Lords that though the arrangement was based on the assumption that there would be peace between France and England, the general policy of the Cabinet, as tested by Mr. Gladstone’s estimates, assumed that war between the two nations was imminent. On a motion in the House of Commons asserting that it was not expedient to diminish sources of revenue or add a penny to the Income Tax, the whole policy of the Treaty and the Budget was challenged, and the opposition to both defeated by a majority of 116. The theoretical objections to commercial treaties generally were overcome by Mr. Gladstone’s argument that by making a small sacrifice of revenue England gained a vast extension of her export trade. But the real difficulty, of course, lay in fixing the limits of the duties under the 13th Article of the Treaty. A Commission was sent to Paris, on which Mr. Cobden agreed to serve, for the purpose of beating down the duties from the thirty per cent. maximum to a minimum of as nearly as possible ten per cent., and it was while this Commission was haggling with the French Commissioners that Cobden found himself thwarted by the secret hostility of the Foreign Office, and embarrassed by the bellicose policy of the Cabinet, which naturally produced ill feeling in France. He resented this action so bitterly, that he could not bring himself to accept from the Government the slightest reward for his services as a negotiator after he had carried out his mission with triumphant success.[62]