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AUSTRALIAN VIEWS OF ENGLAND.
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on Mr. Cobden for his eminent services to England, now denounced him as one in a "state of blindness and delusion which made him utterly unfit to be listened to by the country as an adviser," and pooh-poohed the French treaty as being mere moonshine in the way of promoting peace, compared to his own dockyards and fortifications. This abuse, however, was not received very cordially by either side of the House, even from Lord Palmerston; and when Mr. Cobden returned to the chaise on a subsequent evening, he was greeted with a deafening cheer. The quarrel is, in so many words, this—Mr. Cobden accuses Lord Palmerston of humbugging Parliament into a war expenditure in a time of peace, and when thousands of the people are starving, and that Lord Palmerston retorts upon Mr. Cobden that his peace principles would be dangerous to the honour and security of the country; the old strife between them, which stood in the way of the Free Trade leader accepting a seat in the present Cabinet, even in company with Mr. Gladstone. In this Parliamentary set-to, the author of the French treaty carried with him most unmistakeably the sympathies of the House, though he assuredly