Richard Cobden Quotes
At all events, arbitration is more rational, just, and humane than the resort to the sword.
Cobden, Richard. Speeches on Questions of Public Policy by Richard Cobden, M.P. Edited by John Bright and James E. Thorold Rogers, vol. 2, Macmillan and Co., 1870, p. 165.
This is one of the earliest instances in which formal American foreign policy called for aggressively preventing other nations from war. This speech was audio recorded -- quite unusual for the time -- and can be heard to this day.
The Chancellor was referring to the United States George W. Bush proposal for war with Iraq.
Richard Cobden was an English manufacturer, Radical and Liberal MP, associated with two major free trade campaigns, the Anti-Corn Law League and the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty.