The name of Cobden will always be associated with the great changes
that took place in the economic policy of England about the middle of
the nineteenth century. As the result of a public agitation that was
carried into every hamlet of Great Britain, and that extended over
a period of seven years, the policy of Protection was practically
abandoned, and the policy of Free Trade practically adopted. Of that
remarkable movement Cobden was the directing and inspiring genius.
Born in 1804, Cobden’s childhood was passed in the disastrous years of
the later Napoleonic wars, and the financial distresses that followed.
His father’s moderate fortune was involved in the ruin that was so
general. As there were eleven children in the family, and as the means
rescued from the financial wreck were but slender, the educational
advantages of Richard were not great. At fifteen he was obliged to
leave the grammar-school in order to enter the counting-house of his
uncle in London. The most that can be said of his education is that
it was enough to give him an insatiable taste for knowledge, that it
implanted within him so ardent a desire, that throughout life he was
indefatigable in the work of self-development.
At the age of twenty he became a commercial traveller for his uncle,
and, in the course of the six years that followed, acquired a very
comprehensive knowledge of the industrial condition of England. When
he attained eminence there were many who remembered the discussions
on political economy and kindred subjects with which he had enlivened
his travelling associates. At twenty-six he induced two of his
acquaintances to join with him in entering upon a business of their
own. They founded an industry of calico-printing, and were so
successful that the firm soon had three establishments, one at Sabden,
where the printing works were, and one each at London and Manchester,
for the sale of their products. Cobden prints soon becoming famous for
the excellence of their material and the beauty of their design; the
sales were large and the income of the firm very considerable. In eight
years from the establishment of the partnership, the business was so
flourishing and so well organized that Cobden was able to devote his
energies almost exclusively to matters of public importance.
His first pamphlet, that entitled “England, Ireland, and America,”
was published in 1835, and attracted such attention for its breadth
and boldness that it ran rapidly through several editions. The views
advocated were those of peace, non-intervention, retrenchment, and free
trade,—in fact, the doctrines which he continued to hold throughout
life. A tour of observation in the United States and Canada, as well
as in the countries of Europe, intensified his convictions; and
consequently when, in 1838, the Anti-Corn-Law Association was formed,
it found him in every way fitted to take a leading part in the work of
agitation. It was at his suggestion that the local association was soon
changed into the National Anti-Corn-Law League.
The so-called Corn Laws have a long history. As early as 1436 an
attempt was made to regulate the price of grain in England by means of
export and import duties. The amount of duties imposed varied from time
to time according to the needs of the state treasury and the prices
of corn. It was not until the passage of what is known as Burke’s Act
of 1773 that any deliberate attempt was made to bring the Corn Laws
into some degree of reason and order. This act was the beginning of
a policy which some years later resulted in the adoption of what is
known as the sliding scale of rates. This policy culminated in the law
of 1828, which proceeded upon the general plan of making the duty vary
inversely with the price of grain in the home market. When the price
of wheat, for example, was sixty-four shillings a quarter, the duty was
twenty-three shillings and eight pence. For every rise of a shilling in
the market-price, the duty was diminished; while, on the other hand,
for every decline in the price the duty was increased. This was the
general character of the law which prevailed when the agitation of the
Anti-Corn-Law League began.
For some years before 1838 the impression had become more or less
prevalent that the influence of the Corn Laws was favorable to the
landowners and the landowners alone. The system was devised as a means
of protecting the interests of agriculture. The financial disturbances
occasioned partly by the Napoleonic wars, partly by the invention of
labor-saving machines, and partly by a succession of bad crops, tended
at once to diminish the price of labor and increase the prices of
food. The consequence was a universal prevalence of suffering among
the wage-receiving class. Cobden and his associates believed that the
suffering was chiefly due to the system of protection. The league was
formed for the purpose of arousing public opinion in opposition to the
prevailing system; and it did not rest till, after the most remarkable
agitation in the history of reform, it had convinced the public of its
errors, and swept the Corn Laws from the statute-books.
For seven years Cobden had the ear of the public, and during that
period his labors were incessant. He not only spoke in all the large
towns and cities, but he directed and inspired the movements of
hundreds of others. The policy of the league was not only to send
speakers into every electoral district, but to flood the country
with the most effective writings on the subject in hand. What may be
called the statistics of the league are impressive and instructive.
Five hundred persons were employed to distribute tracts from house to
house. In a single year five millions of such tracts were put into
the families of electors in England and Scotland, and the number
distributed to non-electors exceeded nine millions. This work of 1843
was done at a cost of about £50,000; in the following year it was
resolved to redouble the efforts, and before the end of 1844 nearly
£90,000 had been raised and expended.
The whole theory of Cobden’s propagandism was simply that, if the
truth was brought to people’s doors, they would embrace it. The method
was twofold. It sought to bring the facts bearing on the question to
the attention of the people by means of the press, and then by public
speech to persuade and arouse them to action. Of all the speakers of
the time probably Cobden was the most effective. His methods were
always plain and straightforward, showing a transparent honesty, a
definite purpose, an argumentative keenness, and an almost irresistible
persuasiveness.
Cobden entered the House of Commons in 1841, and, from his first
speech, delivered five days after the opening of the session, was an
acknowledged power in Parliament. He compelled attention even from an
unfriendly audience, by his thorough mastery of the subject and by
the directness and boldness with which he charged upon the ranks of
his adversaries. His methods of address were new in the House; but
it soon came to be universally conceded that he was one of the most
powerful debaters in Parliament. It is the unique distinction of Cobden
among English orators that he converted to his views a government long
opposed to him, and finally persuaded a Prime-Minister to reverse
his policy and become champion of the very cause he had formerly
condemned. In the March of 1845 Cobden thought the time had come for
the appointment of a select committee to inquire into the causes of the
prevailing agricultural distress. It was in moving for such a committee
that he made the speech selected for this collection. That the argument
made a great impression may be inferred from Mr. Morley’s account of
its effect on Peel. “The Prime-Minister,” he says, “had followed every
sentence with earnest attention; his face grew more and more solemn as
the argument proceeded. At length he crumpled up the notes which he
had been taking, and was heard by an onlooker who was close by to say
to Mr. Sidney Herbert who sat next him on the bench: ‘You must answer
this, for I cannot.’ And in fact Mr. Sidney Herbert did make the answer
while Peel listened in silence.”
During the summer of 1845 the agitation went on without any very
obvious results. Indeed the cause seemed to be making no headway in
Parliament, and Mr. Disraeli, in one of his characteristic phrases,
spoke of the appeals, varied even by the persuasive ingenuity of Mr.
Cobden, as a “wearisome iteration.” But Cobden meantime felt sure of
his ground. Speaking to one of those immense multitudes, “which,” he
said, “could only be assembled in ancient Rome to witness the brutal
conflicts of men, or can now be found in Spain to witness the brutal
conflicts of animals,” he exclaimed: “What, if you could get into the
innermost minds of the ministers, would you find them thinking as to
the repeal of the Corn Laws? I know it as well as though I were in
their hearts. It is this: they are afraid that the Corn Law cannot be
maintained—no, not a rag of it, during a period of scarcity prices, of
a famine season, such as we had in ’39, ’40, and ’41. They know it.
They are prepared, when such a time comes, to abolish the Corn Laws,
and they have made up their minds to it. There is no doubt in the world
of it. They are going to repeal it, as I told you,—mark my words,—at a
season of distress. That distress may come; aye, three weeks of showery
weather when the wheat is in bloom or ripening, would repeal these Corn
Laws.”
This remarkable prophecy was now to have a startling fulfilment. The
autumn of 1845 was a long succession of rains. Disquieting rumors and
even portents of actual famine came from all parts of the islands.
On the last day of October the cabinet met in great haste; and three
other meetings took place within a week. Peel was in favor of calling
a meeting of Parliament at once, and suspending for a limited period
the duty on importation. Others declared that it would be impossible to
restore the duty when it was once removed; and the cabinet separated on
the 6th of November without coming to any decision. But on the 22d of
the same month the public was thrown into great commotion by an address
launched from Edinburgh by Lord John Russell to his constituents of
London. He declared that “procrastination might produce a state of
suffering that was frightful to contemplate.” “Let us all unite,”
cried he, “to put down a system which has been proved to be the blight
of commerce, the bane of agriculture, the source of bitter division
among classes, the cause of penury, fever, mortality, and crime among
the people. If this end is to be achieved, it must be gained by the
unequivocal expression of the public voice.” This was the first
announcement that Lord John Russell was a convert to the doctrines of
the league. As the old reformer was on his way to London, Mr. John
Bright met him at a railway station in Yorkshire, and said: “Your
letter has now made the total and immediate repeal of the Corn Law
inevitable; nothing can save it.”
Another cabinet meeting was called, but still there was no agreement
as to the policy of convoking Parliament. The public distress and
excitement were such that the Prime-Minister now felt it his duty
to resign. That event took place on the 5th of December. It was
universally understood that the strenuous opposition was in the Duke of
Wellington and Lord Stanley. In a great gathering at Birmingham, Cobden
exclaimed: “The Duke is a man whom all like to honor for his high
courage, his firmness of resolve, his indomitable perseverance; but let
me remind him,” added the orator, in a magnificent outburst and amidst
a storm of approval, “that notwithstanding all his victories in the
field, he never yet entered into a contest with Englishmen in which he
was not beaten.”
The voice of the public could not be resisted. On the 4th of December
the _Times_ newspaper announced that Parliament would meet early
in January, and that an immediate repeal of the Corn Laws would be
proposed. On the day following this announcement, Peel tendered his
resignation. The Queen sent for Lord John Russell; but the attempt
of the Opposition to form a ministry was not successful, and Peel
reluctantly consented to resume the leadership. The speech of the
Queen in opening Parliament made it evident that the occasion of
the meeting was the repeal of the obnoxious laws. The question was
practically settled when Parliament met; and the long debate is chiefly
memorable for the extraordinary succession of excoriations to which
the Prime-Minister was subjected by Disraeli. But in spite of a most
energetic opposition the repealing bill slowly made its way to ultimate
triumph. It was on the 26th of June, 1846, that the bill was passed,
and that the great reformer’s work was done.
Until his death in 1865, Cobden continued to exert a powerful influence
in behalf of the ideas which from the first he had advocated. His
political opponents were among the most hearty to recognize his worth;
and his most intimate friend, Mr. Bright, spoke of him in the House
of Commons as “the manliest and gentlest spirit that ever quitted or
tenanted a human form.”