CHAPTER XII.

T

COBDEN AND FREE TRADE.

HE richness of the English language in terms of abuse is probably due to the need of a copious vocabulary for describing our politicians. Moderate terms are of no use whatever to the ordinary British person in discussing his political aversions. He can only be articulate in derogatory superlatives. Lord Melbourne showed a true understanding of his countrymen when he confronted a hostile deputation with the invitation that they should "see each other damned first" at the outset, in order the sooner to get to business. It would be particularly convenient to follow that process before discussing Richard Cobden. There are political writers who can never mention his name without applying an unpleasant epithet to him. The worst they can say is a pale shadow of the vilification which he had to endure in his own lifetime. He bore that without being distressed by it, and his reputation will not suffer from such syllables as can be pelted at it now. Indeed, the fact that he is so generally regarded as personifying all the faults and merits of the Manchester school, invests him with an importance which keeps his reputation alive.

Cobden never held office; he was rewarded with no title; there was no accidental circumstance of birth, wealth or rank to make it easy for him to command attention. He was not a great orator, or an original thinker. He seriously imperilled his business interests by his absorption in public affairs. The firm which he and two other young men founded, principally with borrowed money, needed personal attention. When he was in the thick of the Free Trade agitation he found himself on the brink of disaster, and friends whom he called in consultation told him plainly what the reason was. "His business," they said, "wanted a head. If he persisted in his present course nothing on

earth could keep him from ruin." Yet so completely did the cause to which he was devoted hold his interest, that when one of his friends expressed surprise that he could either work or rest with such a black load upon his mind, he replied: "Oh, when I am about public affairs I never think of it; it does not touch me; I am asleep the moment my head is on the pillow." He was saved then by the timely assistance of John Bright and a group of friends who would not let him slip over the precipice, though he had never asked for any reward except to witness the triumph of his cause.

This renunciation of personal interests has not been without its compensations in posthumous reputation. He stands as one of a small group of nineteenth century Englishmen of eminence in their day who are now remembered solely by reason of their leadership of great causes. To think of the abolition of slavery is to recall Clarkson; to think of Free Trade is to recall Cobden.

There never was any doubt in the minds of Cobden's contemporaries, nor is there in the mind of any historical writer on the period, as to the paramountcy of his influence in converting England from a Protectionist to a Free Trade country. Sir Robert Peel was the minister who swept away the Corn Laws in 1846, breaking his party in the effort. But when Peel's ministry went down before that "spirit of vengeance" which Disraeli admitted to be the motive which induced the majority to expel him from office, he made a closing speech wherein he acknowledged that his own part had been subordinate. "There has been a combination of parties," he said, "and that combination of parties, together with the influence of the government, has led to the ultimate success of the measures. But, sir, there is a name which ought to be associated with the success of these measures; it is not the name of the noble lord the member for London (Lord John Russell), neither is it my name. Sir, the name which ought to be and which will be associated with the success of these measures is the name of a man who, acting, I believe, from pure and disinterested motives, has advocated their cause with untiring energy, and by appeals to reason, expressed by an eloquence the more to be admired because it was unaffected and unadorned-the name which ought to be and will be associated with the success of these measures is the name of

Richard Cobden. Without scruple, sir, I attribute the success of these measures to him."

Years later Gladstone, in a chapter of autobiography, bore testimony to the like effect. "It was Cobden," he said, "who really set the argument on its legs, and it is futile to compare any other man with him as the father of our system of Free Trade."

We have the best of reasons for knowing that Cobden did not promote this cause with the object of riding into office on a wave of success, for when Palmerston offered him a post in his government, and Russell strongly pressed him to accept, it was declined. Palmerston was unable to understand why he should refuse to crown his political career with official success, and asked him why, if he objected, he ever entered public life. "I hardly know," was Cobden's answer; "it was by mere accident, and for a special purpose, and probably it would have been better for me and my family if I had kept my private station." His was a case of pure conviction and transparent sincerity in urging a complete reversal of what had always been the commercial policy of Great Britain. There are many who now advocate a fresh departure; there are in few countries large parties which support the adoption of Cobden's principles. But a man would surely be dead to the inspiring influence of shining example who should withhold his admiration from a life devoted with unsparing energy and singleness of purpose to a cause believed to be vital to the public welfare.

It is rarely realised in modern discussions how grimly the immense urgency of calamitous facts forced a reversal of trade policy upon Great Britain in the forties of the nineteenth century. When it is said of the wet autumn of 1845 that "it was the rain that rained away the Corn Laws," it is meant that the spoiled harvest was the culmination of a sad, hungry, and impoverished period. For seventy years after the repeal of the Corn Laws there never was a possibility of discussing the same issue in England without raising up a gaunt spectre from the grave.

An agitation to permit the free importation of corn had been conducted from the close of the Napoleonic wars, and since 1836 anti-corn law associations had organised the opposition with ever increasing strength. But the landed influence was too well represented in Parliament for even

the Whigs to dare to abolish duties which were designed to protect the farmer against the competition of foreigngrown grain. Though the Reform Act of 1832 had abolished the worst evils of the corrupt and unrepresentative parliamentary system which had come down from the eighteenth century, and the manufacturing towns now had their spokesmen in the House of Commons, still, the great landlords and the whole phalanx of those who depended upon agriculture regarded the Corn Laws as only a little behind the established Church and the House of Lords as pillars of the national well being.

Sir Robert Peel was the ablest man in the Tory party, and the greatest leader vouchsafed to it during the nineteenth century; but Peel knew something about the condition of the people in the manufacturing districts, and it was borne in upon his mind with irresistible force that the case which Richard Cobden, John Bright and the repealers made out was a sound one. If, however, the process of his conversion had not been hastened by the failure of the harvests, it is scarcely likely that he would have forced his party to face the issue of repeal as he did. But the rotting of the potato crop in Ireland in 1845, followed by a wretched corn harvest in England and Scotland, produced famine conditions. Politicians like Russell, who had not previously favoured repeal, felt compelled to pledge their support to Cobden's cause. Peel knew that it would shiver the Tory Party if his government yielded. But the stern logic of facts drove him to propose at least a compromise -the paring down of the corn duties by a sliding scale. His ministry broke and he resigned. Russell tried to form a Whig government but failed. Peel returned to office determined to take the bold plunge. He now proposed (1846) that the duty on all corn should fall to the figure of one shilling per quarter after 1st February, 1849.

This was the crucial decision respecting British commercial policy, for the proposal signified a total abolition of protection to industries of all kinds. The Repeal of the Corn Laws, indeed, shattered the entire fabric of Protection in England, which had been previously weakened by a series of fiscal amendments. The whole of the duties on food went; free imports of raw material for manufacturers were ensured; the old Navigation Laws vanished from the Statute Book. England became a Free Trade country. The