The Repeal of the Corn Laws
Richard Cobden realised that John Bright, overcome with grief after seeing his young wife die, needed something worthwhile to live for.
1846
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
John Bright MP in 1882, five years after he delivered this speech at the unveiling of a statue in Bradford to his dear friend and colleague Richard Cobden (1804-1865). Bright was elected MP for Durham in 1843, representing the city until 1847 and helping Cobden to force through the Repeal of the Corn Laws. He went on to represent Birmingham, and served under William Gladstone as President of the Board of Trade in 1868-1871, and as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1873-1874 and 1880-1882. He was a vocal opponent of slavery and strongly supported the Union in the American Civil War, though much to his disappointment he never visited the USA.
Introduction
The Corn Laws of 1815, designed to protect English farmers from overseas competition, drove up the price of basic foods and plunged working families into poverty. John Bright, then working in his father’s Rochdale mill, joined Richard Cobden’s repeal campaign on September 10th, 1841, as he sat mourning his young wife Elizabeth, ‘lying still and cold in the chamber above us’.
abridged
AFTER a time he [Cobden] looked up and said, “There are thousands of houses in England at this moment where wives, mothers, and children are dying of hunger. Now,” he said, “when the first paroxysm of your grief is past, I would advise you to come with me and we will never rest till the Corn Law is repealed.”*
I knew that the description he had given of the homes of thousands was not an exaggerated description.* I felt in my conscience that there was a work which somebody must do, and therefore I accepted his invitation, and from that time we never ceased to labour hard on behalf of the resolution which we had made.
Now, do not suppose that he and I were the only persons engaged in this great question. There were others before us; and we were joined, not by scores, but by hundreds, and afterwards by thousands, and afterwards by countless multitudes; and afterwards famine itself, against which we had warred, joined us;* and a great Minister was converted,* and minorities became majorities, and finally the barrier was entirely thrown down.*
* The Corn Laws and the related Navigation Acts were Parliamentary legislation designed to protect powerful landowners from the effects of foreign competition. For generations, they had limited what goods may be imported into England, how and by whom. The laws, first passed in 1804, had been reconfirmed in 1815, just when a flood of veterans returning from the Napoleonic Wars was swelling rapid population growth in manufacturing towns. Food was scarce, and prices were rising, but the British Empire’s single market (so to speak) remained in force. In places such as Bolton, it seemed as if Parliament were deliberately starving them, like a besieged fort.
* Henry Ashworth described one sad case. “The father of the family was sitting at the dinner table with his wife and 3 or 4 children. On the table he had a loaf of bread and a pitcher of buttermilk, this being all the food in the house, and these he had purchased by pawning one of his shirts. I never saw him again, but I heard that he had afterwards been removed to an Asylum and had died there.” Ebenezer Elliott (1781-1849), ‘the Corn-law Rhymer,’ summed up the situation in verse:
Ye coop us up, and tax our bread.
And wonder why we pine.
But ye are fat, and round, and red,
And filled with tax-bought wine.
Thus twelve rats starve, while three rats thrive,
(Like you on mine and me,)
When fifteen rats are caged alive,
With food for nine and three.
* From 1845 to 1851, a terrible famine struck Ireland owing to potato blight. See Bread and Scorpions. Bright’s friend Richard Cobden pleaded ‘open the ports!’ and urged that not a moment be lost in laying up stocks of imported grain; but Parliamentary action came too late to prevent a million deaths from starvation and disease. Another million Irishmen emigrated, many dying in disease-ridden ships. The tragedy was compounded by Anglo-Irish landlords who evicted starving tenants for non-payment of rent, and diverted grain to livestock for export. In 1849, Cobden lashed out at these landlords, accusing them of an ‘unholy alliance’ with the protectionists in the Commons, and of bringing their own people ‘to beggary, ruin and starvation.’
* The ‘great Minister’ was Robert Peel, Tory Party leader and Prime Minister in 1834-1835 and 1841-1846. His first attempt at repeal failed, but his opponents in his own party could not form an alternative Government so he passed the law with the support of the Whigs. The controversy cost him his position, and soon afterwards Whig statesman Lord John Russell became Prime Minister.
* The Corn Laws were repealed in 1846, and the Navigation Act which compounded their ill effects was removed in 1849.
