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.”