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Richard Cobden Biography

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COBDEN, Richard (1804–65). An English statesman and economist known as the Apostle of Free Trade. He was born in the hamlet of Heyshott, near Midhurst, in Sussex, on June 3, 1804, of a family which for centuries had been settled in the place. His father was a sweet-natured, incapable man, who proved unequal to the task of supporting his family. In 1814 the farm was sold, and young Cobden was sent off to be educated at a Yorkshire school, where he learned nothing and suffered much for five unhappy years. In 1819 he entered his uncle’s warehouse in Old Change, London, and devoted himself with great energy to his new business, finding time, nevertheless, at nights, for study and reading. At 21 he was a commercial traveler for his uncle’s house and loved the business for the opportunities it gave him of studying men and things. In 1828 he set up as the commission agent of a large manufacturing house in Manchester on a capital consisting mainly of energy, ability, and his good name. In 1831 he and his partners had prospered sufficiently to start in business for themselves as calico printers at Sabden, near Clitheroe, and in the following year branches were established in London and Manchester. The "Cobden prints," tasteful and original in design, became famous, and the partners were speedily on the way to the accumulation of a large fortune. In 1832 Cobden settled in Manchester, and from that time his private affairs became secondary to the interest which he displayed in the broad practical principles of economics and public education. From 1832 to 1835 he must have been busy educating himself, for this was the only time during his early life when he could have found the leisure to acquire the profound knowledge of political history and economics for which he was distinguished. Reading and foreign travel continued to the last to be a great passion of his life.

In 1835 Cobden published a pamphlet entitled England, Ireland, and America, "by a Manchester Manufacturer," and this was followed in 1836 by another pamphlet on Russia. These two pamphlets were epoch making, in that they boldly challenged the prevalent, ideas of foreign policy and foreign trade in England. It would seem that the sober-minded Cobden, an enthusiast in his way, had become convinced that commerce was the great torchbearer of civilization and the great foundation of national prosperity. Anything, therefore, which interfered with the free exchange of commodities between nation and nation was harmful, and for this reason protection, which dammed the current of trade, and war, which sought entirely to destroy it, were pernicious. He attacked the historical English policy of intervention in European affairs, on the ground that it bred interminable wars in Europe, while it crushed the English taxpayer with the burden of an enormous debt. The balance of power, the political ideal for which so many sanguinary contests had been fought, Cobden ridiculed as an impossible adjustment which, in spite of centuries of bloodshed and diplomacy, still left statesmen facing an obstinate, unstable equilibrium. He strongly deprecated, too, the prevailing spirit of hatred for Russia, the great bugbear of English statesmen, Summed up, his plea was for the principles of peace, nonintervention, and a policy of retrenchment and free trade as a means of husbanding the national resources for the great economic struggle that was fast approaching with the entrance of the United States into the markets of the world. In 1835 he made a brief tour in the United States and Canada. In the winter and spring of 1836–37 Cobden traveled in Spain, Turkey, and Egypt. On his return he entered into Manchester municipal politics, being one of those who secured the incorporation of that city in 1838. Popular education was a subject of great interest to him, and he discussed it in many public speeches. In 1837 he was a candidate for Parliament at Stockport, but was defeated.

The history of Cobden's connection with the Anti-Corn-Law agitation began in October, 1838, when an Anti-Corn-Law association was founded in Manchester. (See Corn Laws.) Cobden was one of its earliest members and soon became its guiding spirit. He converted the Manchester Chamber of Commerce to his views and made it a powerful instrument of agitation. Anti-Corn Law associations were founded in many towns of the north, and in London, in March, 1839, the delegates of the various associations united to form the Anti-Corn-Law League, of which Cobden and six others constituted the council. From the first he was the soul of the movement, and to the people at large he seemed to be the embodiment of the cause. With magnificent talents for organization, with an unequaled gift for popular oratory, and, above all, with his kindling enthusiasm and tremendous capacity for work, he was what would be called in modern parlance campaign manager, press bureau, and stump speaker all in one. The history of the Anti-Corn-Law agitation belongs properly elsewhere, but Cobden's activity is so identified with the work of the League that the two can hardly be separated. Wonderful instances are quoted of the sudden conversion of hostile audiences in country and town, as they listened to Cobden's simple, sincere, and irrefutable arguments; and his success in his "campaign of education" was all the more rapid in that his teachings confined themselves to driving home the elemental truth that food is a desirable thing for people who starve. In 1841 he entered Parliament from Stockport. His reception in the House was not friendly; but his evident sincerity and his straightforward, unanswerable arguments always gained him a hearing. At the beginning of the session Mr. Charles Villiers's annual motion to consider the repeal of the Corn Laws was rejected by a vote of 393 to 90, yet within five years after he had entered Parliament, Cobden had converted Sir Robert Peel and his party to free trade. In 1843 considerable odium was heaped upon his name as the result of an attack on the government, which Peel unjustly took to be an exhortation to personal violence against himself. Cobden, however, was undaunted, and continued to plead, in Parliament and out, against the "system of legislative murder" which "starved people to death." On March 13, 1845, he delivered an especially powerful speech in the House, at the end of which Peel is said to have muttered, "Those may answer him who can, I cannot do it." The famine in Ireland came to the aid of the Anti-Corn-Law League. On Dec. 5, 1845, the Prime Minister pronounced for the total repeal of the Corn Laws, and in 1846 the battle had been won. Speaking in Parliament in that year, Peel declared that to Cobden was due the honor for the great reform which had just been enacted. That the intense earnestness which animated Cobden throughout the struggle was something more than enthusiasm for a principle in economics is shown in the following words of John Bright, his lifelong friend and supporter, spoken at the unveiling of Cobden’s monument at Bradford in 1877. It was in September, 1841, and Bright was mourning over the dead body of his young wife when Cobden came to him, saying: "There are thousands of houses in England at this moment where wives, mothers, and children are dying of hunger. Now, when the first paroxysm of your grief has passed, I would advise you to come with me, and we will never rest until the Corn Law is repealed." The struggle and the triumph are thus described by Mr. Bright: "We were joined, not by scores, but by hundreds, and afterward by thousands, and afterward by countless multitudes; and afterward, famine itself, against which we had warred, joined in. A great minister was converted, and minorities became majorities, and finally the barrier was entirely thrown down, and since then, though there has been suffering, and much suffering, in many homes in England, no wife, and no mother, and no little child has been starved to death as a result of famine made by law."

During the agitation for the repeal of the Corn Laws, Cobden had neglected his own affairs entirely, and at the end he was a poor man. A popular subscription of more than £75,000 was made up for him and he went abroad for rest. His nature, however, was opposed to rest, and during his long travels in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Russia, he did not cease to advocate in public speeches and interviews with sovereigns and statesmen the great principles of free trade, peace, and nonintervention. During his absence he was elected to Parliament from the West Riding of Yorkshire (1847), and on his return to England he affiliated himself with numerous peace societies and subsequently attended a number of international peace congresses in Paris, Frankfort, and London. In 1849 he moved in Parliament that action be taken towards the establishment of international arbitration, and in 1851 he proposed a general reduction of armaments. He was active in combating the periodic outbursts of anti-Gallic and anti-Russian fever such as that which spread over the country in 1853, and lost thereby that immense popularity which he had acquired in the struggle against the Corn Laws. He bitterly assailed Palmerston’s policy of active intervention in European affairs, and with John Bright opposed the war against Russia in 1854, for which he was virulently assailed by the unanimous voice of a war-mad nation. Far from considering the preservation of Turkey as desirable, Cobden maintained that the downfall of the Ottoman Empire in Europe would redound to the welfare of the Christian peoples of the Balkans and to the cause of civilization. In 1857, as the result of an attack by Cobden on the Chinese policy of the cabinet, the Palmerston ministry was outvoted and forced to appeal to the country. Cobden stood for Huddersfield, but his unpopularity on account of his attitude towards the war recently ended was still great and he was defeated. In 1859 he came to the United States, this being his second visit after a lapse of 24 years. On his return the post of President of the Board of Trade was offered him by Palmerston, with a place in the cabinet. Against the urgent advice of his friends, Cobden declined the offer, refusing frankly to take sides with a man from whom he differed toto cœlo on matters of foreign policy. At the suggestion of M. Chevalier, the eminent champion of free trade, Cobden went to France in 1859 to attempt the negotiation of a commercial treaty between that country and England. He possessed the support of none of the English ministers save Gladstone, but his reputation was such that in his unofficial capacity he succeeded in converting the French Emperor and his ministers to his views. In January, 1860, Cobden was clothed with official authority and in the same month the treaty was concluded. He remained in Paris until November, accomplishing the tremendous labor necessary in the minute adjustment of a new tariff schedule. On returning to England he declined the offer of a baronetcy and resumed his activity in Parliament. With John Bright he earnestly supported the cause of the North in the Civil War, and in Parliament severely criticized the course of the government in permitting the equipment of Confederate cruisers for the purpose of preying on American commerce. His last speech in Parliament was delivered in July, 1864. He contracted serious bronchial trouble as the result of exposure in traveling on a public mission to London, and died there, July 2, 1865. His death was acknowledged as a national loss by men of such widely differing opinions as Palmerston, Disraeli, and John Bright, and was received with sorrow in France and other countries of the Continent.

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. V (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 521-522.