Richard Cobden
Posts in The Copybook credited to ‘Richard Cobden’
Victorian MP Richard Cobden offered a startling analogy for the American Civil War.
Abraham Lincoln’s anti-slavery Republicans won the US general election in 1860, prompting eleven slave-owning southern States to declare independence. Some in Westminster sympathised, saying the national result did not reflect the majority of southern voters – but Richard Cobden was scornful.
Victorian MP Richard Cobden pleaded for Britain to set the world an example as a nation open for business.
Richard Cobden MP urged Queen Victoria’s Parliament to embrace a policy of global free trade, instead of the over-regulated, over-taxed trade deals brokered by politicians and their friends behind closed doors. It was, he said, nothing less than the next step in Britain’s destiny, and her Christian duty.
It is not politicians and their policies that create wealth, but the hard work and ingenuity of ordinary people.
Richard Cobden MP led the fight in the House of Commons to repeal the Corn Laws, which taxed imports of grain in order to shore up Britain’s agriculture industry. The laws caused the price of bread to rise, making the poor poorer; after the laws were repealed, Britain became the manufacturing centre of the world.
The blessing of trade free from political interference was one of most important insights in British, indeed world history.
In his day, Richard Cobden (1804-1865) was regarded as Britain’s answer to Karl Marx. Where Marxism stands for State control, bloody violence and political oppression, Cobden showed that the free market led to prosperity through peace, cooperation, and freedom.