The Real Merchant
William Cobbett makes a distinction between everyday business and the murky world of Westminster lobbyists and financial speculation.
1806
King George III 1760-1820
© Alan Pennington, Geograph. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.
A China Airlines Boeing 747 cargo plane at at Manchester International Airport, setting off for the Far East. Today, free trade and crony capitalism (the unholy alliance between Government, big business and big banks) are often regarded as the same thing, but William Cobbett realised that the two are actually polar opposites. Free trade is just that, trade free from Government or any other kind of interference. Unlike cronyism and its close relatives socialism and fascism, free trade rewards not powerful elites but anybody who can offer the right product for the right price.
Introduction
William Cobbett, MP for Oldham, was sometimes accused of being anti-trade because he criticised the cosy arrangement between Government, big banks and big business. He replied with his customary vigour, distinguishing clearly between two kinds of commerce, the free trade that promotes liberty and the cronyism that endangers it.
abridged
I HAVE always said, that, without commerce, and particularly commercial navigation, that this island could not possibly continue to be great; that it could not possibly retain its consequence amongst the nations of Europe. The real merchant, as I have a hundred times observed, is a person to be cherished; his calling is as honourable and as conducive to the good of the country, as that of the farmer.*
It is only when his calling is perverted; when his trade becomes a species of gambling; when he trusts more to craft than to industry, prudence, and integrity; when he, if he be so lucky, may become richer than a lord by the speculations of a few days; when his fortune may be made, when the means of bringing five or six members in amongst the representatives of the people,* may be obtained in consequence of one valuable hint from a minister, or a minister’s favourite. Then it is that the commercial system becomes dangerous to the liberties of the people and the throne of the king; and then it is that it becomes an object of my reprobation.
abridged
Abridged from ‘Political Register’ IX (January to June 1806) p. 41 by William Cobbett.
Cobbett was a farmer himself. Much like St Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:10-11, he admired people who laboured with their own hands.
Prior to the Great Reform Act of 1832, many MPs represented constituencies known as ‘pocket boroughs’ where the candidate was selected by one powerful landowner or businessman, or perhaps a small group of them. Getting rich enabled individuals to plant their own man in the Commons. Cobbett was in the habit of referring to them as ‘boroughmongers’, and to the whole system as The Thing.
