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.
Part 1 of 2
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first paroxysm of your grief is past, I would advise you to come with me and we will never rest till the Corn Law is repealed.”*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.
Précis
In 1841, John Bright’s wife died. He was inconsolable until his friend Richard Cobden gave him something to live for: to bring an end to the Corn Laws which were inflicting misery and starvation on millions of British working men. In time, they were successful; many joined their cause, even the Prime Minister, and the legislation was repealed. (57 / 60 words)
Part Two
A British Airways cargo plane soars above Manchester Airport in 2014. As Bright said, the Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 was not simply a practical measure for the national economy of the day. It was for him as for Richard Cobden a timeless moral imperative. Governments must not deny us access to our chosen markets, simply because those markets lie outside some particular state or union or continent or zone. All people should be able to establish friendships together, and share the good things of God’s creation, without the say-so of politicians and lobbyists.
AND since then, though there has been suffering, and much suffering, in many homes in England, yet no wife and no mother and no little child has been starved to death as the result of a famine made by law.
Now, if you cast your eyes over the globe, what is it you see? Wherever the rain falls, wherever the sun shines, wherever there are markets and granaries and harvest-fields, there are men and women everywhere gathering that which comes to this country for the sustenance of our people; and our fleets traverse every sea, and visit every port, and bring us the food which only about thirty years ago the laws of this civilised and Christian country denied to its people.
You find it in Holy Writ that ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.’* We have put Holy Writ into an Act of Parliament, and since then of that fulness every man and woman and little child in this country may freely and abundantly partake.
* See Psalm 24:1.
Précis
Despite the repeal of the Corn Laws, Bright cautioned, there was still much suffering; but at least English working men and their families were no longer condemned to starvation by the law. It also meant that the blessings of a world of good things, hitherto denied to the people of England by their Government, were now thrown open to all. (60 / 60 words)
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