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Parliamentary Debate Debates Over the Repeal of the Corn Laws

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Parliamentary Debate Debates Over the Repeal of the Corn Laws Parliamentary Debate Debates over the Repeal of the Corn Laws Arguments for repeal of the Corn Laws Richard Cobden was born in 1804 into a farming family at Heyshott near Midhurst in West Sussex. In 1814 his father had to sell the farm and Richard, the fourth of eleven children, was sent to a school in Yorkshire which he described as "Dotheboys Hall" in reality. In 1819 Cobden went to work in his uncle's warehouse in London where he proved to be an adept clerk and salesman.In 1828 he and two friends went into partnership to sell calico in London; in 1831 they opened a calico-printing works in Lancashire. In 1832 Cobden settled in Manchester but went on to visit America and the Levant. Consequently he published England, Ireland and America in 1835 and Russia in 1836. In them he preached free trade and economic non-intervention by the government.In 1837 he stood as a parliamentary candidate for Stockport on a free trade platform but was unsuccessful. In 1838 he became one of the seven founding members of the Anti-Corn-Law League in Manchester. He conducted lecture tours all over England and he became an MP for Stockport in 1841. His parliamentary speeches were clear, quiet and persuasive; he was an ideal partner for the other leading MP and Anti-Corn-Law League member, John Bright. Cobden was the only man ever to beat Peel in debate in parliament and in 1846 Peel acknowledged Cobden's role in the repeal of the Corn Laws.He refused to merge the Anti-Corn-Law League with wider programmes of reform because he saw the advantages of a single policy, and saw the appeal to new industrial areas. He was so committed to the cause of free trade that he became bankrupt. We want to bring the landowner and the tenant together, to confront them in their separate capacity as buyers and sellers; so that they might deal together as other men of business, and not allow themselves to play this comedy of farmers and landlords crying about for protection, and saying that they are rowing in the same boat; when, in fact, they are rowing in two boats, and in opposite directions But let me not be misunderstood. I do not say that on other questions the small squire and tenant farmer should be separated. I do not say that the landlords and the farmers should not go to the same church together, and meet in the same market. But when the tenant-farmers meet to talk on the subject of Free Trade, they should meet together alone, and should exclude every landlord from their council…. The tenant farmers in this matter of protection have a totally distinct interest from the landowners, or small squires, or land-agents; and until they meet in their several localities totally distinct from all other classes, they never will have a chance of arriving at a just appreciation of their own position or their own difficulties. --Richard Cobden We are on the eve of great changes. Put yourselves in a position to be able to help in the work, and so gather honour and fame where they are to be gained. You belong to the aristocracy of the human kind - not the privileged aristocracy - I don't mean that, but the aristocracy of improvement and civilisation. We have set an example to the world in all ages; we have given them the representative system. The very rules and regulations of this House have been taken as the model for every representative assembly throughout the whole civilised world; and having besides given them the example of a free press and civil and religious freedom, we are now about giving a still greater example; we are going to set the example of making industry free - to set the example of giving the whole world every advantage of clime, and latitude, and situation, relying ourselves on the freedom of our industry. Yes, we are going to teach the world that other lesson. Don't think there is anything selfish in this, or anything at all discordant with Christian principles. I can prove that we advocate nothing but what is agreeable to the highest behests of Christianity. To buy in the cheapest market, and sell in the dearest. What is the meaning of the maxim? It means that you take the article which you have in the greatest abundance, and with it obtain from others that of which they have the most to spare; so giving to mankind means of enjoying the fullest abundance of earth's goods, and in doing so carrying out to the fullest extent the Christian doctrine of "Doing to all men as ye would they should do unto you". --Richard Cobden In the first place, we want free trade in corn, because we think it just; we ask for the abolition of all restriction upon that article, exclusively, simply because we believe that, if we obtain that, we shall get rid of all other monopolies without any trouble. We do not seek free trade in corn primarily for the purpose of purchasing it at a cheaper money rate; we require it at the natural price of the world's market, whether it becomes dearer with a free trade - as wool seems to be getting up now, after the abolition of the 1d. a pound - or whether it is cheaper, it matters not to us, provided the people of this country have it at its natural price, and every source of supply is freely opened, as nature and nature's God intended it to be; - then, and only then shall we be satisfied. If they come to motives, we state that we do not believe that free trade in corn will injure the farmer; we are convinced that it will benefit the tenant-farmer as much as any trader or manufacturer in the community. Neither do we believe it will injure the farm-labourer; we think it will enlarge the market for his labour, and give him an opportunity of finding employment, not only on the soil by the improvements which agriculturists must adopt, but that there will also be a general rise in wages from the increased demand for employment in the neighbouring towns, which will give young peasants an opportunity of choosing between the labour of the field and that of the towns. We do not expect that it will injure the land-owner, provided he looks merely to his pecuniary interest in the matter; we have no doubt it will interfere with his political despotism - that political union which now exists in the House of Commons, and to a certain extent also, though terribly shattered, in the counties of this country. We believe it might interfere with that; and that with free trade in corn men must look for political power rather by honest means - to the intelligence and love of their fellow-countrymen - that by the aid of this monopoly, which binds some men together by depressing and injuring their fellow-citizens. We are satisfied that those landowners who choose to adopt the improvement of their estates, and surrender mere political power by granting long leases to the farmers - who are content to eschew some of their feudal privileges connected with vert and venison - I mean the feudal privileges of the chase - if they will increase the productiveness of their estates - if they chose to attend to their own business - then, I say, free trade in corn does not necessarily involve pecuniary injury to the landlords themselves. --Richard Cobden Protection is a very convenient vehicle for politicians; the cry of 'protection' won the last election; and politicians looked to secure honours, emoluments, places by it; but you, the gentry of England, are not sent up for such objects. Is, then, that old, tattered and torn flag to be kept up for the politicians, or will you come forward and declare that you are ready to inquire into the state of the agricultural interests? I cannot think that the gentlemen of England can be content to be made mere drum-heads, to be sounded by the Prime Minister of England - to be made to emit notes, but to have no articulate sounds of their own. You, gentlemen of England, the high aristocracy of England, your forefathers led my forefathers; you may lead us again if you choose; but though - longer than any other aristocracy - you have kept your power, while the battle-field and the hunting field were the tests of manly vigour, you have not done as the noblesse of France or the hidalgos of Madrid have done; you have been Englishmen, not wanting in courage on any call. But this is a new age; the age of social advancement, not of feudal sports; you belong to a mercantile age; you cannot have the advantage of commercial rents and retain your feudal privileges too. If you identify yourselves with the spirit of the age, you may yet do well; for I tell you that the people of this country look to their aristocracy with a deep-rooted prejudice - an hereditary prejudice, I may call it - in their favour; but your power was never got, and you will not keep it, by obstructing the spirit which is calculated to knit nations more closely together by commercial intercourse; if you give nothing but opposition to schemes which almost give life and breath to inanimate nature, and which it has been decreed shall go on, then you are no longer a national body….
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