Part 22

In October, 1838, a band of seven men met at an hotel in Manchester, and formed a new Anti-Corn-Law Association. They were speedily joined by others, including Cobden, who from this moment began to take a prominent part in all counsel and action. The abolition of the duties on corn was the single object of Cobden's political energy during the seven years that followed, and their destruction was the one finished triumph with which his name is associated.

After the rejection in the following year by a large majority of Mr. Villiers' motion that the House of Commons should consider the act regulating the importation of corn, the association developed into a League of Federated Anti-Corn-Law Associations in different towns and districts. The repealers began the work of propagandism by sending out a band of economic missionaries, who were not long in discovering how hardly an old class interest dies. In many districts neither law nor equity gave them protection. The members of the league were described in the London Press as unprincipled schemers, as commercial and political swindlers, and as revolutionary emissaries, whom all well-disposed persons ought to assist the authorities in putting down.

Before he entered Parliament, Cobden re-settled his business by entering into partnership with his brother Frederick, and married (May, 1840) a young Welsh lady, Miss Catherine Ann Williams. In Parliament Cobden was instantly successful. His early speeches produced that singular and profound effect which is perceived in English deliberative assemblies when a speaker leaves party recriminations, abstract argument, and commonplaces of sentiment, in order to inform his hearers of telling facts in the condition of the nation.

But Cobden's parliamentary work was at this time less important than his work as an agitator. If in one sense the Corn Laws did not seem a promising theme for a popular agitation, they were excellently fitted to bring out Cobden's peculiar strength. It was not passion, but persuasiveness, to which we must look for the secret of his oratorical success. Cobden made his way to men's hearts by the union which they saw in him of simplicity, earnestness, and conviction, with a singular facility of exposition. Then men were attracted by his mental alacrity, by the instant readiness with which he turned round to grapple with a new objection.

His patience in acquiring and shaping matter for argument was surpassed by his inexhaustible patience in dealing with the mental infirmities of those whom it was his business to persuade. He was wholly free from the unmeasured anger against human stupidity which is itself one of the most provoking forms of that stupidity.

III.--Cobden and Bright

In the autumn of 1841, Cobden and Bright made that solemn compact which was the beginning of an affectionate and noble friendship that lasted without a cloud or a jar until Cobden's death.

"On the day when Mr. Cobden called upon me," said Bright, "I was in the depths of grief, I might almost say of despair; for the light and sunshine of my house had been extinguished. All that was left on earth of my young wife, except the memory of a sainted life and of a too brief happiness, was lying still and cold in the chamber above us. Mr. Cobden called upon me as a friend, and addressed me, as you might suppose, with words of condolence. After a time he 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 accepted his invitation."

Although the agitation for repeal was in Cobden's mind only a part of the broad aims of peace and social and moral progress for which he strove, he was too practical to put forth his thoughts on too many subjects at once. He confined his enthusiasm to repeal until repeal was accomplished. But his efforts left him no time to attend to his own business, which was falling to pieces under the management of his brother Frederick. In the autumn of 1845 he felt compelled to give up his work as an agitator on account of his private affairs, but Bright and one or two friends procured the money that sufficed to tide over the emergency.

The cause was now on the eve of victory. The autumn of 1845 was the wettest in the memory of man. For long the downpour never ceased by night or by day; it was the rain that rained away the Corn Laws. The bad harvest and the Irish potato famine brought the long hesitation of Sir Robert Peel to an end. Soon after the opening of the session of 1846, he announced his proposals.

The repeal of the Corn Laws was to be total, but not immediate. For three years there was to be a lowered duty on a sliding scale, and then the ports were to be opened entirely. "Hurrah! Hurrah!" wrote Cobden to his wife on June 26, "the Corn Bill is law, and now my work is done!"

IV.--In the Cause of Peace

Cobden was now absent from England for fourteen months, travelling on the Continent. His reception was everywhere that of a great discoverer in a science which interests the bulk of mankind much more keenly than any other, the science of wealth. People looked on him as a man who had found out a momentous secret. He had interviews with the Pope, with three or four kings, with ambassadors, and with all the prominent statesmen. He never lost an opportunity of speaking a word in season. They were not all converted, but they all listened to him; and they all taught him something, whether they chose to learn anything from him in return or not.

On his return he joined with Bright in an agitation for financial and parliamentary reform. While he believed in an extension of the franchise as a means of attaining the objects he had in view, he was essentially an economical, a moral, and a social reformer. He was never an enthusiast for mere reform in the machinery. He made it his special mission to advocate financial reform, and left the advocacy for franchise extension very largely to his colleague.

Retrenchment was the keynote of the financial reform urged by Cobden; and retrenchment involved the furtherance of international peace and the reduction of British armaments by means of the abandonment of the policy of intervention in European disputes and the policy of "clinging to colonies," with the consequent expenditure upon colonial defence. From 1846 to 1851 Lord Palmerston was at the Foreign Office, and was incessantly active in the affairs of half the countries of Europe. To this policy of interference Cobden offered resolute opposition. He was especially energetic in protesting against the lending to Austria and Russia of money that was in effect borrowed to repay the cost of the oppressive war against Hungary. It is impossible not to admire the courage, the sound sense, and the elevation with which Cobden thus strove to diffuse the doctrine of moral responsibility in connection with the use of capital.

In 1852, a Protectionist Ministry under Lord Derby came into power, and the Anti-Corn Law League was revived. The danger, however, soon passed away; the Derby Ministry made no attempt to interfere with freedom of trade, and ere the year ended gave place to the Aberdeen Ministry. Cobden's policy of peace and retrenchment, however, became more and more unpopular. Cobden's urgent feeling about war was not in any degree sentimental. He opposed war because war and the preparation for it consumed the resources which were required for the improvement of the temporal condition of the population. But in the inflamed condition of public opinion his arguments were powerless.

The invasion panic of 1853 was followed in 1854 by the Crimean War, and in opposing that war Cobden and Bright found themselves absolutely alone.

"The British nation," said Lord Palmerston, "is unanimous in this matter. I say unanimous, for I cannot reckon Cobden, Bright, and Co. for anything." His estimate was perfectly correct; Cobden and Bright had the whole world against them. The moral fortitude, like the political wisdom, of these two strong men, stands out with a splendour that already recalls the great historic types of statesmanship and patriotism.

V.--Cobden as Treaty-Maker

In 1857, Cobden was compelled to retire for a time from politics. He vigorously opposed the Chinese War, and succeeded in defeating Lord Palmerston's Government in the House of Commons. Lord Palmerston, with his usual acuteness and courage, at once dissolved parliament, and in the General Election his victory was complete. The Manchester School was routed. Cobden, who contested Huddersfield, was heavily beaten; and at Manchester itself Bright was at the bottom of the poll. Cobden went to his home at Dunford, in Sussex, and remained there nearly two years. Once more he was afflicted with financial trouble. An unfortunate land speculation at Manchester, and certain investments in American railroads, had again brought him into difficulties, from which he was ultimately rescued by a munificent gift of £40,000 from subscribers whose names he never knew.

The General Election of 1859 was held while Cobden was absent in the United States, and on his return he found that he had been chosen member for Rochdale. To his surprise, he also received from his old enemy, Palmerston, an offer of the Presidency of the Board of Trade. Cobden, who had consistently refrained from accepting any office, courteously declined.

But he was none the less able to render a great service to the new Government. Mr. Bright, in a parliamentary speech, incidentally asked why, instead of lavishing the national substance in armaments, they did not go to the French Emperor and attempt to persuade him to allow his people to trade freely with ours. The idea of a commercial treaty occurred to M. Chevalier on reading the speech, and he wrote in this sense to Cobden, who was strongly impressed by the notion. He opened his mind to Gladstone, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer; and, as the outcome, Cobden went to Paris in the autumn of 1859 as unofficial negotiator of a treaty.

The negotiation was long and tedious. Cobden had to convert the emperor to his views, and to await the reconciliation of the various French interests that were opposed to freedom of trade. It was not until November, 1860, that Cobden's labours were concluded. England cleared her tariff of protection, and reduced the duties which were retained for revenue on the two French staples of wine and brandy. France, on her part, replaced prohibition by a series of moderate duties.

Palmerston offered Cobden a choice between a baronetcy and a Privy Councillorship as a reward for his services. He replied begging permission most respectfully to deny himself the honour. "An indisposition to accept a title," he wrote, "being in my case rather an affair of feeling than of reason, I will not dwell further on the subject."

VI.--The Last Days of Cobden

When Cobden returned to England his public position had more than recovered the authority and renown which had been seriously impaired by his unpopular attitude on the Russian war. But he and Bright were soon involved in an almost angrier conflict than before with the upper and middle classes, on account of their championship of the North in the American Civil War.

The remaining years of his life were largely spent in systematic onslaughts upon the policy of Lord Palmerston, and in opposition to military expenditure. It was with the purpose of resisting a Canadian fortification scheme that he made his last journey to London in March, 1865. On his arrival he was seized by a sharp attack of asthma; bronchitis supervened, and it became evident that he would not recover. On the morning of Sunday, April 2, Bright took his place by the side of the dying man. As the bells were ringing for the morning service the mists of death began to settle heavily on his brow, and his ardent, courageous, and brotherly spirit soon passed tranquilly away.

He was buried by the side of his son in the little churchyard at Lavington, on the slope of the hill among the pine-woods. "Before we left the house," Bright has told us, "standing by me, and leaning on the coffin, was his sorrowing daughter, one whose attachment to her father seems to have been a passion scarcely equalled among daughters. She said, 'My father used to like me very much to read to him the Sermon on the Mount. His own life was, to a large, extent, a sermon based upon that best, that greatest of all sermons. His was a life of perpetual self-sacrifice.'"