Richard Cobden on the Repeal of the Corn Laws, 1844
Richard Cobden, Speeches (1870), Vol. 1, pp. 187-208; in J. F. C. Harrison, ed., Society
and Politics in England, 1780-1960, New York: Harper & Row, 1965, pp. 171-72.
Cobden, 1804-1865, was a Manchester manufacturer, member of Parliament, and the
leader of the largely middle class Anti-Corn Law League. He delivered this speech in
London on July 3, 1844.)
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
then only, 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-than 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 estatesif they choose to attend to their own business-then, I say, free trade in corn does not
necessarily involve pecuniary injury to the landlords themselves.....
We believe that free trade will increase the demand for labour of every kind, not
merely of the mechanical classes and those engaged in laborious bodily occupations, but
for clerks, shopmen and warehousemen, giving employment to all those youths whom
you are so desirous of setting out in the world. . . . Finally, we believe that Free Trade
will not diminish, but, on the contrary, increase the Queen's revenue.