In the June number of this magazine a review of the career of Richard Cobden presented the lifelong activity and loftiness of purpose which distinguished that great man, whom we have so recently been called to mourn. It is our purpose to record something of his friend and ally, Mr. Bright, whose devotion to America has led him for once to raise his voice in vindication of war, as the only method of preserving liberty.
John Bright was born at Greenbank, near the thrifty town of Rochdale, on the 16th of November, 1811. His father was Mr. Jacob Bright, a gentleman who, by his own exertions, had risen from humble means to wealth, in the vocation of a cotton manufacturer. John was the second of eleven children, the oldest of whom died in infancy. The family were devoted members of the Society of Friends, and the subject of this sketch still adheres to the hereditary faith. John's health, during childhood, caused much solicitude to his parents. His constitution was apparently feeble, and it was found that study injured his already delicate system. At the age of fifteen he was taken from school, and placed in his father's counting-room. Mr. Jacob Bright was a shrewd, yet highly honorable man, entirely engrossed in the superintendence of his business, and an adept in the conduct of his manufactory. It was his ambition that his sons should follow in his footsteps, and should become, like himself, influential members of the commercial community. He doubtless underrated, as the class to which he belonged are apt to do in England, the value of a university education; and as soon as the boys reached the suitable age, they were set to work in the mills. Had John Bright received the culture which a residence at Oxford or Cambridge would have afforded him, he would doubtless have occupied a place in the first rank of that group of accomplished statesmen who now grace either House of Parliament, and whose elegant erudition is as conspicuous as their enlightened statecraft. As it was, we find him spending his youth at the desk, learning how to buy and sell, and how to rule the miniature commonwealth which an English manufactory presents. In the discharge of these duties he proved himself skilful, prompt, and energetic.
As he grew to manhood, however, a new interest and a new ambition awoke within him. He had always been more of a thinker than the other members of his family. When scarcely twenty, he had addressed the people of Rochdale in favor of the great Reform of 1832, and with the effect of giving him at that early age a local popularity. He had seemingly thrown his vigorous mind into the study of the complex elements of the Constitution, with especial reference to those parts which affected commerce and manufactures. From such studies he had become the confirmed disciple of those doctrines which, with a narrower view to self-interest, the commercial class almost universally adopted. When the passage of the Reform Bill had quieted for a while the agitation on that score, Mr. Bright, his interest being now thoroughly awakened to the excitements of a public career, turned his attention to the Temperance question, then much mooted in the larger towns. The idea of total abstinence was at that time new to Englishmen, and Mr. Bright was one of the earliest champions of that principle, which has since attracted so many powerful orators, and which has reclaimed so many from the debasement of the cup. In the year 1835, Mr. Bright, with a view to extending his experience, and in order to observe the systems of other nations, made the tour of the Continent, extending his travels to Athens and Palestine. On his return, he was invited to lecture before the local Institute at Rochdale, and he delivered a series of lectures, taking as his subjects the observations he had made abroad. These he followed by another series on questions more nearly connected with the practical interests of his auditors,—putting before them with admirable perspicuity the ideas he had formed on the commercial policy of England. About this time contentions arose respecting the Church Rates, and Mr. Bright took active ground for their abolition.
The sufferings of the manufacturing class now revived that agitation against the Corn-Laws which had once before engaged the earnest attention of the country. Mr. Bright had the patent evidence all around him of the misery which the inequitable adjustment of the tariff had created. The class over whom he had supervision were materially affected by this injustice. With that promptness which is one of his conspicuous qualities, he devoted himself to the study of the science which would open to him the causes, consequences, and remedies of the evils which a legalized monopoly had brought into existence. He found that the landed proprietors, whose influence in Parliament had long continued paramount through the protection of the Tory party, had secured laws which enabled them to enjoy the monopoly of the corn trade, to the practical exclusion of foreign competition. Prices were thus increased to such an extent, as to put it beyond the power of factory hands, with the wages which their employers could afford to pay them, to buy bread.
The distress of the operatives from this cause was already great, and was constantly becoming more serious and more alarming. The lower classes of England have never been patient under unusual pressure. They are prone to take redress by violent resistance to law. Thus the agricultural ascendency threatened to drive the rival element to desperation. The Tories, led by Wellington, already obnoxious from their long opposition to Reform, steadily maintained the existing laws, and continued to be the devoted partisans of the landed interest. The aristocratic Whigs, who were in power under Viscount Melbourne, and who were reaping the fruit of a reform carried by the cooperation of popular leaders, were reluctant to do more than make slight modifications,—modifications which still left the evil great and dangerous. At this juncture, a new force sprang up, which from small beginnings finally effected a total revolution in the economical policy of the Government. This was the Anti-Corn-Law League. It was instituted by a number of liberal noblemen and gentlemen in Parliament, who had the sense to perceive, and the wisdom to provide for, the gloomy crisis which seemed to be impending. Charles Pelham Villiers, a son of the Earl of Clarendon, and one of the ablest of the younger generation of statesmen, was the most prominent leader. The object of the association was to organize a crusade against agricultural tyranny, and to effect the abrogation of the odious laws by which farmers grew rich by starving manufacturers. As usual with all organizations for reform, the League at first met with clamorous denunciation from all quarters, was sneered at in Parliament, and laughed at by the great proprietors. But it grew rapidly. Every day people awakened more and more to the increasing necessity. The champions of the League, spreading among the rural communities, eloquently and convincingly pointed out the great evils which they sought to eradicate. They were untiring in their exertions, and their success was beyond their best hopes.
The great advantage to be gained by keeping their cause in constant agitation before the public made the Leaguers desirous to employ active and eloquent orators. John Bright, in his twenty-seventh year, began to speak in advocacy of commercial reform in his own neighborhood. The League heard of him, called him to their assistance, and he became one of their authorized speakers. This was a triumph not a little flattering to a young merchant whose training had been in a manufactory, and to whom the field of forensic eloquence was entirely new. He was thoroughly convinced, both from observation and from a naturally quick reason, that the principles of which he was now to be a public advocate were just and practical. His whole soul was in the effort to alleviate suffering, and to find a balance between interests which had been, but were not of necessity, conflicting. With that hearty zeal which has ever since marked his public career, he entered the political arena, turned over to his partners the affairs of the firm, and devoted himself to the study and exposition of the new commercial theories. Through the influence of the League, he obtained opportunities to speak in many considerable places; and he every-day increased his reputation as a vigorous reasoner and a pleasing speaker. He went boldly into the agricultural districts, where the hard-headed old Tories who believed in Wellington formed his audiences, and put to them unwelcome truths which they found it hard to swallow. On one occasion he appeared before a large assemblage at Drury-Lane Theatre, when the effect of his eloquence was such that his name became immediately known throughout the kingdom. Copies of the speech were distributed by order of the League, and Bright found himself in demand from all quarters. Working in concert with Villiers, Morpeth, and the other leaders, he assisted in instituting branches of the League in the principal cities. Besides his unquestioned ability as an orator, he had one advantage which most of his co-workers did not possess,—he was emphatically a man of the people. He came out from the busy community in which he was born and reared, to labor for the people. Those who might distrust a Villiers or a Howard,—who might suspect that an agitation set on foot by noblemen was designed for selfish ends,—who might be indifferent to those whom they had been accustomed to regard as political schemers,—would trust and follow one who threw aside his commercial vocation and came forward to sustain that commercial interest in which he himself was concerned. He could gain the ear and reason of many who would not listen to one whose profession was political agitation. Thus his influence became considerable; his origin reassuring his hearers, his eloquence charming them, and his honesty and earnestness commanding their sympathy and approval.
The rapid spread of Free-Trade principles, resulting from the organized efforts of the League, and from the demonstration, which actual occurrences confirmed, that the farming monopoly could not continue, gave the leaders of the League much importance in Parliament. The Whigs, nay, even the more moderate Tories, began to profess conversion to Free-Trade doctrines. When Parliament was dissolved in 1841, both parties went to the country on the issue of Free-Trade or Protection. Sir Robert Peel, who afterward became the patriotic instrument by which the Corn-Laws fell, represented those who adhered to Protection and the agricultural interest. Lord Melbourne came forward as the advocate of those principles which the League had been the first to avow, and which as Premier he had not been anxious to put in practice. Notwithstanding the Reform of 1832, the landed nobility still retained a large control in the composition of the House of Commons. Peel had organized the Conservatives with great tact, and the ministry of Melbourne was suffering from the weakness of internal dissension. The result of the election was, that Peel's candidates were so generally successful that he gained a clear working majority in the House, and he consequently became Prime-Minister.
It was soon after the Conservatives thus attained office that John Bright came forward as a candidate for Parliament in the northern city of Durham. The Free-Traders were wise enough to seek the assistance of the best men their ranks could furnish. Bright, it was universally thought, would be a valuable auxiliary, coming as he did from the mercantile class, and possessing a clear mind and ready tongue. Durham was conservative by tradition. In 1843 the city rejected Bright; but in 1844, so rapid was the growth of Liberalism, that the same constituency returned him to the House of Commons by a handsome majority.
Meanwhile Sir Robert Peel, elected and supported by Protectionists, was gradually turning his steps toward the more liberal policy which his opponents had advocated. Soon after assuming office, he had proposed a modification of the tariff. The Duke of Buckingham, representing the extreme wing of the Protectionists, resigned in alarm. The Premier did not falter, but approached still nearer the Free-Trade standard. Lord Stanley, a stronger man than Buckingham, retired from the council-board. When John Bright entered Parliament, Peel was rapidly coming to the abolition of the Corn-Laws. Bright at once mingled in the debates, which now daily absorbed the attention of the House, on the one question before the country. The little band of Leaguers stood in the front rank of the opposition. They were pressing Sir Robert, by steady and oft-repeated appeals, to make the final concession. To the voices of Villiers, Morpeth, Russell, Gibson, were added the sonorous tones of the merchant-orator, and he maintained the debate with the best, whether of friends or foes. He reasoned with such clearness, he brought the evils of the corn monopoly so vividly before the minds of his auditors, he pressed the necessity and justice of its abrogation with such power of argument, that from that day he took rank as one of the first speakers and logicians in the lower House.
Sir Robert soon threw aside all party and selfish considerations, and did fearlessly what his judgment convinced him was urgently demanded by the interests of the country. He proposed the repeal of the Corn-Laws. He thus exhibited a rare spirit for an English statesman,—a spirit of self-sacrifice for the public good. His old associates assailed him with bitter, powerful eloquence. The Whigs, whose thunder he had stolen, looked with the coldness of partisan selfishness upon his conversion to their views. But in spite of every discouragement, he carried that magnanimous measure through both Houses by his influence as First Lord of the Treasury. Hardly ever during the present century has Parliament been more electrified by stirring and splendid contests of forensic genius than during these debates on the repeal. And in these debates John Bright proved a worthy competitor to Disraeli, whose caustic oratory was justly feared,—and to Stanley, whose excellence in rejoinder made him to be regarded as the equal of Fox in extempore debate.