John Bright;

Front matter

•V

To be published monthly.

The

Preface

A history of John Bright’s career must needs be largely a record of opinions. In constructing this record I have tried, as far as possible, to use his own words, although the limits of this book do not permit extended quota¬ tions from his speeches. Such a method is facilitated by the terseness of his style; and inasmuch as his opinions were always clearly defined, and, being notably indepen¬ dent of circumstances and conditions, were subject to very little change, I may reasonably hope to have escaped the error of misrepresenting occasional utterances as definite judgments.

I have not, however, been content merely to sum¬ marize Bright’s acts and views, but have throughout tried to form and to suggest a critical estimate of his work and its results. With one exception the contro¬ versies in which he was engaged are now sufficiently remote, and their issues sufficiently developed, to bear historical treatment. The exception is the controversy raised in 1886; upon this subject, therefore, I have added no comment to the account given of Bright’s opinions. The space allotted to the different subjects treated is proportional, not to their importance, but to the importance of Bright’s dealings with them.

For some details of Bright’s parentage and early life I rely on the authority of the biography written by Mr. W. Robertson of Rochdale. In studying his parlia¬ mentary career I have resorted throughout to Hansard and the newspaper files. The books of which I have made most use are Mr. Morley’s Life of Cobden, Pren¬ tice’s History of the League , the Histories of Mr. J. F.

VI

Preface

Bright and Mr. W. N. Molesworth, Mr. Kinglake’s Invasion of the Crimea , Charles Greville’s Journal , Earl Russell’s Recollections , Sir G. O. Trevelyan’s Life of Macaulay , and the collection of Bright’s Public Letters edited by Mr. H. J. Leech. Wherever I have derived hints from other books I have indicated the source.

I may be permitted to add that I have been from boy¬ hood a close observer of the political life of Birmingham, and for some years actively engaged in it. This work has made me conscious of the still lasting influence of Bright’s doctrine and example on the minds of persons interested in politics in this city. That influence has often been neglected or under-estimated by journalists and speakers who have treated the present state of Liberal opinion in Birmingham as a phenomenon calling for explanation. It has been a task of curious interest to me to amplify and correct, by a complete study of Bright’s career, my conception of the character, the methods, the failures and successes, the greatness and the limitations, of a man who did so much to form the political mind with which I am in daily contact.

I have had the advantage of consulting on some points politicians whose knowledge of Bright wras intimate and of long duration. In particular, I have to thank Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. J. Thackray Bunce, who most kindly communicated to me some of their personal recollections of Bright. Mr. William Wright of Birmingham has allowed me the use of his large collection of newspaper cuttings, and has given me other assistance, which I here gratefully acknowledge.

C. A. VINCE.

Birmingham, Dec ., 1897.

Chapter I. The Anti-Corn-Law League

John Bright was born at Green Bank, Rochdale, on November 16, 1811. He was the second son of Jacob Bright, a prosperous manufacturer. He came of a thrifty and pious stock. At the time of the Revolution his paternal ancestors were farmers at Lyneham in Wilt¬ shire, where there is a field that still bears the name of Bright’s Orchard. Abraham Bright, the great-grand¬ father of the statesman, migrated from Wiltshire to Coventry, and there his grandson, Jacob Bright, was born. Jacob Bright was apprenticed to William Holme, a Derbyshire manufacturer; and early in this century accompanied the two sons of Holme to Rochdale, where he was employed by them in a cotton mill. Two years before the birth of his famous son he started a mill on his own account. He borrowed the capital for this enterprise, but soon became independent, and in time wealthy. He was shrewd in business and rigid in prin¬ ciple, but of a just and compassionate disposition, a generous giver, and, by comparison with other cotton-spinners of those cruel days, notable for the kindliness of his dealings with his work-people. He distinguished himself by the obstinacy of his resistance to church-rates, consistently refusing to pay until his goods were disio John Bright.

trained. He appears to have been worthy of the venera¬ tion with which his son cherished his memory; and all that is recorded of him is consistent with the belief that it was from him that John Bright received, whether by training or by inheritance, his piety of spirit, his un¬ bending opinion, and his strong faith in individual liberty. Those who attach importance to the remoter influences of heredity may think it noteworthy that Bright had a small infusion of Hebrew blood, for his great-grandmother, the wife of Abraham Bright of Coventry, was a Jewess.

John Bright received such education as the better sort of private Nonconformist schools were able to offer at a time when Dissenters were still excluded from the universities. “My limited school-time”, he wrote in 1886, “scarcely allowed me to think of Greek; and I should now make but slow steps in Latin, even with the help of a dictionary.” He brought from his school in Ribbledale a love of angling which furnished him with a wholesome recreation throughout life, and sufficient skill at cricket to make him a useful member of the Rochdale eleven. He had also acquired a genuine love of reading, but not any aptitude for systematic study, and was sufficiently interested in intellectual matters to join the local Literary and Philosophical Society. It is, however, the common experience of provincial societies bearing this honourable name that they discuss contem¬ porary events and problems with more zest than either philosophy or literature. Whatever were the defects of Bright’s education he never affected to deplore them. His devotion to politics was so complete that he applied the political standard to everything; and the connection he discovered between culture and Conservatism led him rather to respect culture less than Conservatism more. The observation, which he found frequent occasion to mention, that the ancient universities returned to Par-

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liament the most unreasonable of Tories, made him suspect that the literature studied in those seats of learning- was superficial and unsound.

His father, and his ancestors for many generations, were Nonconformists, and members of the Society of Friends. He himself remained faithful to the religious and political ideas and traditions in which he was brought up. A great part of his public conduct cannot be understood by anyone who either forgets that he was a Nonconformist, or is ignorant of the political history of nonconformity. He was proud of his descent from John Gratton of Derbyshire, who was a leader of the Quakers during the life of George Fox, and suffered imprisonment in the persecution of Charles and James. During his boyhood Rochdale was the scene of violent conflicts on the question of church-rates. To this recol¬ lection he often recurred; and the sense of injuries to be resented, which Nonconformists of his age had so many reasons to feel, remained in his mind to the last. A certain asperity of temper is commonly imputed by unfriendly critics to political Nonconformists. It is to be explained, if it can no longer be excused, by the bitterness of the prolonged struggle by which they painfully won the elementary rights of citizenship. Throughout his life Bright never spoke with so much vehemence of indignation, and never, it must be added, with so little concern for the susceptibility of his oppo¬ nents, as when he was pleading for religious equality, and giving voice to his resentment at the privileges of the Established Church.

It is still more important that the student of his career should not for a moment forget that he was a member of the Society of Friends. The discipline of that society has been eminently successful in promoting both private virtue and a generous sense of public duty. Bright’s religion was the very foundation of his public as well as

John Bright.

of his private character; and the faith he possessed by inheritance and by education was that of a sect whose presentment of Christianity has sedulously given to the consecration of daily life priority over observance and doctrine. There is an air, surely unaffected, as of saintly self-dedication in Bright’s own account, quoted below, of his first devotion to political work. It is scarcely too much to say that his political and religious convictions formed in his mind one indistinguishable whole; both were articles of faith, equally unchange¬ able, equally superior to expediency, and vivified by the same enthusiasm for righteousness. He did not seek for his principles in inductions from the recorded history of nations, nor in any reasoned political philosophy. He was content to deduce his conclusions from compre¬ hensive premises which appeared to him to possess a religious sanction.- This is the source of that assertive temper and that disdain of compromise, which both strengthened him as a leader of popular opinion, and disqualified him as a parliamentary tactician. The earnestness by which he kindled the enthusiasm of his friends, and provoked the resentment of his opponents, was akin to the zeal of an evangelist proclaiming the way of salvation. Like Macaulay he was subject to the reproach of being much too certain that he was always in the right. Macaulay’s certainty was doubtless based on his consciousness of having grasped all the facts relevant to the issue, and his satisfaction with his own mental processes. The certainty of Bright was the assurance of faith — the confidence which, however exasperating in a debater, has always been recognized as essential to the character of a prophet.

Voltaire had long ago made Quakerism known and respected by French men of letters; and a countryman of Voltaire, M. Challemel-Lacour, has, with eloquence and insight, deduced Bright’s public character from his

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Quaker training.1 “That intrepidity in conflict, that indomitable energy, those speeches with a strain all their own, reveal something deeper than merely political conviction. Mr. Bright is a Quaker. He admits that his sect is reputed to be making no progress; but he adds that its principles are gaining more ground than is commonly supposed. A craving for peace felt more keenly every day, a growing recognition of the incom¬ petence of the state in the region of the religious con¬ science, a respect for the dignity of manhood even in the most forlorn, — I may add, a sort of utilitarianism ex¬ hibited in the increasing regard for useful knowledge, and in the payment of due honour to industry, — here we have traits of society as it is, and these are ideas pro¬ fessed from the first by the sect to which Mr. Bright belongs. In his speeches, even when he is dealing with the most arid topics, we are always conscious of an undercurrent of religious emotion that rises to the sur¬ face only at rare intervals as by an involuntary force.”

At the age of fifteen Bright was taken from school and set to learn his father’s business. He was the first son taken into partnership, his elder brother having died in childhood. The firm became Jacob Bright & Son, and subsequently John Bright & Brothers. It will be well to say at once what is necessary about Bright’s private circumstances. Though never a wealthy man by comparison with the great magnates of the Lanca¬ shire trade, he always enjoyed the means of living in such comfort as satisfied the simplicity of his tastes, and was free from those financial embarrassments into which his friend Cobden was precipitated by his sacrifice of time to the public good. Those who set any value on Bright’s services to the commonwealth must not fail to bestow part of their gratitude on his younger

John Bright.

brothers, who, with admirable generosity and public spirit, released him from his share in the work of the business as soon as his vocation to public life became apparent to himself and to them.

He interested himself at an early age in the activities of his town, and made several public appearances soon after reaching his majority, which fell in the year of the Reform Bill. His first speech on the Free Trade question was made at Rochdale in 1838. In the autumn of the same year he became a member of the first pro¬ visional committee of the Manchester Anti-Corn-Law Association. He was the only member not resident in Manchester. Cobden joined the committee a week later. This association was the nucleus of the famous Anti- Corn-Law League, the date of whose birth is March 20, 1839. Bright took his share in the work of the League from the first; but he dated the beginning of his public services and of his memorable friendship with Cobden from September 13, 1841. What happened on that day, the turning-point of his life, must be recorded in his own language.

“ I was at Leamington when Mr. Cobden called upon me. I was then 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 his friend, and addressed me, as you may suppose, with words of condolence. After a time he looked up and said, * There are thousands of homes 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 passed, I would advise you to come with me, and we will never rest till the Corn Law is repealed.’ I accepted his invitation. 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 someone must do. From that time we never ceased to labour hard on behalf of the resolution which we had made. We were not the first, though we became, before the public, the foremost. There were others before us; and we were joined, not by scores, but by hundreds, and afterwards by thousands, and afterwards by countless multitudes. At last famine itself, against which we warred, joined us, — necessities became very great,— a great minister was converted, — and finally the barrier was entirely thrown down. Since that time, though there has been much suffering in many homes, yet no wife, and no mother, and no little child is starved to death as the result of a famine made by law.”

Such was the inception of a task that occupied more than four years. In a short time Cobden and Bright became famous in every part of England and Scotland as the chief of a great company of apostles of Free Trade in corn. As the anti-corn-law agitation forms the subject of a volume in the series to which this little book belongs, it is unnecessary to attempt here a full account of the work of the League, or of the question at issue between the Protectionists and the Free-traders. But since Bright’s future career took its colour from this early work, and since his opinions and methods were largely determined by the experiences of those four years, it will be proper to call attention to those aspects of the controversy which made the most permanent im¬ pression on his mind. Of the earlier history of the struggle the briefest summary may suffice.

The Corn Law enacted in 1815, at a time when the close of a long period of warfare threatened a fall in the cruel prices to which food had been forced by the war, prohibited the importation of wheat at any time when i6

John Bright.

the market price of home-grown wheat fell below 80s. a quarter. This limit was lowered to 70s. in 1822. In 1828 the Duke of Wellington’s Corn Law established a duty on imported corn varying with the market price. For example, the duty on wheat was 10s. 8 d. when the price was 70s., 26s. Sd. when it was 60s., and 36s. 8 d. when it was 50 s.

From the first there was a body of public opinion ad¬ verse to protective duties. “The people”, said Bright, “never acquiesced in that Corn Law. You passed it under a protest of the most fearful kind.” But for many years there was no attempt to organize a Free-trade party. Mr. Huskisson, until his death in 1830, and, from that time till the advent of Cobden, Mr. Poulett Thomson (Lord Sydenham) were successively regarded by the Free-traders as their political leaders. At the elections which followed the reform of 1832 the question was raised on the hustings of the Lancashire boroughs. In 1833 a resolution condemning the Corn Laws was discussed in the House of Commons, and the next year the policy of a fixed duty, which was afterwards dignified with a place on the official programme of the Whig party, was advocated by Hume, and supported by about one-third of the members voting. In 1837 the anxiety of the Lancashire manufacturers, who had learned to attribute the depression of their industry to a law which prevented the free exchange for foreign corn of the products of their looms, was increased by numerous bankruptcies; and at the elections which followed the Queen’s accession many boroughs returned Free-traders. The year 1838, which witnessed the for¬ mation of the Manchester Association, was also the first year of Mr. Villiers’s annual motion for a committee to consider and repeal the Corn Laws. A Free-trade party was now fairly organized both in the House and in the country.

*7

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In 1841 the Whig Ministry of Melbourne was com¬ pelled to try to meet a deficiency of revenue by modifying a tariff the severity of which diminished the income of the state by discouraging the importation of duty-paying goods. After a statement on the financial difficulty by Baring, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord John Russell proposed a fixed duty on corn, which was esti¬ mated to yield a larger revenue than the variable duty. The “monopoly” of corn, as the Free-traders loved to call it, was part of a system of similar monopolies, of which the most important were those of timber and sugar. The sugar duties were such as practically to exclude from our markets all sugar not grown in a British colony. The new tariff was to be no longer prohibitive, though still offering a large advantage to the colonial sugar-planter.1 “You monopolists”, said Bright later, “all hang together. Neither of these interests really cares one straw for the rest any longer than they all hold together.” On the question of the sugar duties, which were taken first, the agriculturists who desired protection for corn, and those who were interested in the maintenance of the sugar or the timber duties, were reinforced by the anti-slavery party; for sugar not grown in our colonies was slave-grown sugar, and the virtual exclusion of foreign sugar was regarded as part of the price to be paid for emancipation. The Government was easily defeated by this combination; Parliament was dissolved ; and Sir Robert Peel came in with a majority of about eighty. Mr. Gladstone was Vice- President of the Board of Trade in the new Ministry.

There were now three policies before the country: the Free-trade policy of Mr. Villiers and the League, the

1 Colonial sugar paid 24 s., foreign sugar 63J., a hundredweight. It was proposed to reduce the latter duty to 361. The duty on colonial timber was to be raised from 10 s. to 20.?. a load ; while the duty on Baltic timber was lowered from 55^. to 505.

B policy of a moderate fixed duty accepted by Lord John Russell and the Liberal party, and the sliding-scale policy of Peel and the Conservatives. Though many causes contributed to the defeat of the Whigs, the inci¬ dents that immediately preceded the dissolution gave to Peel’s victory the appearance of a triumph of protec¬ tion and the agricultural interest. Yet the distress of the country was so serious that Peel was constrained, at the risk of dividing his own party, to attempt some measure of relief.

Parliament met for the session of 1842 on February 3. The League, exhilarated by the meetings they had held in the country, and by some electoral successes, includ¬ ing the return of Cobden for Stockport, endeavoured to impress the House of Commons by a demonstration of their enthusiasm in the metropolis. Delegates from the provincial associations met on February 8 at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand, and there Bright made a speech which was received with great acclamation. The fame of his eloquence was carried into the country by the delegates; and from that time he was recognized as the chief lieutenant of Cobden in the work of propa¬ gation.

Peel refused to meet a deputation; but Lord John Russell, the leader of the Whig opposition in the Com¬ mons, had an interview with Bright and five other Leaguers. He held out no hope of advancing beyond his timid expedient of an eight-shilling fixed duty.1 In spite of this discouragement the Leaguers resolved to continue their agitation for total and immediate repeal. This resolution was a final declaration of their indepen-

1 ‘‘On the part of the Whigs, I had declared my intention of proposing a fixed duty on corn. This was likewise an error. Cobden and Bright proposed the only natural course, that of a total repeal of the duties on corn. But the Whig country gentlemen were not prepared for so bold a measure." ( Recollections and Suggestions, by John, Earl Russell (1874), p. 236. )

ig

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dence of the Liberal party. The cry was: “A fixed duty is a fixed injustice

Peel’s new tariff reduced the duties at the prices of Jos., 6o.y., and 50s. to 5s., 12s., and 20^. respectively. It was intended that the price should oscillate between the narrow limits of 585. and 54^. Cobden denounced the measure as “ a bitter insult to a suffering people”; the price of corn still rose; and by midsummer the dis¬ tress had again become acute.

The efforts of the Free-traders to enlist the support of the working-classes brought them into collision with the Chartists, of whose leaders some, like Feargus O’Connor, who held that free trade would ruin Ireland, were Protectionists ; others traced the distress to other causes rather than protection, and all were disposed to call first for political reforms. The Rochdale Chartists had carried an amendment against Bright at a meeting in 1839; and five years later Bright had a public wrangle with O’Connor himself before the Northampton boot¬ makers, resulting in a doubtful vote. It was even suspected that Chartist agitators were taking the pay of the Protectionists. In August, 1842, a general strike, or, as it was then called, a turn-out, was organized in Lancashire. Bright issued a long address to the work¬ ing-men of Rochdale, calling on them to return to their employment. “ Neither act of Parliament nor act of a multitude can keep up wages. Y ou know that trade has long been bad, and with a bad trade wages cannot rise. If you are resolved to compel an advance of wages, you cannot compel manufacturers to give you employ¬ ment. Such attempts have always failed in the end; and yours must fail. To obtain the Charter now is just as impossible as to raise wages by force. The principles of the Charter will one day be established; but years may pass over, months must pass over, before that day arrives. If every employer and workman in the king-

John Bright.

dom were to swear on bended knees that wages should not fall, they would assuredly fall if the Corn Law con¬ tinues. No power on earth can maintain your wages at their present rate if the Corn Lawr be not repealed.” The address, which is composed in the plain and nervous style to which Cobbett had habituated the artisans, is a popular exposition of the economic doctrine of the Manchester School, applied to the distresses and discon¬ tents of the moment. It is a document of some per¬ manent value, as indicating with precision important and lasting differences between the Radicalism of Bright and that of the trades-unions.

On July 25, 1843, Bright entered Parliament, at the second attempt, as member for Durham city. “The Whigs”, said Cobden, “tried to make it a Whig triumph, which Bright spoilt by his declaration at the Crown and Anchor that it was not a party victory.” The time had not yet come when Bright could sit in Parliament as a loyal member even of the Liberal party. It was impos¬ sible that the leaders of that party should command from him the respect which alone could secure the loyalty of a man of his independent disposition. Lord John Russell, who led the party in the Commons, was regarded by Bright as a timid, time-serving, and un¬ imaginative aristocrat, raised to eminence, despite the mediocrity of his talents, by industry and vigilance, with the prestige of a great historic name. To Lord John’s competitor, Palmerston, though he was a man of more popular gifts, Bright had a still more deeply rooted antipathy. It was not until the accession of Mr. Glad¬ stone to the leadership of the party that Bright abated his independence of party obligations.

Bright made his first parliamentary speech on August 7 of this year. He did not fail to speak his mind. “ Crime has often veiled itself under the name of virtue; but of all the crimes against the laws of God and the

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true interests of man, none has ever existed more odious and more destructive than that which has assumed the amiable term of protection.” A cabinet minister had argued that the Corn Law was necessary to enable land-owners to discharge the settlements made on the marriage of their daughters. “I have attended”, said Bright, “many large meetings of agriculturists, and I have never found a single farmer who seemed to be aware that this House had ever bestowed any attention on the means of providing portions for farmers’ daugh¬ ters.” “ The increase of our population is every year so great as to require for its support an annual increase of food equal to the whole produce of the county of War¬ wick. The Government has no power to add a county of Warwick every year to the country.”

By this time Bright had addressed meetings on the question in every part of the kingdom. The conversion of the manufacturing towns having been accomplished, he and Cobden began their appeal to the farmers, hold¬ ing open-air meetings in market towns on market days. Cobden’s biographer describes this enterprise as the most striking and original feature in the whole agita¬ tion, and gives an animated narrative of some incidents of this campaign.1 They repeatedly obtained a vote for total repeal from audiences that at the outset were un¬ convinced or even hostile. In the autumn of 1843 they began a remarkable series of demonstrations in Covent Garden Theatre. Their success at last roused the Pro¬ tectionists to a sense of peril. “The League is a great fact,” exclaimed the Times, in a leader that became historic;2 “a new power has arisen in the state.” “If I were the Conservative party of England,” wrote Car¬ lyle about this time, “I would not for a hundred thousand pounds an hour allow those corn laws to continue.”

1 Morley, Life of Cobden, chap. xii.

John Bright.

A list of the labours of a single month may serve as an example of the immense amount of work undertaken by Bright. In January, 1844, he spoke at Bury, Carlisle, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Greenock, Paisley, Ayr, Kilmar¬ nock, Dumfries, Sheffield, York, Hull, Blackburn, and Wakefield. Wherever he went his eloquence, youthful and immature, but always fearless, energetic, and stimu¬ lating, never failed of its effect in strengthening the popular resolution.

Notwithstanding the rapid extension of free-trade opinion in the country, the party in Parliament received few accessions, and year by year the divisions showed a strength of only from 120 to 130 votes. But the resist¬ ance of the Protectionists was becoming less confident; and the Free-traders often had occasion to welcome grave admissions made in debate by ministers, especially Mr. Gladstone and Sir Robert Peel, who already accepted the theory of free imports, though excepting corn on the ground of the danger of dependence upon a foreign food-supply. These concessions in argument, though barren of practical result, filled the county members with suspicion and dismay, and a band of mutineers, with Disraeli at their head, threatened open revolt. The refusal of Peel to take further measures to satisfy the claims of agriculture, then as now insatiable, elicited, on March 17, 1845, Disraeli’s celebrated declaration that a Conservative government was an organized hypocrisy.

During the summer of 1845 the price of corn rose rapidly; and in October it was known that both the wheat harvest in England and the potato crop in Ireland had failed. The scarcity in Ireland was such that the peasantry began to perish of starvation, and urgent demands were made on public and private charity. The practical reduction of the Corn Laws to an absurdity had come at last, if Parliament should be asked at the same time to vote money to feed a starving people, and