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Updated: June 17, 2025
At 13 he was sent to the care of his uncle, Thomas S., a clergyman, near Bath, but a Radical and anti-corn-law agitator. Declining a Univ. career he became a school assistant, but shortly after accepted a situation under the engineer of the London and Birmingham railway, in which he remained until the great railway crisis of 1846 threw him out of employment.
Quite early in the history of the Anti-Corn-Law League, Cobden had predicted, in spite of the apathy and opposition which the derided Manchester school of politics then encountered, at a time when Peel and Russell alike turned a deaf ear to its appeals, that the repeal of the Corn Laws would be eventually carried in Parliament by a 'statesman of established reputation. Argument and agitation prepared the way for this great measure of practical relief, but the multitude were not far from the mark when they asserted that it was the rain that destroyed the Corn Laws.
As Lord Roehampton wrote to me this morning, 'Our royal marriage will be much more popular than the Anti-Corn-Law League." The royal marriage was very popular; but, unfortunately, it reflected no splendour on the ministry. The world blessed the queen and cheered the prince, but shook its head at the government.
Those who were in favour of protection for the British wheat-grower were called Protectionists, while those who wished to abolish the corn-duties styled themselves Free-traders. In the year 1839 an Anti-Corn-law League had been formed for the purpose of spreading free-trade doctrines among the people.
He cannot, of course, prevent the subject from being mooted during the ensuing session, because there are persons, unfortunately, sent to Parliament for the very purpose; but while he is listening with a calm smile, and apparently thoughtfully, to the voluble tradesmen who are haranguing him upon the subject, it is not improbable that he will be revolving in his mind matters much more personally interesting and important to them; viz. how he shall put a stop to the monstrous joint-stock banking system frauds, as exhibited at this moment at Manchester, in the Northern and Central Banking Company, and other similar establishments, blessed with the disinterested patronage of the chief member of the "Anti-Corn-Law League."
Here, for his edification, we consign the resulting figures from the standard set up by himself, as they may be found calculated and resolved from minute detail into grand totals in the "General Statistics of the British Empire," by Mr James Macqueen, an authority, perhaps, who will not be questioned by competent judges any where without the pale of the Draconian legislators of the Anti-corn-Law League.
Sir Robert Peel, Lord John Russell, and the persons banded together under the name of "The Anti-corn-law League," may be taken as representing the classes of opinion which would respectively answer these three questions in the affirmative. All of them appealed to the nation at large on the last general election.
Further, if we compare the proportion purchased of our manufactures, which is taken off by foreign nations, for the export to whom we are required to make the sacrifice of our domestic agriculture, with what is consumed by our own native population, whether in the British islands or in our colonies of British descent, the difference is prodigious, and such as might well, even for their own sake, make the Anti-corn-law League pause in their career of violence.
My best works are my wife and children: I have made that joke before, as you can well fancy." This was the greeting, sincere but not unkind, of Job Thornberry to Endymion on the day after the meeting of the Anti-Corn-Law League. To Endymion it was an interesting, and, as he believed it would prove, a useful encounter.
The Anti-Corn-Law League showered pamphlets, tracts, letters, newspapers, all over the country. They sent lecturers into every town, preaching the same doctrine, and proving by scientific facts the justice of the cause they advocated. These lecturers were enjoined to avoid as much as possible any appeals to sentiment or to passion.
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