Happy Birthday, Richard Cobden

By Alex Singleton | 3 June 2005

Today is Richard Cobden's 201st birthday. Cobden is a hero for us. He successfully fought the CAP of the day - known as the Corn Laws. Here's what Peter Clarke had to say of Cobden this time last year in the Scotsman newspaper.

Richard Cobden was born the fourth child of 11 in rural poverty. He lifted himself from a penury that would have crushed a lesser soul. He educated himself by reading and travelling. He became a calico trader and generated enough security to begin the first great political pressure group - the League. Within seven years of its creation he had broken the Conservative Party and its protectionist principle.

His assault on tariff barriers created the prosperity that flowered after 1846. Even today, most politicians will argue that free trade must be reciprocal. The great Cobdenite trick was to remove barriers unilaterally.

Rather than insist that others must remove their tariffs, we in America and Europe should end of tariffs first. Free trade benefits us regardless of what others do.