Front Page Authors (by Period) Richard Cobden

Richard Cobden

1804 - 1865

About the Author

Richard Cobden (1804-1865) was a member of the British Parliament and an advocate of free trade, a non-interventionist foreign policy, peace, and parliamentary reform. He is best remembered for his activity on behalf of the Anti-Corn Law League which helped reduce British tariffs in 1846 and for negotiating the Anglo-French trade agreement of 1860.

In The Library:

• translator: On the Probable Fall in the Value of Gold: The Commercial and Social Consequences which may ensue, and the Measures which it invites (1859)
• author: The Political Writings of Richard Cobden, in 2 vols. (1835)
• author: The Political Writings of Richard Cobden, vol. 1 (1835)
• author: The Political Writings of Richard Cobden, vol. 2 (1853)
• author: Speeches on Free Trade (1903)
• author: Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, 2 vols. (1870)
• author: Speeches on Questions of Public Policy. Vol. 1 (Free Trade and Finance) (1870)
• author: Speeches on Questions of Public Policy. Vol. 2 (War, Peace, and Reform) (1870)

Quotations:

• Richard Cobden outlines his strategy of encouraging more people to acquire land and thus the right to vote in order to defeat the “landed oligarchy” who ruled England and imposed the “iniquity” of the Corn Laws (1845) (12 January, 2010)
• Richard Cobden’s “I have a dream” speech about a world in which free trade is the governing principle (1846) (24 September, 2011)
• Cobden reminds the Liberals in Parliament that the motto of their party is “Economy, Retrenchment, and Reform!” (1862) (24 September, 2011)
• Cobden urges the British Parliament not to be the “Don Quixotes of Europe” using military force to right the wrongs of the world (1854) (24 September, 2011)
• Cobden on the principle of non-intervention in the affairs of other countries (1859) (28 October, 2011)
• Cobden on the complicity of the British people in supporting war (1852) (22 December, 2011)
• Cobden argues that the British Empire will inevitably suffer retribution for its violence and injustice (1853) (29 February, 2012)