Quotation of the Day…

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… is from a speech given in London on January 15th, 1845, by Richard Cobden, as collected here through the painstaking work of David Hart:

We have begun a new year, and it will not finish our work; but whether we win this year, the next, or the year after, in the mean time we are not without our consolations. When I think of this most odious, wicked, and oppressive system, and reflect that this nation – so renowned for its energy, independence, and spirit – is submitting to have its bread taxed, its industry crippled, its people—the poorest in the land – deprived of the first necessaries of life, I blush that such a country should submit to so vile a degradation. It is, however, consolation to me, and I hope it will be to all of you, that we do not submit to it without doing our best to put an end to the iniquity.

DBx: A year and a half after delivering these remarks, Cobden and his colleagues in the Anti-Corn Law League delivered on his promise to succeed at pressing for repeal of Parliament’s protective tariff on grains punitive tax on British citizens’ purchases of grain. That repeal happened 178 years ago on this date, June 25th.