Friend, humanitarian and pragmatist
Rae Street explores the political career of John Bright
‘Ah, Cobden and Bright’
‘Oh dear, he wasn’t much of a socialist was he… and not very caring about the children working in his own mills?’
There is, of course, truth in both of these comments about John Bright. For a greater part of his political life Bright worked with Richard Cobden. They had a strong and deep friendship and the strength of that could be seen in the positive results of their campaigning, such as their work to prevent Britain going to war with the French. When I am discussing John Bright and his opposition to war I am told that Bright did not actually stop the Crimean War about which he spoke so movingly. The ‘angel of death’ did indeed hover over the land. To this day, when I and other peace activists have opposed the UK’s recent wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, I am told that ‘your demonstrations, your representations, did not stop the war’. Or, as recently as the NATO attack on Libya, when it is said that a military attack was the only way forward – and in the challenging, contradictory, phrase about bombing – we are told ‘we prevented deaths’.
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