law. Cobden appreciated and utilised this gift of pamphleteering. Writing to Bright on 12 May 1842, he suggested articles for the Anti-Bread-tax Circular attacking the clergy for their support of the corn law, and ridiculing their counter-provision of charity for the subsistence of the manufacturing population. The articles appeared anonymously in the number of 19 May, in all probability from Bright's pen. But he did not pursue this form of activity. 'I never,' he replied to a correspondent on 21 Jan. 1879, 'write for reviews or any other periodicals.'
Cobden, in giving to his brother an account of his progress in parliament in February 1843, wrote, 'If I had only Bright with me, we could worry him (Peel) out of office before the close of the session.' A month later a vacancy occurred for the city of Durham. At the last moment Bright determined to contest it, his address being published on the very day of nomination, 3 April. The issue was the corn law. On 5 April his opponent, Lord Dungannon, was returned by 507 to 405 votes. A petition followed. Lord Dungannon was unseated for bribery, and Bright again came forward. On 26 July he was returned by 488 votes against 410 given to his opponent, Thomas Purvis, Q.C. Bright's speech at the hustings is remarkable as a disclaimer of party allegiance and an assertion that he stood as a free trader, and therefore as the candidate of the working classes. Referring to the arms bill for Ireland, then before parliament, he signalised as the causes of Irish unrest the maintenance of the protestant establishment, and the abuse of their power by the Irish landlords. At a meeting held at the Crown and Anchor in London to celebrate his return he affirmed that 'it was not a party victory.' On 28 July he took his seat in the House of Commons; his maiden speech was delivered on 7 Aug. 1843, before a thin house, in favour of Ewart's motion for the reduction of import duties as well on the raw materials of manufacture as on the means of subsistence. The speech is reported by Hansard in the first person. Bright demanded nothing less than perfect freedom of trade; the motion was defeated by 62 to 25 votes. His second speech, delivered on 14 Aug., was against a bill rendering Chelsea pensioners liable to be called out on home service. During the autumn and winter of 1843, in company with Cobden, he addressed a series of meetings in favour of free trade throughout the midlands and south of England. In January they went to Scotland; the work was arduous; scarcely a day passed without a meeting. With the session of 1844 came the turn of the landowners. A revival of prosperity and two good harvests robbed the free trade agitation of much of its point and force. Villiers's annual motion (25 June) for repeal of the corn law was defeated by the great majority of 204, and Bright was forced to sit down before the conclusion of his speech. Earlier in the session Sir James Graham [q. v.] introduced a bill for restricting the labour of children and young persons to twelve hours a day. Lord Ashley [see Cooper, Anthony Ashley, seventh Earl of Shaftesbury] moved a reduction of the hours to ten. Bright (15 March) vigorously attacked Lord Ashley's description of the horrors of the factory system, though he did not deny that the hours of labour were longer than they ought to have been. He carried the war into the enemy's country by contrasting the condition of the operatives with that of the agricultural labourers, and with the indifference of the landowners to their privations. An attack made by him upon the character of Lord Ashley's informants led to a personal altercation ending in Bright's favour. Lord Ashley's amendment was eventually lost by 297 to 159 votes. The division was in the main a party one, the majority being chiefly composed of conservatives supported by Bright and a certain number of manufacturers, the official liberals and their followers voting with Lord Ashley. A counter-move was made by a motion of Cobden for an inquiry into the effect of protective duties on farmers and labourers. It was supported by Bright (13 March), but was defeated by 224 to 133 votes. On 10 June Bright delivered an elaborate attack, in which he was supported by Lord Palmerston, upon the West Indian sugar monopoly.
In pursuance of his plan of converting the farmers and of reducing the landowners to the defensive. Bright now took up the question of the game laws. On 27 Feb. 1845 he moved for a committee to inquire into their working, and dwelt especially upon the injury inflicted by them upon the farmer. Peel advised the county members that the prudent course for them was to allow the committee to be granted sub silentio. Bright followed up this success by an address on the game laws to a large gathering of farmers at St. Albans. Pie published in 1846, at the expense to himself of 300l., an abstract of the evidence taken by the committee, drawn up by R. G. Welford, barrister-at-law, with a prefatory address to the farmers of Great Britain from his own pen, setting forth the evils of game
