Welsh Journals

JOHN BRIGHT. By Keith Robbins. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979. Pp. xvi, 288. £ 8.95. This is the best, and probably final, biography of Bright, and required reading for any student of Victorian politics. That said, it must be added that it is essentially biographical, giving a full and fair picture of the man rather than adding much to political history generally. Nor is there any reason why it should do the latter, partly because the two most striking periods of Bright's career (1841-46 and 1866-67) have been extensively studied already, partly because for most of his life he was symbol rather than participant or policy-maker. His family letters, used here freely for the first time, are extensive and have a splendid crustiness, and Robbins's frequent quotations from them give us a much enriched portrait of Bright's character and politics. They also help with certain problems of private life, notably the relation between his rather unhappy second marriage, and Bright's propensity for Society dinner-tables. While Mrs. Bright kept house at Rochdale, the ascetic tribune of the people might be found, for instance, at Mentmore with Rosebery and Henry James the novelist. As Robbins notes, he 'dined out regularly, though no host ever found the favour returned', the American Civil War being the issue which brought him decisively into social contact with the rich Left. After a sketch of Bright as the youthful village Hampden of Rochdale, the Manchester period of Bright's career (1841-57) is dealt with on un- avoidably conventional lines, though one may rejoice at Bright's innocent remark on being elected for Durham in 1843 (Lord Londonderry having ordered his voters to switch to Bright after a Tory row), 'We entirely converted the constituency within a week'. More unfamiliar are episodes in Bright's Birmingham period. One might single out the useful chapter on Bright's first Reform crusade of 1858-61, the account of his reactions to the outbreak of the American Civil War (when his brother supported the South), and his very interesting lukewarmness about the Gladstonian agitation of 1876-80. 'This "Jewish" dispensation in our time will die of its vices and of our telling the truth about it', Bright wrote complacently about imperialism in 1880. On another forgotten issue, Indian cotton supply, he threw his free market principles overboard, urging that land on which cotton was grown should be exempt from tax. Robbins notes a strong conservative streak in Bright. 'I was always "conservative" in feeling and reality-as those who know me best will freely admit' Bright wrote in 1875; significantly, Bright backed Hartington, a duke's son, for the leadership, against a fellow-manufacturer, Forster, who was 'very fond of Factory Bills and the rotten legislation which has come so much into favour of late years' (p. 219). This gruffness comes out in the single chapter (of 13) devoted to 1880-89, when Bright was both a well-placed observer and, at times, an influence on events. Even his apparently unimportant resignation over the bombardment of Alexandria, itself the sign of an increasing remoteness from Gladstone going back to 1876 sowed the seed of Bright's opposition to Home Rule in 1886, a schism that should be explained in terms of foreign policy as much as of Ireland--even if Bright was strengthened in his opposition by the pleasure of a final chance to be Samson in the temple. Where he deserves credit in