Francis Wrigley Hirst (10 June 1873 - 22 February 1953) was a British journalist, writer and editor of The Economist magazine. He was a Liberal in party terms and a classical liberal in ideology.
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Hirst was born at Dalton Lodge, two miles east of Huddersfield.[1] He attended Clifton College and became editor of the Cliftonian.[2] He went to Wadham College, Oxford from 1892 to 1896, where he was Librarian and then President of the Oxford Union Society.[3] He gained a First in Classical Moderations in 1894 and a First in Greats in 1896.[4]
In the late 1890s Hirst decided to persuade his Oxford friends to write a volume of essays on Liberalism with him. The group wanted the preface to be written by a prominent Liberal, other than Lord Rosebery or Sir William Harcourt as these were leaders of opposing factions. Their first preference was John Morley but he declined on the grounds that he would be attacked for opinions expressed in the book which he did not hold. Hirst then asked H. H. Asquith who said the essays were likely intended to be "a declaration of war against that section of Liberal opinion, which has of recent years gravitated towards modes of thought and fashions of speech which are called 'Collectivist'". He further said that whilst he did not find himself in "substantial disagreement" with the essays he declined the offer because "exception might not unreasonably be taken to my going out of my way (as it would be said) to herald a militant demonstration, avowedly directed against a section (however small) of the party of which I am (for the time being) one of the responsible leaders".[5] Hirst was "baffled" by this and then asked William Ewart Gladstone. Gladstone replied with a handwritten letter:
I am wholly unable to comply with the requests which so often reach me for the writing of Prefaces, but I venture on assuring you that I regard the design formed by you and your friends with sincere interest, and in particular wish well to all the efforts you may make on behalf of individual freedom and independence as opposed to what is termed Collectivism.[6]
In the end Hirst and his friend J. S. Phillimore wrote the preface. The book was dedicated to Morley. After Morley read Hirst's contribution to Cassell's biography of Gladstone edited by Sir Wemyss Reid, he asked Hirst to spend a few weeks with him at Hawarden Castle (Gladstone's home) to write Gladstone's authorised biography.[7] Hirst was against the Boer War and helped found the League Against Aggression and Militarism.[8]
After he had left Oxford Hirst edited political and economic books for Harper's, including one on Toryism by F. E. Smith and one on Socialism by R. C. K. Ensor. Another was his compilation of extracts from Richard Cobden, John Bright, Joseph Hume, W. J. Fox, William Molesworth, Thomas Farrer and others entitled Free Trade and Other Fundamental Doctrines of the Manchester School.[9] In 1904 Morley asked Hirst to write a biography of Adam Smith for his "English Men of Letters" series and for the next two years he was writing The Arbiter in Council, an imaginary dialogue between the Arbiter, an old Cobdenite Radical, discussing the issues of war and peace. Morley recommended it to Macmillan and it was published anonymously but the authorship came to be known.[10]
In 1903 he married Helena Mary Carroll Cobden at Heyshott, near Midhurst, West Sussex. She was born on 16 February 1880 in Japan. She died 27 December 1965 in Chichester, West Sussex. Helena was Richard Cobden's great-niece. Richard Cobden of Free Trade. Francis Hirst had a particular affection for the Cobden Club and the Dunford House Association. One of his homes was Dunford House, Midhurst, West Sussex - the former home of Richard Cobden - where he used to organize the "Dunford House Conferences" .. The Hirsts lived there until 1952.
Hirst wrote to the new Liberal Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman on 29 December 1905 that depression in trade and social distress could be explained by over-taxation and wasteful government expenditure on armaments. The outcome of this was "dear money, lowered credit, less enterprise in business and manufacturers, reduced home demand and therefore reduced output to unemployment". He told Campbell-Bannerman that "to restore credit and to lower taxes is the first great remedy for unemployment and the first great mission of the Liberal government".[11] Hirst wrote again to Campbell-Bannerman on 9 November 1907 that his government would only regain popularity by the traditional policy of retrenchment in expenditure.[12]
Morley also recommended Hirst as editor of The Economist, which held from 1907 to 1916. Hirst was with John Burns when in August 1914 Britain declared war on Germany, and they both wept at the news.[13] He was editor of the journal Common Sense from 1916 to 1921. Common Sense has been described as "the new house journal of disaffected Cobdenites".[14] Hirst wrote that there was little to choose between the old Prime Minister Asquith and the new, Lloyd George; they both held power at the pleasure of protectionists. This "Old Gang of official Liberals" were impossible to rely upon because they had sacrificed liberalism in a "misraeble hunt for offices and titles", "in order to please their Protectionist colleagues and remain in office".[15] Hirst agreed with Lord Lansdowne's proposal for a negotiated peace with Germany and drew up a government for this purpose. It did not include Asquith Liberals but included old-fashioned Liberals such as Lord Loreburn and Richard Holt.[16]
He stood for Parliament as a Liberal in 1910 and 1929. Hirst campaigned against the post-war revival of protectionism under the guise of safeguarding. He noted in 1927 the Labour Party's opposition to tariffs but also doubted whether "any system of socialism is ultimately compatible with the policy of free imports and the open door".[17] When the Liberal Walter Runciman, President of the Board of Trade, introduced the Abnormal Importations (Customs Duties) Act 1931 Hirst accused Runciman of pursuing a "Tariff of Abominations, the worst since Waterloo", with the Ottawa Agreement meaning that Britain's tariff policy no longer under the control of the British Parliament but by the colonies. It was an inversion of George III's policy in regard to the American colonies: "It is now the turn of the Colonies to control the mother country's taxes!"[18] In 1946 Hirst published The Repeal of the Corn Laws in which he compared the privations of the 1940s to the "hungry forties" of the previous century. Two days after the centenary of Corn Law repeal the Labour government introduced bread rationing for the first time.[19]
In 1947 he published In the Golden Days, an autobiography which terminated in 1906. He noted that Samuel Smiles' "book on the virtues of thrift has been lost and obliterated in an age of borrowing and bankruptcy".[20]
J. E. Allen called Hirst "a disciple of Adam Smith" who
In his later years Hirst was
G. P. Gooch said of him that
Hirst was a Cobdenite isolationist who disliked the balance of power theory and feared the League of Nations gave Britain obligations which might lead her into war.[24] Roger Fulford has noted Hirst's hostility to
Maurice Bowra described Hirst as believing
Another friend of Hirst's, A. F. Thompson, asserted that he was
| Preceded by Edward Johnstone |
Editor of The Economist 1907-1916 |
Succeeded by Hartley Withers |