Corn-law Period 49 



wrote an agriculturist in I843 1 . This must have been at least in part 

 caused by the inability of the mass of the population to consume 

 animal products to any extent worth mentioning. Obviously produc- 

 tion could not extend when the market was continually shrinking. 

 Partly too, however, the corn-duties directly stimulated the production 

 of corn at the expense of other branches of agriculture. They never 

 indeed achieved the end of which the landed interest had dreamed at 

 the time of their introduction. But men are often inclined to forget 

 the facts of the present in favour of their hopes for the future : and the 

 agriculturists acted as if the results they expected from the corn-laws 

 had in reality been achieved. Although neither the tariff of 1815 nor 

 that of 1828 were able to keep the price of corn anywhere near the 

 desired level, yet the farmers behaved as though that high price, which 

 they supposed to be guaranteed, already existed. Wastes and pastures 

 were broken up, and rents, which had risen so enormously since 1760, 

 were not lowered as prices fell, because it was supposed that the duties 

 would bring the price up again 2 . In bad seasons the artificial limita- 

 tion of imports did in fact produce this rise of price. But in good 

 seasons the increased home production alone sufficed to bring the 

 price of wheat below the level which seemed profitable to the agricul- 

 turist, so that universal lamentation was made over low prices and high 

 rents. Even at such times, however, the idea which was bound up 

 with the maintenance of the corn-laws, namely that some time or 

 other prices would rise again, continued to influence men's minds so 

 powerfully that the area under corn still continued to extend 8 . This 

 extension of arable in the period 1815 to 1846 was based on an 

 imaginary foundation ; it resulted from an assumption which was 

 never justified. The population at large suffered under it inasmuch 

 as they had to pay more for their bread than the people of other 

 countries. The English farmers got no profit out of the difference in 

 price at home and abroad, but before five different Parliamentary 

 enquiries complained of their distressed condition. Such was the price 

 paid for the artificial stimulation of corn-growing and for the continued 

 extension of the area under wheat at the expense of pasture and other 

 purposes. 



Two causes thus contributed to maintain the predominance, or it 

 might almost be said the monopoly, of arable farming in English 



1 Welford, op. cit. p. 199. 



2 Levy, Die Not etc., pp. 76 f. 



3 See an exhaustive discussion of the point, with references, in Levy, op. cit. passim, and 

 especially Chapter IV. 



