488 



CORN LAWS 



passed prohibiting importation of foreign corn 

 when the price was below 80s. a quarter. 



The principle of the sliding-scale which had been 

 more or less followed in previous enactments 

 was systematically carried out in the year subse- 

 quent to the great wars, in 1822, and particularly in 

 1828, when Wellington's sliding-scale was passed. 

 The object of the device called the sliding-scale 

 was to reduce the import duty as the price of grain 

 increased, for the purpose of virtually prohibiting 

 the importation when the price was low, and en- 

 couraging it when the price was high, so that at 

 famine-prices grain might come in duty free. By 

 the Act of 1828, the price of 62s. a quarter on wheat 

 was taken as the turning-point. At that price the 

 import duty was 1, 4s. 8d. For every shilling less 

 in the price a shilling was added to the duty. 

 When the price rose above this point a different 

 gradation ruled, the duty decreasing by a larger 

 ratio than the rise. Thus, when the price was 69s. 

 the duty was 15s. 8d. ; and when it rose to 73s. the 

 duty sunk to its minimum of Is. The effect of such 

 fluctuation in rendering the trade a gambling one 

 is obvious, and yet this was not acknowledged 

 until it had been proved by a series of ruinous 

 instances. Thus, an importer who, when the 

 price of grain was 73s. a quarter, bought a cargo, 

 if the price sunk 4s. before he could accomplish a 

 sale, had not only to sell at that reduced price, but 

 with a further reduction of 14s. 8d. a quarter paid 

 as duty. What was still more important, the sup- 

 plies to this country being so capricious and irregu- 

 lar, foreign countries did not grow corn habitually 

 for the British market. In 1842 Sir Robert Peel 

 tried a modification of the sliding-scale, which did 

 not in the least degree mitigate the growing 

 hostility to the corn laws. 



The basis of this hostility to the corn laws was 

 found in the population which had now grown up 

 in the large towns. The effect of the industrial 

 revolution connected with mechanical invention 

 and the utilisation of steam had been to transform 

 Great Britain from an agricultural into a manu- 

 facturing and commercial country. The new 

 interests thus created were rapidly rising to 

 supremacy. But the nation did not, till the very 

 last, earnestly unite in calling for repeal. There 

 was a powerful party who defended the corn laws, 

 and represented, with great plausibility, that 

 these restrictive statutes were for the public 

 good. Their arguments might thus be summed 

 up : ( 1 ) Protection was necessary, in order to 

 keep certain poor lands in cultivation. (2) It was 

 desirable to cultivate as much land as possible, in 

 order to improve the country. ( 3 ) If improvement 

 by that means were to cease, we should be depend- 

 ent on foreigners for a large portion of the food of 

 the people. ( 4 ) Such dependence would be fraught 

 with immense danger ; in the event of war, supplies 

 might be stopped, or our ports might be blockaded, 

 the result being famine, disease, and civil war. 

 ( 5 ) The advantage gained by protection enabled the 

 landed proprietors and their tenants to encourage 

 manufactures and trade ; so much so, that if the 

 corn laws were abolished, half the country shop- 

 keepers would be ruined ; that would be followed 

 by the stoppage of many of the mills and factories ; 

 large numbers of the working-classes would be 

 thrown idle ; disturbances would ensue; capital 

 would be withdrawn ; and what would happen 

 then, the wisest could not foresee. Such argu- 

 ments had great vveight with the labouring- 

 classes, the small-town shopkeepers, almost all the 

 members of the learned professions, and an immense 

 majority of both Houses of parliament. Those 

 who endeavoured to represent the impolicy of a 

 restricted trade in corn were generally set down as 

 little better than mischief-makers. In the House 



of Lords in 1839, 

 premier, said, ' To 



Lord Melbourne, a Liberal 

 leave the whole agricultural 

 interest without protection, I declare before God 

 that I think it the wildest and maddest scheme 

 that has ever entered into the imagination of man 

 to conceive.' 



Meanwhile the ANTI-CORN-LAW LEAGUE concen- 

 trated the efforts of the free-trade party in Britain, 

 and ultimately enabled them to carry the repeal 

 of the corn laws, and to establish in practice the 

 principle of free trade. In 1836 a number of philo- 

 sophical radicals, among whom were Grote, Joseph 

 Hume, and Roebuck, had formed an association 

 for repealing the corn laws. In 1838 seven Man- 

 chester merchants formed an association of tl\e 

 same kind. The latter was soon joined by Cobden, 

 who threw all his energy into the agitation, and 

 secured for it also the eloquent advocacy of 

 John Bright. Charles Villiers, who led their cause 

 in the House of Commons, moved in February 1838 

 that the House resolve itself into a committee of 

 inquiry on the corn laws. The motion was rejected 

 by 342 to 195 ; and immediately the famous League 

 was formed, with a central office at Manchester, 

 its constitution dating from the 20th March 1839. 



This was the beginning of a remarkable agita- 

 tion, supported by lectures, verses, pamphlets, and 

 popular oratory, which had a great influence on 

 the economic and political education of the country. 

 Large sums of money were raised, and a vast mass 

 of popular literature bearing on the corn laws was 

 diffused. In 1843 the League raised 50,000 ; in 

 1844, 100,000; in 1845, 250,000, for continuing 

 the agitation. At a great meeting at Manchester 

 in 1845, 60,000 were subscribed in an hour and 

 a half. 



The opposition to the corn laws steadily increased. 

 Roused by the addresses of Mr Cobden, Mr Bright, 

 and other leaders of the League, the people poured 

 in petitions to parliament. The failure of the 

 potato crop and the famine imminent in Ireland 

 gave an overwhelming weight to the argument* 

 of the League. At length the Conservative premier, 

 Sir Robert Peel, became a convert to Free Trade 

 (q.v. ), and in 1846 carried a measure to put an 

 end to the corn laws. By this act, the duty on 

 corn was at once greatly reduced, and was to cease 

 altogether in 1849, with the exception of a regis- 

 tration duty of Is. a quarter, which terminated in 

 1869. 



The repeal of the corn laws did not lead to a very 

 great fall in the price of corn, nor did it result in 

 the ruin of the agricultural interest. The vast 

 expansion of industries, attended with a large in- 

 crease of population and the growing demand for 

 food, kept prices up to a tolerably high level. A 

 markedly increased consumption of butcher-meat 

 specially tended to enhance prices in that depart- 

 ment and to raise the rent of land. With the 

 development of American competition, about the 

 year 1376, however, a new period set in. English 

 agriculture has suffered severely, a fact which has 

 largely contributed to the formation of a Fair-trade 

 Party demanding among other things what they 

 consider a moderate and reasonable protection for 

 our landed and cultivating classes. 



The pressure of American competition has also of 

 late years led to the establishment of a corn-law 

 system for the protection of agriculture in Germany. 

 In 1879 protective duties on the importation of 

 foreign grain were passed by the imperial parliament, 

 and these have since been considerably increased. 

 In France, trade in grain has long been subject to 

 government regulation. During the course of the 

 19th century the duties on importation had been 

 greatly reduced, but within the last few years things 

 have followed the same course as in Germany. 

 Slightly raised in 1881, the duties on grain were 



