The Descent of the Landlords. 405 



Protectionist members in tlie very precincts of Westminster. 

 Riots ensued, a collision with the soldiers occurred, and 

 though the bill was passed, the opposition in the House of 

 Commons was eleven times as large as when, only two weeks 

 before, it first came up ; while even in that of the Peers, 

 some ten of its members went so far as to record on the 

 Journals their protest against the measure.^ This unlooked- 

 for action of the dissentient minority was fully justified by 

 subsequent events. The deficient harvests of 1816 and 1817, 

 as well as the restoration of cash payments in 1821, counter- 

 acted any advantages that its supporters had expected from 

 the Act. Select committees had again to be appointed in 1821 

 and 1822, which only aroused the temper of the nation stiU 

 more. For unfortunately the fiscal legislation of 1815 per- 

 mitted a fresh construction to be placed on the policy of 

 protection. Henceforth it was possible, as Dr. Cunningham 

 points out, for persons antagonistic to the seignorial interest 

 " to represent the Corn Laws as a merely class measure, and 

 to treat the whole question as that of a tax imposed upon the 

 community for the sole interest of the landlords." ^ It was 

 also becoming evident to the parliamentary representatives of 

 the Commercial Interest, most of whom were ardent free 

 traders, that they must first aim at a redistribution of repre- 

 sentative strength in the councils of the nation. Men had long 

 grown impatient under a system that allowed a " mound of 

 earth to send two members to Parliament, while great manu- 

 facturing or commercial towns, each the centre and market 

 of important districts, sent none."^ Side by side, therefore, 

 with the agitation for Parliamentary reform, there now grew 

 up a popular clamour against the protective tendencies of the 

 Government. A new factor had in fact come into being con- 

 nected with our history of the EngHsh Landed Interest ; which 

 was nothing less than a formidable coalition of merchants 

 and radicals, capable of fighting the landlords both inside and 



* Literature of Political Economy, -g.lQ. McCulloch. 

 ^ Groicih of English Industry and Commerce, Part II. p. 670. 

 ^ Histoid of the Anti-Corn-Law League. A. Prentice, vol. i. 1853. See 

 als-o 9 Anne c. 5. 



