CHANGED CONDITIONS AFTER 1815 271 



bounty on exportation had been abolished. Freedom of export 

 was allowed, and was never suspended, because there was no margin 

 of produce which could be retained in the country by prohibiting 

 it from being sent abroad. Population was beginning to equal 

 production. So long as there had been a surplus of home-grown 

 grain, which could be kept in the country by suspending the licence 

 to export, the Corn Laws had steadied prices. Now, in times of 

 scarcity, they only increased the range of fluctuation in rise and 

 fall by excluding alternative supplies. Revenue was not their 

 object, because the duties were so high as to be prohibitory. They 

 were frankly protective, intended to shut out imports, and so 

 maintain the prices of home-grown produce above a permanent 

 level. Even so, the interests of consumers would not necessarily 

 have been sacrificed to those of producers, unless an additional 

 and cheaper supply had been obtainable. That condition was 

 now, in most years, fulfilled. The charges of transport had fallen 

 to their peace level ; throughout Northern Europe corn was once 

 more sown and reaped without fear of the ravages of war, and 

 Continental prices ruled below those of Great Britain : from the 

 New World came an increasing supply, which was not affected by 

 the same climatic conditions as those of the North of Europe. 

 Henceforth external sources existed, from which deficiencies in 

 the yield of home harvests might be supplied without raising prices 

 beyond the addition of the costs of conveyance. If to these costs 

 were added the payment of heavy duties, it might be said that the 

 price of bread was artificially raised to maintain the level of the 

 profits of landowners and farmers. 



Another important change had taken place hi the position of 

 the antagonists in the coming struggle over the prices of corn. The 

 issue was no longer centred on principles of abstract morality ; 

 it was transferred to the practical region of trade. Our ancestors 

 passed laws to establish just prices ; their successors legislated 

 to secure reasonable profits. The change may have been a change 

 rather of words than of ideas. But it was not without significance. 

 Down to the middle of the eighteenth century, the great preponder- 

 ance of the nation had been interested in prices both as consumers 

 and producers of corn. Now the proportions were completely 

 altered, and the majority had permanently shifted. The new 

 manufacturing class was rapidly growing ; the mass of open-field 

 farmers had become agricultural labourers, whose real wages rose 



