PARLIAMENTARY CONTROL OF TAXATION 257 



In 1620 the King's Council " wrote letters into every shire and 

 some say to every market-town, to provide a granary or store- 

 house, with stock to buy corn, and keep it for a dear year." A 

 similar object inspired the subsequent institution of bonded ware- 

 houses under the King's lock (1663), in which foreign grain might 

 be stored, free of duty, until withdrawn for consumption. Restric- 

 tions on the exportation of home-grown corn were governed by the 

 same desire to prevent excesses in surplus or deficiency, and to save 

 the country from violent oscillations between cheapness and dear- 

 ness. The much debated bounty on exports of grain was designed 

 to produce the same result. Even the regulation of imports of 

 foreign corn was partly governed by the same desire to secure a 

 steady level of price. 



At an early date prohibitions against exporting corn were influ- 

 enced by political motives of retaliation on the king's enemies, just as j 

 the corresponding permission was affected by considerations of the 

 needs of the public treasury. Revenue, though never the first aim 

 of the Corn Laws, was, in mediaeval times and again under the 

 Stewarts, a secondary object. To this extent the special interests, 

 not only of consumers and producers, but also of the nation, were 

 thus early brought into play. Originally, corn was only exported 

 by those who had obtained, and in most cases bought, the king's 

 licence. But the exercise of the royal prerogative in the grant of 

 licences provoked a constitutional struggle, which for three cen- 

 turies was fought with varying fortunes. The principle at stake 

 was the control of Parliament over all taxation. In 1393 freedom 

 of export was allowed by statute ; but the statutory liberty might 

 be overridden by the king in Council. Seventy years later (1463) 

 the royal power to prohibit or permit exportation was taken away, 

 and, instead of the sovereign's discretion, a scale of prices was 

 fixed below which trade in corn was allowed. More despotic than 

 their immediate predecessors, the Tudor sovereigns reasserted the 

 royal right to grant licences. 1 Special circumstances may have 

 justified the claim and its exercise. Agriculturally, the general 

 aim of the Tudors was to encourage tillage in order to counteract 

 the depopulating tendencies of sheep-farming. Commercially, they 

 desired to build up a foreign trade as the chief support of sea power, 

 and English corn was one of the commodities which they hoped 



1 E.g. 25 Henry VIII. c. 2 (1533); 1 and 2 P. and M. c. 5 (1554). See 

 Appendix III., B. 



B 



