^ 



CORN LAWS 159 



cultural labourer's difficulty in building a house was aggravated 

 by the statute 31 Eliz., c. 7, before noticed, which in order to 

 restrain the building of cottages enacted that none, except in 

 towns and certain other places, were to be built unless 4 acres 

 of land were attached to them, under a penalty of £lo, and 

 40s. a month for continuing to maintain it. This Act was 

 not repealed until the reign of George III. However, it 

 seems to have been frequently winked at. In Shropshire, for 

 instance, the fine often was only nominal ; in the seventeenth 

 century orders authorizing the building of cottages on the 

 aste were freely given by the Court of Quarter Sessions, 



d orders were also made by the Court for the erection of 

 cottages elsewhere.^ 



At the restoration of Charles II the corn laws had 

 ractically been unaltered since 1571,^ when it had been 



acted that corn might be exported from certain ports in 

 certain ships at all times when proclamation was not made 

 to the contrary, on a payment of i2d. a quarter on wheat 

 and Sd. a quarter on other grain. Now both export and 

 import were subjected to heavy duties, but these caused such 

 high prices in corn that they were reduced in 1663; yet high 

 duties were again imposed in 1673, which continued until the 

 revolution. Then, owing to good crops and low prices, which 

 brought distress on the landed interest, a new policy was 

 introduced: export duties were abolished and the other 

 extreme resorted to, viz. a bounty on export of ^s. in the 

 quarter as long as the home price did not exceed 48^-. At 

 the same time import duties remained high, and this system 

 lasted till 1773. Never had the corn-growers of England 

 been so thoroughly protected, yet, owing to causes over 

 which the legislators had no control, namely bountiful seasons, 



' Shropshire County Records: Abstracts of the orders made by the 

 Court of Quarter Sessions, 1638-1782, pp. xxiv, xxv. 



* See above, p. 70. 13 Eliz., c. 13. M^CuUoch, Commercial Dictionary 

 (1852), p. 412. 



