28o HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



of its earliest meetings appeared Richard Cobden, under 

 whose guidance the association became the Anti-Corn Law 

 League, and at whose invitation John Bright joined the 

 League. Under these two men the Anti-Corn Law League 

 commenced its great agitation, its object being ' to convince 

 the manufacturer that the Corn Laws were interfering with 

 the growth of trade, to persuade the people that they were 

 raising the price of food, to teach the agriculturist that they 

 had not even the solitary merit of securing a fixed price for 

 corn '. The country was deluged with pamphlets, backed 

 up by constant public meetings ; and these efforts, aided by 

 unfavourable seasons, convinced many of the errors of pro- 

 tection. In 1840 the League spent ^^"5,700 in distributing 

 160,000 circulars and 150,000 pamphlets, and in delivering 

 400 lectures to 800,000 people. Bakers were persuaded to 

 bake taxed and untaxed shilling loaves, and, on the purchaser 

 choosing the larger, to demand the tax from the landlord ; 

 in 1843 th^ League collected ;^5o,ooo, next year ;^ioo,ooo, 

 and in 1845 ;^25o,ooo in support of their agitation. 



Yet for some years they had little success in Parliament ; 

 even in 1842 Peel only amended the laws; and it was not 

 until 1846 that, convinced by the League's arguments, as he 

 himself confessed, and stimulated by the famine in Ireland, 

 he introduced the famous Act, 9 & 10 Vict. c. 22. 



By this the maximum duty on imported wheat was at once 

 to be reduced to 10s. a quarter when the price was under 

 48^., to ^s. on barley when the price was under 26s., and to 

 4^. on oats when the price was under i8j-., with lower duties 

 as prices rose above these figures, but the most important 

 part of the Act was that on February i, 1849, these duties 

 were to cease, and only a nominal duty of is. a quarter on 

 foreign corn be retained, which was abolished in i860. 



By 9 and 10 Vict. c. 23 the duties on live stock were also 

 abolished entirely. Down to 1842 the importation of horned 

 cattle, sheep, hogs, and other animals used as food was 



