CORN-LAWS. 



225 



•!awi. centuries, become considerable, and had rendered go- 

 Y"^*' vernment apprehensive, that the frequent conversion of 

 corn-land into sheep walks might injure the prospe- 

 rity of the kingdom. Accordingly acts for the increase 

 of tillage were successively passed in 1488, 1515, 1534, 

 1552, and 1562. 



Towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, the prices of 

 corn rose to a high rate, wheat being in 1596 and 1597 

 at the price of £ 4 a quarter. The importation of corn 

 continuing unrestricted, we are to account for the du- 

 ration of this rise in price by a succession of indifferent 

 harvests at home, and by the very limited means of 

 that age, either of importing from abroad, or of distri- 

 buting foreign corn into the interior when it had ac- 

 tually reached our liarbours. The former low prices 

 being in a manner obsolete, the law relative to ex- 

 portation underwent a change, and liberty was given 

 to send grain out of the kingdom, though prices should 

 be beyond the former limit. But as a duty of 2 s. a 

 quarter on wheat, and Is. 4d. on other grain, was still 

 collected, the permission of export was in some degree 

 counteracted. During the pacific reign of James I. 

 two acts took place in regard to the corn trade. Both 

 enforced the above-mentioned duties, and both made 

 a partial extension of the limits at which exportation 

 became lawful. By the last act, passed in 1623, wheat 

 was exportable so soon as our home currency fell to 

 32 s. a quarter, and barley at lo's. As these were, not 

 unfrequeri'ly, the actual rates in particular districts, it 

 is probable that various exports took place, and that a 

 considerable revenue was collected from this source. 



During the unsettled period which followed the ac- 

 cession of Charles I. we meet with no alterations in the 

 existing system of corn laws. The Restoration, how- 

 ever, gave rise to fresh enactments, founded partly on 

 a consideration of the wishes of the landed interest, 

 partly on a scheme of revenue. Exportation was per- 

 mitted at any time when wheat at home should not ex- 

 ceed the price of 40s. and barley 20s. The laws rela- 

 tive to importation were also new modelled ; foreign 

 corn being, m a manner, excluded so long as our own 

 market was at a reasonable rate (44s. for wheat); and 

 being burdened with a duty of 6s. 8d. a quarter, even 

 when our own prices were high. In addition to the 

 object of revenue, the view of government in these laws 

 was perhaps to proportion, as nearly as possible, the 

 national growth of corn to the national consumption. 

 However, prices in the succeeding years rising very 

 high, importation was allowed by an act in 1 663, with- 

 out reference to the state of home markets, at the com- 

 paratively moderate tax of 5s. 4d. on a quarter of wheat, 

 and 2s. 8d. for barley. Such was the law in England 

 during seven years. In 1 670 there was passed a fresh 

 act, which seems to discover a marked attention to the 

 views of the landed interest. By this act, foreign corn 

 was loaded with a high duty so long as our own could 

 be afforded at a reasonable rate (53s. 4d. for wheat); 

 while exportation was declared lawful without reference 

 to the state of markets, but always with the obligation 

 of paying an export duty. The actual state of the corn 

 trade during the chief part of the reign of Charles II. 

 is said to have been a suspension of export, and a par- 

 tial admission of import, our market prices being ge- 

 nerally so high as to admit foreign corn at the duties 

 prescribed by the act of 1663. 



We have now arrived at the aera of 1688, an jera as 

 important in the history of our corn laws as of our li- 

 berty, however different the merits of the measures re- 

 spectively adopted. The Revolution was the epoch 

 of the reinstatement of the authority of parliament ■ 



*OL. YIJ. PART T. 



and it is here the place to remark, that the laws 

 which profess to favour the landed interest at the ex- 

 pence of the nation at large, proceed not from the 

 crown, which has no interest in such enactments, and 

 still less from the people who are the sufferers, but from 

 the members of our legislature, in other words the oreat 

 proprietors of land. This is easily shewn by a retro- 

 spect to the proceedings of government. During the 

 suspension of parliaments under Charles I. and during 

 the virtual abolition of their authority under Cromwell, 

 no measures were taken in favour of landholders. But 

 m 1688, no time was lost in encouraging the export of 

 corn by the new expedient of a bounty. An act was 

 passed declaring, that whenever wheat in the home 

 market should be at or below 48s. and barley at or be- 

 low 24s. there should be allowed a bounty, or export, 

 of 5s. a quarter for wheat, and 2s. 6d. for barley. 

 Mr Dirom and other advocates of the bounty system, 

 are so enamoured of this law, as to be unable to refrain 

 from expressing their surprise that it should not much 

 sooner have engaged the attention of our ancestors. 

 The grand argument brought forward in its favour, is 

 its tendency to prevent the occurrence of scarcity, by 

 inducing the farmers to raise a surplus stock of corn. 

 The real view, however, regarded an object more di- 

 rectly resulting from it, namely, the raising of the rent 

 of land, farmers being induced to come under contract 

 for a larger rent, when assured, by the first authority 

 in the country, of the permanency of a high currency 

 for their produce. By a subsequent act in 1700, every 

 thing in the shape of duty on English corn, ground or 

 unground, was relinquished by the crown ; and in 1707, 

 on the union with Scotland, the operation of the corn 

 laws was rendered similar throughout Great Britain. 



The acquiescence of the crown in the remarkable in- 

 novation produced by the act of 1688, is to be chiefly 

 ascribed to King William's solicitude to unite the lead- 

 ing men in the country in his great contest against Louis 

 XIV. A similar motive actuated government during 

 the reign of Queen Anne ; and before the conclusion 

 of our long struggle Avith France, the bounty system 

 had become consolidated with the laws of the land. It 

 was accompanied by restrictions on the import of foreign 

 corn, of so heavy a nature as almost to amount to a 

 prohibition. The result of the bounty was, as may na- 

 turally be conceived, a large exportation in years of fa- 

 vourable crop. After the peace of Aix la Chapelle, 

 for example, the average exportation for four years was 

 above 1,200,000 quarters each year ; while the price of 

 wheat for the same time was only 36s. 3d. a quarter. 

 It is a curious fact, that the bounty system had not, on 

 taking a comprehensive view of its operation, the effect 

 of creating a general or permanent rise of prices. On 

 comparing the seventy years which followed the en- 

 actment of the bounty with the seventy that preceded 

 it, we shall find {Wealth of Nations, vol. i. p. 418) that 

 the price of wheat was considerably lower in the latter 

 period. There seems little doubt that the bounty, by 

 carrying cultivation at first too far, counteracted the 

 object of its short-sighted projectors ; and rendered our 

 growth of corn disproportioned to our consumption. 

 Whatever may have been the cause, the fact was, that 

 prices did not assume the character of a progressive rise 

 till after 1 760. By that time the increase of our popu- 

 lation employed in navigation, manufacture, and trade, 

 began to be such as nearly to equal by their consump- 

 tion the produce of the agriculturists. It is to this 

 cause, and by no means to the imagined effect of corn 

 laws, that we are to attribute the flourishing state of 

 the landed interest in our own time. So long as the 

 2 F 



Corn- 



