The Corn Laws were import tariffs designed to support domestic British corn[1] prices against competition from less expensive foreign-grain imports between 1815 and 1846. This is a list of Acts of Parliament of the English Parliament during that body's existence prior to the Act of Union of 1707 This is a list of Acts of Parliament of the English Parliament during that body's existence prior to the Act of Union of 1707 This is a list of Ordinances and Acts of the Parliament of England from 1642 to 1660, during the English Civil War and the Interregnum. This is a list of Acts of Parliament of the English Parliament during that body's existence prior to the Act of Union of 1707 This is a list of Acts of Parliament of the English Parliament during that body's existence prior to the Act of Union of 1707 List of Acts of the Scottish Parliament to 1707 is a list of Acts of Parliament of the Parliament of Scotland. This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of Ireland for the years up to 1700. This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of Ireland for the years 1701 to 1800. This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain for the years 1707-1719 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain for the years 1720-1739 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain for the years 1740-1759 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain for the years 1760-1779 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain for the years 1780-1800 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 1801-1819 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 1820-1839 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 1840-1859 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 1860-1879 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 1880-1899 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 1900-1919 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 1920-1939 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 1940-1959 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 1960-1979 This is an incomplete list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 1980-1999 This is a list of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the years 2000 to the present "Acts of the Scottish Parliament" redirects here For pre-Union acts see List of Acts of the Scottish Parliament to 1707. This is a list of Acts of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, from its first session in 1921 to suspension in 1972. This is a list of Acts of the Northern Ireland Assembly passed by that body from its establishment in 2000 until its suspension in 2002 and from its re-establishment in |align=left| Contemporary Welsh Law English Law Courts of England and Wales ---- National Assembly The is a list of Orders in Council for Northern Ireland which are Primary legislation for the province when it is being directly ruled from London and also for A Statutory Instrument ( SI) is the principal form in which delegated or Secondary legislation is made in Great Britain. For other uses of this word see Tariff (disambiguation. A tariff is a tax imposed on goods when they are moved across a political boundary For the protectionist Australian political party from the 1880s to 1909 see Protectionist Party The tariffs were introduced by the Importation Act 1815 (55 Geo. 3 c. 26) and repealed by the Importation Act 1846 (9 & 10 Vict. c. 22). These laws are often viewed as examples of British mercantilism,[2] and their abolishment marked a significant step towards free trade. Mercantilism is the idea that a colony should export more goods than it imports and that a colony should sell at higher prices and buy at lower prices Free trade is a system in which the trade of goods and services between or within countries flows unhindered by government-imposed restrictions The Corn Laws enhanced the profits and political power associated with land ownership.
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Origins
In 1813, a House of Commons Committee recommended excluding foreign-grown corn until domestically grown corn reached 80 shillings per quarter-hundredweight. The House of Commons' is the Lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords The shilling is a unit of Currency used in current and former Commonwealth countries and was continued to be used in countries that left the commonwealth Hundred weight or hundredweight is a Unit of measurement for Mass in U The political economist Thomas Malthus believed this to be a fair price, and that it would be dangerous for Britain to rely on imported corn - lower prices would reduce labourers' wages, and manufacturers would lose out due to the fall in purchasing power of landlords and farmers. Thomas Robert Malthus FRS (13 February 1766 – 23 December 1834 was an English political economist and demographer who expressed views Fair value, also called fair price, is a concept used in Finance and Economics, defined as a rational and unbiased Estimate of the potential A wage is a compensation workers receive in exchange for their labor. [3] However David Ricardo believed in free trade so Britain could use its capital and population to her comparative advantage. David Ricardo (18 April 1772 &ndash 11 September 1823 was an English political economist, often credited with systematizing economics and was one of the most influential In international trade the principle of comparative advantage refers to the fact that although one country may have an absolute disadvantage with another value can be created for both [4] With the advent of peace in 1814, corn prices dropped, and the Tory government of Lord Liverpool passed the 1815 Corn Law. The Conservative Party (officially the Conservative and Unionist Party) is a Political party in the United Kingdom. Robert Banks Jenkinson 2nd Earl of Liverpool (7 June 1770 &ndash 4 December 1828 was a British politician and the longest-serving Prime Minister of the This led to serious rioting in London [5] and the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester. The Peterloo Massacre (or Battle of Peterloo) occurred at St Peter's Field Manchester, England on 16 August 1819 when cavalry charged into
This forestalled a growing tide of radicalism which was repressed by such measures as the Six Acts. In the United Kingdom, following the Peterloo Massacre of August 16, 1819, the British government acted to prevent any future disturbances by
In 1820 the Merchants' Petition, written by Thomas Tooke, was presented to the Commons demanding free trade and an end to protective tariffs. Thomas Tooke ( February 29, 1774 - February 26, 1858) was an English economist known for writing on money and his work on economic statistics Lord Liverpool claimed to be in favour of free trade but argued that complicated restrictions made it difficult to repeal protectionist laws. He added, though, that he believed Britain's economic dominance grew in spite of, not because of, the protectionist system. [6] In 1821 the President of the Board of Trade, William Huskisson, drew up a Commons Committee report which called for a return to the "practically free" trade of the pre-1815 years. The Secretary of State for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (formerly the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry before the June 28, 2007 William Huskisson (11 March 1770 &ndash 15 September 1830 was a British Statesman, financier and Member of Parliament for several constituencies including [7] The Importation Act 1822 decreed that corn could be imported when domestically harvested corn reached 80 shillings but imported corn was prohibited when the price fell to 70 shillings per quarter. After the passing of this Act until 1828 the corn price never rose to 80 shillings. In 1827 the landlords rejected Huskisson's proposals for a sliding scale and in the next year Huskisson and the new Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, devised a new sliding scale for the Importation of Corn Act 1828 whereby when domestic corn was 52 shillings per quarter or less, the duty would be 34 shillings, 8 pence and when the price rose to 73 shillings the duty declined to 1 shilling. Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, KP, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS ( c [8]
The Whig governments in power for most of the years 1830-41 decided not to repeal the Corn Laws. In 1841 Sir Robert Peel became Conservative Prime Minister and Richard Cobden, a leading free trader, was elected for the first time. Results |} Total votes 593445 Voting summary Seats summary Sir Robert Peel 2nd Baronet (5 February 1788 &ndash 2 July 1850 was the Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 December 1834 to 8 April Richard Cobden ( June 3, 1804 &ndash April 2, 1865) was a British manufacturer and Radical and Liberal Peel had studied the works of Adam Smith, David Hume and Ricardo and proclaimed in 1839: "I have read all that has been written by the gravest authorities on political economy on the subject of rent, wages, taxes, tithes". Adam Smith ( baptised 16 June 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of Political economy. David Hume (26 April 1711 25 August 1776 Scottish Philosopher, Economist, and Historian is an important figure in Western philosophy [9] In 1842 he modified the sliding scale by reducing the top duty to 20 shillings when the price fell to 51 shillings or less. [8]
The landlords claimed that manufacturers like Cobden wanted cheap food so they could drive down wages and thus maximise their profits, a view shared by the socialist Chartist movement. For chartism in financial markets see Technical analysis, and for the British socialist journal see Chartist (magazine Chartism was Karl Marx [10] said: "The campaign for the abolition of the Corn Laws had begun and the workers' help was needed. The advocates of repeal therefore promised, not only a Big Loaf (which was to be doubled in size) but also the passing of the Ten Hours Bille" (i. e. to reduce working hours).
The Anti-Corn Law League, founded in 1838, was peacefully agitating for repeal. They funded writers like William Cooke Taylor to travel the manufactuting regions of northern England to research their cause. William Cooke Taylor, Writer Journalist Historian and Anti-Corn Law propagandist [11] Cook Taylor published a number books as an Anti-Corn Law propergandist, most notably, The Natural History of Society (1841), Notes of a tour in the manufacturing districts of Lancashire (1842) and Factories and the Factory System (1844). Cobden and the rest of the Anti-Corn Law League believed in the view that cheap food meant higher wages and Cobden praised a speech by a working man who said:
When provisions are high, the people have so much to pay for them that they have little or nothing left to buy clothes with; and when they have little to buy clothes with, there are few clothes sold; and when there are few clothes sold, there are too many to sell, they are very cheap; and when they are very cheap, there cannot be much paid for making them: and that, consequently, the manufacturing working man's wages are reduced, the mills are shut up, business is ruined, and general distress is spread through the country. But when, as now, the working man has the said 25s. left in his pocket, he buys more clothing with it (ay, and other articles of comfort too), and that increases the demand for them, and the greater the demand. . . makes them rise in price, and the rising price enables the working man to get higher wages and the masters better profits. This, therefore, is the way I prove that high provisions make lower wages, and cheap provisions make higher wages. [12]
The Economist was founded in September 1843 by James Wilson with help from the Anti-Corn Law League; his son-in-law Walter Bagehot later became the editor of this newspaper. The Economist is an English-language weekly news and International affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd and edited in London James Wilson ( June 3, 1805 &ndash August 11, 1860) was a Scottish hat maker politician and economist as well as the founder of
In February 1844, the Duke of Richmond, founded the Central Agricultural Protection Society (CAPS, commonly known as the "Anti-League") to campaign in favour of the Corn Laws. Charles Gordon-Lennox 5th Duke of Richmond and Lennox ( 3 August 1791 &ndash 21 October 1860) was an English Politician
During 1844, the agitation subsided as there were fruitful harvests. The situation changed in late 1845 with poor harvests and the potato blight in Ireland; Britain faced scarcity and Ireland starvation. [13] Peel argued in Cabinet that tariffs on grain should be rescinded by Order-in-Council until Parliament assembled to repeal the Corn Laws. An Order-in-Council is a type of legislation in Commonwealth Realms. His colleagues resisted this. Soon later the Whig leader Lord John Russell declared in favour of repeal. The Whigs (with the Tories) are often described as one of two political parties in England and later the United Kingdom from the late 17th to John Russell 1st Earl Russell, KG, GCMG, PC (18 August 1792 &ndash 28 May 1878 known as Lord John Russell before 1861 was an English On 4 December 1845 there appeared in The Times an announcement that the government had decided to recall Parliament in January 1846 to repeal the Corn Laws. The Times is a daily national Newspaper published in the United Kingdom since 1785 when it was known as The Daily Universal Register. Lord Stanley resigned from the Cabinet in protest. Edward Smith-Stanley redirects here for other persons with that name see Edward Stanley Lord Stanley The next day Peel resigned as Prime Minister because he did not believe he could carry out his policy and so the Queen sent for Russell to form a government. Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901 was from 20 June 1837 the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Russell offered Cobden the post of Vice-President of the Board of Trade but he refused, preferring to remain an advocate of free trade outside the government. The office of Vice-President of the Board of Trade was a junior ministerial position in the government of the United Kingdom. [14] By 20 December Russell was unable to form a ministry and so Peel remained Prime Minister.
After Parliament was recalled the CAPS started a campaign of resistance. In the counties the CAPS was practically supplanting the local Conservative associations and in many areas the independent free holding farmers were resisting the most fiercely. [15]
Repeal
On January 27, 1846, Peel gave a three-hour speech saying that the Corn Laws would be abolished on 1 February, 1849 after three years of gradual reductions of the tariff, leaving only a 1 shilling duty per quarter. Events 98 - Trajan becomes Roman Emperor after the death of Nerva. For the game see 1846 (board game. Year 1846 ( MDCCCXLVI) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display [16] Benjamin Disraeli and Lord George Bentinck, both Conservatives, emerged as the most forceful opponents of repeal in Parliamentary debates, arguing that repeal would socially and politically weaken the traditional landowners and therefore destroy the "territorial constitution" of Britain by empowering commercial interests. Benjamin Disraeli 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, FRS (born Benjamin D'Israeli; 21 December 1804 &ndash 19 April 1881 was Lord (William George Frederick Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck ( 27 February 1802 &ndash 21 September 1848) better known as simply Lord George [17]
On the third reading of Peel's Bill of Repeal (Importation Act 1846) on 15 May, MPs voted 327 votes to 229 (a majority of 98) to repeal the Corn Laws. Reading is a mechanism by which a bill is introduced to and approved by a Legislature. On 25 June the Duke of Wellington persuaded the House of Lords to pass it. The House of Lords is the second house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is also commonly referred to as "the Lords" On that same night Peel's Irish Coercion Bill was defeated in the Commons by 292 to 219 by "a combination of Whigs, Radicals, and Tory protectionists". [18] On 29 June Peel resigned as Prime Minister and in his resignation speech he attributed the success of repeal to Cobden:
In reference to our proposing these measures, I have no wish to rob any person of the credit which is justly due to him for them. But I may say that neither the gentlemen sitting on the benches opposite, nor myself, nor the gentlemen sitting round me—I say that neither of us are the parties who are strictly entitled to the merit. There has been a combination of parties, and that combination of parties together with the influence of the Government, has led to the ultimate success of the measures. But, Sir, there is a name which ought to be associated with the success of these measures: it is not the name of the noble Lord, the member for London, neither is it my name. Sir, the name which ought to be, and which will be associated with the success of these measures is the name of a man who, acting, I believe, from pure and disinterested motives, has advocated their cause with untiring energy, and by appeals to reason, expressed by an eloquence, the more to be admired because it was unaffected and unadorned—the name which ought to be and will be associated with the success of these measures is the name of Richard Cobden. Without scruple, Sir, I attribute the success of these measures to him. [19]
As a result the Conservative Party split and the Whigs under Russell formed a government. Those Conservatives who were loyal to Peel were known as the Peelites and included the Earl of Aberdeen and William Gladstone. The Peelites were a breakaway faction of the British Conservative Party, and existed from 1846 to 1859. George Hamilton-Gordon 4th Earl of Aberdeen KG KT FRS PC (28 January 1784&ndash14 December 1860 styled Lord Haddo from 1791 In 1859 the Peelites merged with the Whigs and the Radicals to form the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party was one of the two major British political parties from the early 19th century until the rise of the Labour Party in the 1920s and a third party Disraeli became overall Conservative leader in 1868, although when Prime Minister he did not attempt to reintroduce protectionism.
Effects of repeal
The price of corn in the two decades after 1850 averaged 52 shillings. [20] Due to the development of faster transportation through rail and steamboat and the modernisation of agricultural machinery, the prairie farms of North America were able to export vast quantities of cheap corn. Prairie, from the French prairie ("meadow" "grassland" "pasture" refers to an area of land of low topographic relief that historically Every corn-growing country decided to increase tariffs in reaction to this, except Britain and Belgium. The Kingdom of Belgium is a Country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters as well as those [21] In 1877 the price of English-grown corn averaged 56 shillings, 9 pence a quarter and for the rest of the nineteenth century it never reached within 10 shillings of that figure. In 1878 the price fell to 46 shillings, 5 pence. By 1885 corn-growing land declined by a million acres (4,000 km²) (28½%) and in 1886 the corn price fell to 31 shillings a quarter. The acre is a unit of Area in a number of different systems including the imperial and U Britain's dependence on imported grain in the 1830s was 2%; in the 1860s it was 24%; in the 1880s it was 45%, for corn it was 65%. [22] The 1881 census showed a decline of 92,250 in agricultural labourers since 1871, with a 53,496 increase of urban labourers. The United Kingdom has taken a Census of its population every ten years since 1801 with the exception of 1941 ( during the Second World War) Many of these were previously farm workers who migrated to the cities to find employment,[23] despite agricultural labourers' wages being the highest in Europe. [23]
Notes
- ^ In Britain, unlike in North America, the term "corn" means "grain" (the kernel), and implies the primary grain crop of a country, which in England was wheat, not maize. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland Wheat ( Triticum spp is a worldwide cultivated grass from the Levant area of the Middle East. Maize (ˈmeɪz ( Zea mays L. ssp mays) known as corn in some countries is a cereal grain domesticated in Mesoamerica
- ^ and According to David Cody, they:
. . . were designed to protect English landholders by encouraging the export and limiting the import of corn when prices fell below a fixed point. They were eventually abolished in the face of militant agitation by the Anti-Corn Law League, formed in Manchester in 1839, which maintained that the laws, which amounted to a subsidy, increased industrial costs. The Anti-Corn Law League was in effect the resumption of the Anti-Corn Law Association which had been created in London in 1836 but did not obtain widespread popularity After a lengthy campaign, opponents of the law finally got their way in 1846—a significant triumph which was indicative of the new political power of the English middle class. The middle class, in colloquial usage consists of those who have some economic independence but not a great deal of social Influence or power.
- ^ Woodward, p. 61
- ^ Woodward, p. 61
- ^ Hirst, p. 15
- ^ Hirst, p. 16
- ^ Schonhardt-Bailey, p. 9
- ^ a b Schonhardt-Bailey, p. 10
- ^ Semmel, p. 143
- ^ Marx, Chapter VIII, p. 6
- ^ The Gentleman's Magazine, 1850, p94-6.
- ^ Bright and Thorold Rogers, p. 129
- ^ Hirst, p. 33
- ^ Morley, p. 344
- ^ Coleman, p. 134
- ^ Hirst, p. 35
- ^ Coleman, p. 135–136
- ^ Schonhardt-Bailey, p. 239
- ^ Morley, p. 388
- ^ Woodward, p. 124
- ^ Ensor, p. 115–116
- ^ Ensor, p. 116
- ^ a b Ensor, p. 117
References
- Blake, R. [1968](1998) Disraeli, Rev. ed. , London : Prion, ISBN 1-85375-275-4
- Bright J. and Thorold Rogers, J. E. (eds. ) [1870](1908) Speeches on Questions of Public Policy by Richard Cobden, M. P. , Vol. 1, London : T. Fisher Unwin, republished as Cobden, R. (1995), London : Routledge/Thoemmes, ISBN 0-415-12742-4
- Cody, D. (1987) Corn Laws, The Victorian Web : literature, history and culture in the age of Victoria, webpage accessed 16 September 2007
- Coleman, B. Events 1400 - Owain Glyndŵr is declared Prince of Wales by his followers (1996) "1841-1846", in: Seldon, A. (ed. ), How Tory Governments Fall. The Tory Party in Power since 1783, London : Fontana, ISBN 0-00-686366-3
- Cooke Taylor, W. (1841) Natural History of Society, D. Appleton & Co. , New York
- Cooke Taylor, W. (1842) Notes of a tour in the manufacturing districts of Lancashire,
- Cooke Taylor, W. (1844) Factories and the Factory System, Jeremiah How, London
- Ensor, R. C. K. (1936) England, 1870-1914, The Oxford history of England 14, Oxford : Clarendon Press, ISBN 0-19-821705-6
- Hirst, F. W. (1925) From Adam Smith to Philip Snowden. A history of free trade in Great Britain, London : T. Fisher Unwin, 88 p.
- Marx, K. (1970) Capital: a critique of political economy; Vol. 3: the process of capitalist production as a whole, Engels, F. (Ed. ), London : Lawrence & Wishart, ISBN 0-85315-028-1
- Morley, J. (1905) The Life of Richard Cobden, 12th ed. , London : T. Fisher Unwin, 985 p. , republished by London : Routledge/Thoemmes (1995), ISBN 0-415-12742-4
- Schonhardt-Bailey, C. (2006) From the Corn Laws to Free Trade: interests, ideas, and institutions in historical perspective, Cambridge, Mass. ; London : The MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-19543-7
- Semmel, B. (2004) The Rise of Free Trade Imperialism: classical political economy the empire of free trade and imperialism, 1750-1850, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-54815-2
- Woodward, E. L. , Sir (1962) The Age of Reform, 1815-1870, The Oxford history of England 13, 2nd Ed. , Oxford : Clarendon Press, ISBN 0-19-821711-0
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