Corn Laws

“ That a total repeal of the Corn Laws is absolutely necessary, from the great decrease of our manufactures and commerce, and the great increase of manufactures on the continent of Europe and other places ”

“ These conjoined operations were accelerated by the alteration in the British corn laws in 1846, which placed the English farmer, who tried to preserve his land in a state of fertility, in competition with foreign grain—growers, who, having access to boundless fields of virgin soil, grow grain year after year until, having exhausted the fertile element, they leave it in a barren condition, and resort to other parts. ”

“ The last objection with which I shall venture to trouble the House, and it is, in my mind, a very strong one against the existing Corn Laws, is, that they are, in fact, in their working highly prejudicial to the agriculturists themselves; the effect of them is to prevent the farmer receiving a fair remuneration for the produce of his industry, at the very moment he most wants it; in fact, they fix a maximum on the produce of human industry. ”

“ It is also perfectly true, as has been stated by my noble friend behind me, that there is not a country of Europe in which corn laws do not at this moment exist; but, nevertheless, I suppose if it were proposed to repeal these laws, and adopt the measures recommended by the petitioners, your lordships would be told of the quantities of corn that might be had from Russia and from Prussia, and other parts of the world. But are there no corn laws in those countries? Has the noble earl heard of no laws prohibiting all exportation of corn to other countries? ”

“ Though it may be perfectly certain, from theory, what kind of effects corn laws must produce, and in what general direction their influence must tell upon industrial prosperity, their effect is yet of necessity so much disguised by the similar or contrary effects of other influencing agents, that specific experience can at most only show that on the average of some great number of instances, the cases where there were corn laws exhibited the effect in a greater degree than those where there were not. ”

“ Farmers and landlords profited by this protection of English agriculture, but, since the landed interest had ceased to be the most important element in the state, the Corn Laws injured many more persons than they benefited. ”

“ Corn Laws to restrain importation, and inducing a starving people to regard the laws of their country with a deep sense of their injustice. These facts call for the immediate application of adequate remedies. ”

“ The day of their [the Corn Laws’] entire abolition ought to be a day of jubilee and rejoicing to every man interested in land.”
Now, sir, I do not stop to connect the cause and effect in this matter, and inquire whether your Corn Laws or your protective system have caused the want of leases and capital. I do not stop to make good my proof, and for this reason, that you have adopted a system of legislation in this House by which you profess to make the farming trade prosperous. I show you, after thirty years’ trial, what is the depressed condition of the agriculturists ”

“ But, Sir, if by any legislative measure, if for instance it were to be enacted, that from and after the first day of next August, foreign corn should be admitted duty free, from such a measure suddenly resorted to, I should have fears of the worst consequences; the effect would be to stultify the farmers; they would at once imagine ruin staring them in the face. They would endeavour to provide against it. They would throw their poorlands out of cultivation, and their labourers out of employ: they would in fact produce the very mischief that has been foretold. ”

“ Laing regards the abolition of the Corn Laws as a Conservative measure—"which will preserve, for some generations at least, to our nobility, gentry, and landed interests, their domains, their estates, and their proper social interests." ”

“ The mistake, as it appears to me, always made by those who would limit the importation of foreign corn, is, that they suppose a limitation to consumption. They calculate as if, in common years, the quantity of corn grown in England is exactly what is required for the sustenance of the people, and that every quarter of foreign corn introduced would interfere with the sale of a quarter of that home-grown, and therefore that it is only in such years as the present, when the harvests are bad, that foreign corn should be admitted. ”

“ On the arrival of peace the fall of agricultural prices ruined great numbers who had pushed their speculations and land purchases beyond their legitimate means; but the Corn Laws again buoyed up both farmers and landlords, and the progress of improvement continued. Draining strong lands, manuring light ones with lime and marl, and the introduction of artificial grasses, added incalculably to the produce of the country. ”

“ Only at the close of Elizabeth’s reign (1603) did a spark of new light appear in a further statute, which removed the futile provisions in favour of tillage and against enlargement of pastoral farms, and rested the whole policy for promoting an equable supply of corn, while encouraging agriculture, on an allowed export of wheat and other grain at a duty of 2s. and 1s. 4d. when the price of wheat was not more than 20s., and of barley and malt 12s. per quarter. The import of corn appears to have been much lost sight of from the period of the statute of 1463. ”

“ If a shepherd has caused the sheep to feed on the green corn, has not come to an agreement with the owner of the field, without the consent of the owner of the field has made the sheep feed off the field, the owner shall reap his fields, the shepherd who without consent of the owner of the field has fed off the field with sheep shall give over and above twenty gur of corn per gan to the owner of the field. ”

“ That the present corn-law tends to check improvements in agriculture, produces uncertainty in all farming speculations, and holds out to the owners and occupiers of land prospects of special advantage which it fails to secure. That this house will take the said laws into consideration, with a view to such cautious and deliberate arrangements as may be most beneficial to all classes of her majesty’s subjects. That the freedom of industry would be promoted by a careful revision of the law of parochial settlement which now prevails in England and Wales. ”

“ It may fairly indeed be said, that to restore the freedom of the corn trade, while protecting duties on various other commodities are allowed to remain, is not really to restore things to their natural level, but to depress the cultivation of the land below other kinds of industry. ”

“ The corn statutes of the next twenty years, though occupying an enormous amount of time and attention in the Houses of Parliament, may be briefly treated, for they are simply a record of the impotence of legislation to maintain the price of a commodity at a high point when all the natural economic causes in operation are opposed to it. ”

“ We know that it answers to almost all small well peopled states, to import their corn; and there is every reason to suppose, that even a large landed nation, abounding in a manufacturing population, and having cultivated all its good soil, might find it cheaper to purchase a considerable part of its corn in other countries, where the supply, compared with the demand, was more abundant. ”

“ If he be not able to restore the corn, he and his goods shall be sold, and the owners of the meadow whose corn the water has carried away shall share the money.
Penalty for neglect to shut off water § 55. If a man has opened his runnel for watering and has left it open, and the water has flooded his neighbor's field, he shall pay him an average crop. ”

“ With regard to the Corn Law, all the agriculturists have a right to expect is, to have the same protection for their industry that the commercial and manufacturing men have for theirs. I am quite open to a fixed duty. ”

“ The fertility of the soil is the despair of scientific farming. Who cares for rules, when he has only to drop a seed and tread on it, to be sure of a hundred-fold return? Who talks of succession of crops, when twelve burdens of wheat, taken from the same soil in as many years, leave the ground black and ready for another yield of almost equal abundance? An alluvial tract of about three hundred thousand acres, near the Mississippi, has been cultivated in Indian corn a hundred and fifty years,—indeed, ever since the French occupation of Illinois. ”

“ It was worth something on the Saturday night, to see the working man's wife need her husband's help to carry home the heavy basket, filled with bread and beef, and flour and suet. But then came the reflection that the Corn Law was unrepealed, and that a single bad harvest might mar all this comfort. Much outcry came from the landowners at the cheapness of provisions, as if heaven-sent plenty was a curse. ”

“ Such rights seldom arise in connexion with commons in the ordinary sense, but are a frequent incident of regulated or stinted pastures; the right is then generally known as a cattle-gate or beast-gate.
There may be rights over a common which exclude the owner of the soil from all enjoyment of some particular product of the common. Thus a person, or a class of persons, may be entitled to the whole of the corn, grass, underwood, or sweepage, (i.e. everything which falls to the sweep of the scythe) of a tract of land, without possessing any ownership in the land itself, or in the trees or mines. ”

“ We have to consider not only what would be the state of agricultural labourers if the Corn Law were abolished, but also to consider their state if not abolished. The population is increasing at the rate of more than a thousand souls per day. What is to become of them? The land cannot find occupation for them. They must be employed in manufactures. ”

“ Fields ought not to be kept too long in pasture. When land is first laid down, with a view to ameliorate the soil, the common practice is to leave it in that state for many years: for it is the general opinion, that the longer it is thus suffered to lie, the richer it will become for bearing corn. But, though the truth of this position be evident, the most important object of inquiry is, to ascertain the most beneficial rotation of crops. (See Crop.) —The best criterion, perhaps, is to take up pasture for corn, as soon as the grass begins to be deficient both in quantity and quality ”

“ But the Corn Law answers, "No, it shall not be; our people are able and willing to produce what you require, and you are able and willing to give in exchange for it what they require; but, rather than suffer the exchange, our mills shall be closed, and our people shall perish." ”

“ If, for example, a path leads through or by the side of a field of grain, the corn is not, as in England, permitted to hang over the path, exposed to be pulled or trodden down by every passer by; it is everywhere bounded by a fence, stakes are placed at intervals of about a yard, and, about two, or three feet from the ground, boughs of trees are passed longitudinally along. If you look into a field towards evening, where there are large beds of cauliflower or cabbage, you will find that every single plant has been watered. ”

“ Besides, I have not attempted to estimate the value of raising almost maximum yields, where weather conditions are unfavorable, by such drainage, preparation of soil, planting and tillage as will best suit local and climatic conditions. No crop emphasizes the value of seed selection in such unmistakable terms as corn. The average stand of this crop does not exceed 60 percent, which means that the farmer spends 40 percent of his time in the cornfield without result. ”

“ The foes to all good husbandry, weeds, were predominant in almost every cornfield. If, perchance, the interior was tolerably clear, a circumstance which rarely, occurred, the weeds around the enclosures were so lamentably abundant, that the corn was, in a great degree, obscured. Good and bad land exhibited the like ruinous and disgusting appearance and miserable promise; and the same bad system of culture prevailed. The ploughing was generally shallow, whatever might be the texture of the soil.—Every field was ridged ”

“ If there is something that stirs the imagination in the thought that two blades of grass may be made to grow where only one had grown before, how much more satisfying is the assurance that an acre of soil, properly fertilized and thoroughly tended, may double its yield of corn ”

“ Like the steam engine, it adjusts itself, and is its own regulator. That British agriculture will be enabled to keep pace with the increasing population of the country, I think there does not remain a doubt, the system of tithes, which has been such a clog to improvement in Ireland and England, is yearly occupying the attention of the Legislature, and when settled on a basis, perhaps similar to the system in Scotland, the increase in the growth of corn will be very great. The waste lands will also certainly be brought into cultivation. ”

“ The Lieutenant-Governor has about four acres of land in cultivation. I have from eight to ten in wheat and barley. The officers will be able to raise sufficient to support the little live stock they have, and which is all that can be expected from them. All the corn raised this year and the next will be saved for seed, and if necessity should oblige us to use it, it would be only a few days' support for the colony; and from the rats and other vermin the crops are very uncertain. ”