Corn law

“ We may also reasonably anticipate some change in the Corn Law, which, while it has been as effective as that which preceded it in repressing our trade with corn growing countries, has been ineffective in protecting the farmer, by throwing in all the foreign supply at the only time of the year when he has corn to sell. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A total repeal of the Corn Laws, he said, would add agricultural to manufacturing distress. It would be well to be independent of foreign countries for bread. "What is coming?" thought the listening free traders. He did not mean an absolute independence. There should be a supply when there was a scarcity. He wished to have the price of wheat to oscillate between 54s. and 58s. He thought the agriculturists ought not to expect more. ”

“ The first toast after "The Queen," was "The Immediate and Total Repeal of the Corn and Provision Laws," the chairman remarking that since the last meeting in Manchester, another year's experience had shown the evils inflicted by those laws, and confirmed the truth of the predictions of those who had demanded their repeal. "Look at America," he said "at this moment she owes us large sums of money. God has blessed her people with a most plenteous harvest, and if the Corn Laws did not prevent us from taking their corn, they would be able to pay us every farthing they owe." ”

“ The manufacturers required no protection, and the Anti-Corn-Law League and the Manchester Chamber of Commerce had declared that they wanted none, and that if they could have corn in exchange for their goods, the landlords and farmers might buy goods wherever they pleased. ”

“ The law thus really affords protection to those who are in need of it—namely, to such farmers as have reaped an inferior crop of wheat; while those foreigners who have fine wheat in bond, or a surplus which they may send to this country, can afford to pay a high duty on receiving a high price for their superior article. Taking such a state of things into consideration, we cannot conceive a measure more wise in its operation, inasmuch as it accommodates itself to the peculiar circumstances of the times, than the present form of the corn-law. ”

“ But then the Corn Law has raised the price, not merely of wheat, but of all the other corns used in the production of bread, and by shutting out the products of our industry from foreign markets has lessened the demand for labour and lowered its reward; and, as the mass of the people have, by this double process, been reduced to a potato diet, the failure of the potato crop leaves them absolutely without food. ”

“ What is the pretence upon which you tax the people's food? We have been told by the right honourable baronet that the object of the law is to fix a certain price for corn. Since I have been listening to this debate, in which I heard it proposed by a prime minister to fix the price of corn, I doubted whether or not we had gone back to the days of our Edwards again, and whether we had or had not travelled back some three or four centuries, when they used to fix the price of a table-cloth or a pair of shoes. What an avocation for a legislature! To fix the price on corn! ”

“ His main arguments were, that we had always had Corn Laws that the products of agriculture greatly exceeded the products of manufactures; that agriculture employed more hands than manufactures; that the manufactures of New England, although there was abundance of corn there, were not thriving; that foreigners were not disposed to take our goods that, if the Corn Laws were repealed, all protection to manufactures would have to be abolished, and if they were, our manufacturers could not stand the competition six months that a low price of corn would cause low wages ”

“ Where is the protection of the frame-work knitters? When he needs protection most—when the high price of food renders it most difficult for him to support his family—have we heard to-day that the Corn Laws are a protection to him? No; we have heard that just in proportion as the Corn Law effects its object for those who gain by it, just in the same proportion does it minister to the misery and degradation of the working classes of this district. ”

“ The Corn Law, by shutting out foreign corn, was intended to keep the price of wheat at, or near, 80 shillings the quarter: its natural price without Corn Law is probably about 40 shillings the quarter. ”

“ The suspension of the corn-law would tend to confirm the panic abroad, and would therefore increase the difficulties of our corn-merchants, in making purchases of wheat for this market. It seems to us very strange that sensible men of business should be so credulous as to believe every idle rumour that is broached in the newspapers, so evidently for party purposes; for the current report of the immediate suspension of the corn-law originated in the papers avowedly inimical to the Ministry. ”

“ He admitted that, if, according to Sir R. Peel's supposition, corn rose as high as 90s. or 100s. no duty could be maintained at all; but he considered that if the field of supply was extended, the less likely was it that a scarcity could occur. The principles of free trade were greatly promoted by such a discussion as the present. If Sir Robert Peel would give them effect, he might safely despise the menace which had been uttered of overturning any ministry that would act in respect to the Corn Laws as the present ministers had done. ”

“ Does it follow that the corn act is the fruitful source of all this misery, and that its immediate repeal is the only means of cure, and of increasing our home and foreign trade? some carrying their nostrums so far as to declare British agriculture a curse to the country, and that were not a boll of corn grown in the country, so much the better would it be for the country and its manufacturing interest! Such theories are really too absurd to be listened to seriously, and worthy only of those who can apply sophistry to any side of a question. ”

“ True, this exclusion of foreign corn must raise the cost of living to the vast labouring population to a ruinous degree, and threatened fearful convulsions from starving people in the manufacturing districts; but these considerations had no weight with the land-holding Government and its Parliamentary majority. In 1814 they were in haste to pass a Corn Law excluding all corn except at famine prices ”

“ We have an immense population already, and it is increasing at the rate of a million within less than three years; we have attained to a most important position as a manufacturing nation, and we have the means of attaining to a still more important one. But we cannot grow corn enough for our own consumption, and even the present supply is, to a considerable extent, the fruit of a law which induces men to grow corn on land which was never meant for any such purpose, by granting a protection which cripples our energies and destroys our trade. ”

“ Another of his points was that the repeal of the Corn Law would reduce wages. ' This,' said he, 'was admitted by all, even the most talented repealers in the kingdom.' (Shouts of no, no,' and great uproar.) 'This, I say, is admitted by all the repealers in the kingdom. Now, they tell you that corn will be 10s. a quarter cheaper. Well, ten shillings a quarter is a farthing a pound. The average consumption is a pound a day; therefore you would save in the price of your bread seven farthings a week. ”

“ The chartists—rather perhaps men professing to be chartists—had the walls covered with placards, not issued until the evening before the day of meeting,asking, "Why do these liberal manufacturers bawl so lustily for the repeal of the Corn Laws," and answering, "because, with the reduced price of corn, they will be enabled to reduce the wages of the working men, in order that they may compete with foreigners who live upon potatoes." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ After the passing of the Corn Law of 1815, and when it had worked for some time, there were sliding-scale acts introduced, which established a varying system of duty, so that when the price of home-grown grain rose above a certain figure, the duty on imported wheat was to sink in proportion. ”

“ Why, to take America alone, there is a country which has the soil and the facilities for raising corn enough to supply almost any demand, and which is willing to give it at a reasonable price in exchange for our goods. What is the plain dictate of these facts? Why, "foster your manufactures, which is your interest, and let America grow corn, which is its interest, but do not foolishly injure both countries by trying to be yourselves, and compelling the other to be, what obviously frustrates the benevolent design of God. ”

“ I am at a loss to understand what this protection to agriculture means, because I find such contradictory accounts given in this House by the promoters of that system. For instance, nine months ago, when my honorable friend, the member for Wolverhampton [Mr. Villiers] , brought forward his motion for the abolition of the Corn Laws,10 the right honorable gentleman, then the President of the Board of Trade, in replying to him, said that the present Corn Law had been most successful in its operations. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They are permitted to tell their story, day by day, without contradiction, and their uncontradicted falsehoods come, at length, to be regarded as truths ! The League, in like manner, issues, periodically, cheap publications condemnatory of the Corn Laws. These publications are diffused with incredible zeal, and the result will yet be visible on the state of public opinion. It is true, we repeat, that the agricultural interest should shake off its apathy in this matter. The Corn Laws are not to be saved by parliamentary majorities alone. ”

“ About 1840 he printed, for private circulation only, a pamphlet on the corn law question, entitled 'A Word of Consolation,' in which he showed that the farmers and squires need not fear being ruined by the abolition of protection if they would improve their methods of agriculture. ”

“ Because the people almost universally understand that there can be no over-production, while any of their members are deficient in clothing, and that it is not machinery which throws them out of employment, but that selfish legislation which prevents them from exchanging their woollen cloths, their calicoes, their fustians, and their cutlery, for the corn which abounds in other lands, and which, freely imported, would at once increase the demand for labour, and supply abundance of food to the half-starved multitudes. ”

“ Are there no means of conveying or purchasing this corn? The providence of God and the ingenuity of man have made abundant provision for its safe and rapid transferance to our shores, and they that are perishing for want are in possession of that for which it might be obtained. Wherefore, then, the heart-rending and wide-spread misery? It is because men have made a law which practically says, "However rich and plentiful the corn of other countries, it shall not be admitted to our own except for that which we have not to give for it. ”

“ Engrossing and the kindred practices of forestalling and regrating were early regarded as serious offences in restraint of trade, and were punishable both at common law and by statute. They were of more particular importance in relation to the distribution of corn supplies. The statute of 1552 defines engrossing as “buying corn growing, or any other corn, grain, butter, cheese, fish or other dead victual, with intent to sell the same again.” The law forbade all dealing in corn as an article of ordinary merchandise, apart from questions of foreign import or export. ”

“ It was reserved for the enlightened nineteenth century to regard them as deeply to be deplored evils. In 1822, a million of money was lent to enable the growers of corn to keep it out of the market till its price should rise ”

“ He acknowledged that the people were in deep distress, and, looking at the increasing prevalence and power of their demands, he thought the time was not far distant "when a freer and more unrestricted access of foreign corn would more amply repay the efforts of our domestic industry, and secure and extend the harmony of nations." ”

“ That noble lord had said that the producer of corn could not depend upon his own skill and industry, but must rely upon the sunshine and the storm, for the abundance and scarcity of his crop. That was true as to the producers of a particular country. He must depend upon a higher power ”