CHAPTER VII. THE CORN LAWS. Mr. R. Cobden-Old Enactments Prohibiting the Importation of Grain-Import Duties-Prosperity of the Agriculturalists-Poverty of the People-Unsuccessful Attempts at Legislation-Formation of the "National Anti-Corn-Law League"-Mr. Cobden joins it-Mr. Cobden's Grandfather-Mr. Cobden as a Speaker-Mr. Villiers. To connect the threads of the narrative it will be necessary to return to the year 1837, when Mr. Bright took great interest in the subject of popular education, and a meeting was held in the schoolroom of the Baptist Chapel, West-street, Rochdale, to promote education in connection with the establishment of British schools. It was while engaged with this question about that time that Mr. Bright became acquainted with Mr. R. Cobden, whom he visited at his warehouse, in Mosley-street, Manchester, to persuade him to address the meeting at Rochdale. Mr. Cobden's countenance lit up with pleasure, to find that others were working in promoting this question, and he consented. After speaking there he spent the night at Mr. Jacob Bright's house, "and from that time to Mr. Cobden's death," so spoke Mr. J. Bright at a public meeting, "there had never been any cessation, no interruption whatever, of the friendship which existed between us." Up to that time they were unknown to one another, but not far removed, and their orbits every day approaching nearer. There was a wonderful likeness in unlikeness between them. Their opposites drew them at once towards each other. In their union they constituted such gentleness and strength, such clearness and force, such sagacity and courage, such knowledge and address, such purity and zeal, that they became irresistible. In early times, England concurred with the general system of other nations with respect to the importation of grain. First, corn was reserved for home use, then by the 34th Edward III. (1360-61) export was prohibited. In the reign of Richard II. (1394) the lieges were authorised to export grain. By the fourth of Henry VI. (1425) this act was confirmed. Eleven years afterwards a law limited the export, which was renewed in 1441, and made perpetual in 1444. Then came a new light on the Legislature, and by the 3rd Edward IV., c. 2 (1463), the country gentlemen in the House of Commons had a law passed prohibiting the importation of grain, because "the occupiers of farms within the realm of England are daily grievously endangered by bringing corn out of other lands, and brought into this realm of England when corn of the growing of the realm is at a low price." To prevent this, it was enacted that when a quarter of wheat did not exceed 6s. 8d., rye 4s., and barley 3s., no person should import any of these kinds of grain upon pain of forfeiture thereof. Some time after the proclamation, the landlords transferred their patronage from tillage to pasture, on account of the great demand for wool both abroad and at home. The pastoral state in its turn became discredited; thence the 5th and 6th Edward VI. were passed, entitled "An Act for the maintenance and increase of tillage and corn;" and directing that as much land as was under the plough in a parish at the accession of Henry VIII. should be tilled, and for every acre less the parish should pay 5s., yet the reign of Henry VIII. was far from being characterised by abundant food supplies. The 25th of that king speaks of dearths and scarcities, and prohibits exportation without license from the king. In Elizabeth's reign new poor laws were enacted, and old laws enforcing tillage were re-enacted. Still want of home-grown food continued, and in the reign of James I. the nation was dependent upon foreign lands for their supply of corn. After a run of action and reaction, alternating between plenty and want, agriculture resumed its parliamentary despotism. The duties on imported grain were raised in 1670 to 35s. 4d. per quarter, which was virtually to prohibit its import. The 22nd of Charles II., c. 15, advanced on this extravagance. Wheat might be imported subject to a duty of 16s. when in the home market it did not exceed 54s. 3d., and 8s. when it exceeded 80s. Three years after, by the 25th of Charles II., c. 1, a bounty was granted on the export of grain. William and Mary enacted that a bounty of 5s. was to be paid on every quarter exported, when the price of the quarter of wheat in England did not exceed 48s. The landowner who under the protection might have become dependent upon foreign countries for grain, had, in 1791, a law passed raising the price at which importation might take place from 48s. with 6d. duty, to 54s. ; 2s. 6d. was to be charged on import wheat, when the price of English wheat was from 50s. to 54s., and when it was below 50s. imported wheat was to be charged 24s. 3d. the quarter. In 1809 and 1810 our imports of grain exceeded two millions of quarters. 1815.1 THE CORN LAWS. 71 Prices ranged very high during the whole of the period of the only a pretext for a more stringent corn law, by which the ports were to be once more closed until wheat reached the price of 80s. per quarter. The high prices of corn during the war with France had not been brought about by legislative interference, but by natural causes, over which Parliament had no control. It had been a period of great prosperity to landlords, during which farmers also had made large fortunes. It was to both a period of unmixed benefit, and neither class had the slightest ground or pretence to ask of the nation to perpetuate such a state of things. They had derived all the profits from the high prices, and when the natural causes of the high prices no longer existed it was but reasonable and just that high prices should cease. The war had left no taxes or burdens that were not more than shared by the rest of the community; and though some expenses to farming had risen with the high prices, yet most would speedily have fallen and adjusted themselves to low prices. If the system of legislative protection which had been so uniformly and unscrupulously followed were a sound one, the farmers ought to have been the most thriving and fortunate of men, since for centuries back their prosperity had been professedly the especial care of Parliament. The agricultural interest has been the one to which all others have been at nearly all times unsparingly sacrificed, and if the measures on behalf of that interest had not answered, it could only have been either because their object was not attainable, or because they were unwisely adapted to their end. Mr. Frederick Robinson, on the 17th of February, 1815, brought forward in the House of Commons resolutions in favour of prohibiting the importation of wheat when the price was under 80s. per quarter. People in the metropolis protested against this attempt to lay a heavy tax upon their food, and tumults lasted more than a week, but they were quelled by military force. The attention of the country was diverted by Napoleon's escape from Elba, and his landing in France; and, between the time of his landing and the battle of Waterloo, the Corn Bill was passed, the House being surrounded with bristling bayonets. The people at this time were poor, for they had passed through twenty-two years of war, and were loaded with an enormous debt. A million and a half of lives had been sacrificed, trade had been deranged, and a large number of merchants and manu facturers had been ruined. Misery rose out of the obnoxious corn laws, for from them poverty flowed, and overwhelmed the country; its gaunt hand was stretched over the heads of the people, thousands of hearts sank, and the death-rate from that time increased rapidly :— "And still the coffins came With their sorrowful trains and slow, A sad and sickening show." Sir William Curtis on the 17th of February, 1815, told the landed gentry in the House of Commons that rents had in all cases doubled, and in many cases even trebled during the war; and he saw no right of taxation which could justify the interference of Parliament as to the importation of corn. In only two years since the period of the passing of the act the annual average of 80s. a quarter had been reached, and those two years were years of scarcity. The farmers who had contracted to pay rents which only a uniform price of 80s. would enable them to pay, were, of course, impoverished or ruined. : Mr. Henry Hunt, in his address to the electors of Westminster, in 1818, said :—" I will never rest for one hour contented while the starvation law, commonly called the Corn Law, remains in force. Since the Act was passed thousands upon thousands have died from famine in a land of plenty. That Act insures riches to tradesman, the journeyman, the mechanic, and labourer to starve. It was a law which recently caused the ports to be closed, and raised the price of bread from 9d. to ls. 2d., and this only to enrich the landlords and their tenants. Some of the members of the House of Commons were for the Bill when it was introduced and their constituents were petitioning against it. Such men left the poor to starve while they filled their own coffers." ee landowners and great farmers, and leaves the In 1822 this law had to endure the test of abundance, and therefore a cry of agricultural distress was raised, and the Corn Law of 1822 was substituted for it. In 1826, however, it was necessary to pass a temporary act for the admission of foreign grain. In May of the following year all the bonded corn was released by Parliament, and in September of the same year (1827) the ports were opened for corn till forty days after. Earl Fitzwilliam, on the 14th of May, 1833, brought before Parliament resolutions for the revision of the Corn Laws, with a view to their repeal, but they were negatived seriatim without a division. Mr. Whitmore next introduced a motion, on the 183] THE CORN LAWS. 73 17th of the same month, the object being for an alteration in the principle of the law to one of a moderate fixed duty, but it was thrown out by a majority of 199. Mr. Fryer in the following month tried to get leave to bring in a bill to alter the Corn Act of 1828, with a view to admitting colonial grain free of duty; but he was also unfortunate, for the motion was negatived by 72 to 47, the majority being 25. On the 4th of February, 1834, Lord Grey's ministry announced through Lord Althorp that it was not their intention to bring forward any measure for the alteration of the law, nor to support such a measure if introduced by others. Mr. Hume next brought forward a motion, on the 3rd of March, 1834, for a committee to consider the propriety of a moderate fixed duty, but it was rejected, and the majority numbered 157. At the close of 1836 there was a commercial collapse, arising out of the monetary crisis in the United States and its action on our commerce, and this collapse was accompanied by a slightly deficient harvest. The foreign exchange turned against us, yet the cause or causes were very imperfectly understood. A large exportation of bullion was going on, and this compelled a great contraction of commercial accommodation, which was aggravated by the discredit thrown on the best houses, owing to the American revolution. But men abused the Bank of England, and forgot the sliding scale. They talked much of currency, and said little about corn, and 1837 was struggled through, and trade seemed to be recovering, when the deficient harvest of 1838 plunged the country into deeper gloom and suffering, and by this time thinking men were laying their finger on the true cause of these disasters. On the 29th of January, 1834, a meeting of merchants and manufacturers was held in the Exchange Committee room, Manchester, to consider the advisability of agitating for the repeal of the Corn Laws. Messrs. R. H. Greg, R. Potter, M.P., Mark Phillips, M.P., John Shuttleworth, J. B. Smith, J. Brotherton, M.P., and J. C. Dyer addressed the meeting, but the project fell through. The persons who originated the movement which gave rise to the National Anti-Corn-Law League, founded in Manchester in October, 1838, were seven in number; six Scotchmen and one Irishman, namely, Edward Baxter, of Belfast; W. A. Cunningham, Andrew Dalziel, James Howie, of Edinburgh; James Leslie, Archibald Prentice, and Philip Thomson. Mr. William Rawson was the first Englishman that joined the association, and he acted as the treasurer of the |