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Difficulty in deciding on the good or bad influence of the Corn Laws; restrictions on home as well as on foreign trade in corn; gradual abandonment of the attempt to secure just prices by legislation; means adopted to steady prices; prohibition both of exports and of imports: the bounty on homegrown corn; the system established in 1670 and 1689 lasts till 1815; its general effect; influence of seasons from 1689 to 1764, and from 1765 to 1815; difficulty of obtaining foreign supplies during the Napoleonic wars; practical monopoly in the home market: small margin of home supply owing to growth of population; exaggerated effect on prices of good or bad harvests; protection after 1815; demand by agriculturists for fair profits; changed conditions of supply; repeal of the Corn Laws, 1846.
MEN are apt to pass a hasty judgment on the Corn Laws in accordance with their political prejudices. One party condemns them as mischievous; another party approves them as salutary. Neither troubles to consider their practical effect. Yet, from 1689 to 1815, it is probable that the marked deficiency or abundance of the harvest in any single year produced a greater effect on prices than was produced by the Corn Laws in the 125 years of their existence as a complete system.
It is almost impossible to decide whether the total effect of the Corn Laws has been to promote or to retard agricultural progress. Probably the balance of their influence in either direction would be found to be inconsiderable. The utmost nicety of calculation would be required in order to measure with any degree of accuracy the extent to which, before 1815, they affected prices of corn. Before the balance can be correctly struck, the advance in price, which was due to the increased demand consequent on the growth of population and to the gradual depreciation of gold and silver, must be discounted; the fall in price, which resulted from economy in the cost and increase in the yield of production, must be eliminated; an explanation must be offered of the facts that in England, during the seventeenth century, wheat averaged only a halfpenny the bushel cheaper than during the eighteenth century, and that the general prices of Europe, under different fiscal systems, did not, during the period, materially differ from those of England. Still more difficult would it be to determine whether, taken as a whole and over the entire period of their existence, they have benefited or injured consumers, so far as these can be distinguished from producers. If they aggravated evils in some directions, they compensated them in others. Whatever else the legislation effected, it did, except during the last few years of its operation, steady prices, and to consumers steadiness was perhaps as great a boon as a spasmodic cheapness which alternated with excessive dearness. At a time when England was practically dependent on home-grown supplies, prices of corn were extravagantly sensitive to fluctuations in the yield of harvests. The reason is obvious. Average harvests provided bread enough for the population; but there was often little margin to spare. A partial failure, therefore, meant the prospect of dearth, if not of famine. In prolonged periods of scarcity, like that of the Napoleonic wars, our ancestors might pass self-denying ordinances to reduce their domestic consumption by one-third, dispense with flour for their own wigs or the hair of their lackeys, substitute clay imitations for the pastry of their pies, forbid the sale of bread till it was twenty-four hours old, prohibit the use of corn in the making of starch or in distilleries. Yet, in the case of a necessary like corn, it was impossible to exercise such economies as would make good any considerable shortage. Hence corn, when a deficient harvest was anticipated, was specially liable to panic-stricken competition. Any falling off in the annual yield caused a far greater advance in price than was justified by the actual shortage. Somewhat similar, though less exaggerated, was the effect of an anticipated abundance. The fall in price was wholly disproportionate to the real surplus. These violent alternations between dearness and cheapness, if they had not been steadied and regulated by the legislature, would have been disastrous to both consumers and producers.
Beginning in the early Middle Ages, and ending in 1869, the English Corn Laws lasted for upwards of six centuries. Attention has been so exclusively concentrated on one side only of their provisions, that the regulation of the inland trade in corn and the restrictions on its exportation have been long forgotten. Yet, except during the period 1815-46, the duties on foreign grain, which are now regarded as the principal feature of the old Corn Laws, were of minor importance. The successive Governments which framed and revised the legislation on corn were not more enlightened than their contemporaries, for whose direction the regulations were passed; the ultimate effect of their measures was sometimes miscalculated; their policy varied from time to time; different objects were prominent at different periods. But it is impossible to pass any summary sentence of condemnation on the Corn Laws as a system selfishly designed to enrich, at the expense of consumers, a ruling class of landowning aristocrats. On the contrary, if the legislation is treated as a whole, and the restrictions on both exports and imports are examined together, it will be found that, up to 1815, the interests alike of consumers, producers, and the nation were collectively and continuously considered. The general aim of legislators was to maintain an abundant supply of food at fair and steady prices; to assist the agricultural industry in which, up to the middle of the eighteenth century, the great mass of the people were engaged as producers; to prevent the depopulation of rural districts, build up the commercial and maritime power of the nation, make it independent of foreign food supplies, and foster the growth of the infant colonies.
Mediaeval Corn Laws were based on principles of morality, if not of religion. They were akin to the laws against usury. It was considered immoral to prey on human needs, or to take advantage of scarcity by exacting more than a moderate profit on the production of necessaries of life. The object of legislation was, therefore, to establish "just" prices, and in the interest of consumers to restrict the liberty of sellers. The idea that British corn might be cheapened by bringing the granaries of Europe into competition with home supplies had either not suggested itself, or been rejected as impracticable. In order to establish just prices, the methods of early legislators were various. They endeavoured to attain their end, and, incidentally, to secure better profits to producers, by keeping home-grown corn in the country, by regulating the inland trade, by penalising the intervention of middlemen between farmers and their customers, by protecting buyers against the craft of bakers, by preventing monopolies and speculations in grain which, in days when difficulties of transport restricted competition to narrow areas fed by local supplies, were a real danger. To this class of laws belong prohibitions against selling corn out of the country, or transporting it from one district to another; statutes against corndealers who "forestalled," "engrossed," or "regrated " grain; and the Assizes of Bread, which, down to the reign of George II., regulated the actual size of the loaf by the price of corn, instead of proportioning its cost to that of its material. Eventually this class of legislation defeated its own object. It hampered the natural trade in corn, locked up the capital of farmers, and so tended to reduce the area under the plough. But the national dread of corn speculation, of which many laws were the expression, was only paralleled by the national horror of witchcraft, and lasted longer among educated classes. As facilities for internal transport increased, opportunities for local monopolies diminished. Successive steps were taken towards freedom of inland trade. Thus in 1571 corn was permitted to be transported from one district to another on payment of a licence duty of 1s. a quarter; in 1663 liberty to buy corn in order to sell it again was conceded, when it was below a certain limit, provided that it was not resold for three months in the same market; in 1772 the statutory penalties against corn-dealers were repealed as tending to "discourage the growth and enhance the price" of corn; in 1822 the practice of setting out Assizes of Bread was by Act of Parliament discontinued in London; in 1836 an Act, similar in terms to that of London, abolished Assizes in provincial towns and country districts. Instead of attempting to secure just prices by multiplying laws in restraint of speculation, or by regulating the cost of corn and bread, the modern tendency has been to enforce honest dealing by increasing the protection of consumers against false weights and adulteration.
Other means were adopted to maintain steady prices in the interest of consumers and, indirectly, of producers. Thus the erection of public granaries, in which farmers migbt store the surplus of one year against the shortage of the next, was borrowed from Holland, and urged on the country by royal proclamation. In 1620 the King's Council "wrote letters into every shire and some say to every market-town, to provide a granary or storehouse, with stock to buy corn, and keep it for a dear year." A similar object inspired the subsequent institution of bonded warehouses under the King's lock (1663), in which foreign grain might be stored, free of duty, until withdrawn for consumption. Restrictions on the exportation of home-grown corn were governed by the same desire to prevent excesses in surplus or deficiency, and to save the country from violent oscillations between cheapness and clearness. The much debated bounty on exports of grain was designed to produce the same result. Even the regulation of imports of foreign corn was partly governed by the same desire to secure a steady level of price.
At an early date prohibitions against exporting corn were influenced by political motives of retaliation on the king's enemies, just as the corresponding permission was affected by considerations of the needs of the public treasury. Revenue, though never the first aim of the Corn Laws, was, in mediaeval times and again under the Stewarts, a secondary object. To this extent the special interests, not only of consumers and producers, but also of the nation, were thus early brought into play. Originally, corn was only exported by those who had obtained, and in most cases bought, the king's licence. But the exercise of the royal prerogative in the grant of licences provoked a constitutional struggle, which for three centuries was fought with varying fortunes. The principle at stake was the control of Parliament over all taxation. In 1393 freedom of export was allowed by statute; but the statutory liberty might be overridden by the king in Council. Seventy years later (1463) the royal power to prohibit or permit exportation was taken away, and, instead of the sovereign's discretion, a scale of prices was fixed below which trade in corn was allowed. More despotic than their immediate predecessors, the Tudor sovereigns reasserted the royal right to grant licences. Special circumstances may have justified the claim and its exercise. Agriculturally, the general aim of the Tudors was to encourage tillage in order to counteract the depopulating tendencies of sheep-farming. Commercially, they desired to build up a foreign trade as the chief support of sea power, and English corn was one of the commodities which they hoped to exchange for foreign produce. On both grounds they fostered a trade in exported grain. But uncontrolled liberty of sending corn out of the country might have raised home prices by depleting home supplies. It may therefore have seemed essential to Tudor statesmen that the royal power of prohibiting exports should be revived in the interest of consumers. The emptiness of the royal treasury drove the Stewarts to seek in this control of the corntrade an independent source of income, and it was one of the complaints against Charles I. that he had exercised the royal prerogative in order to swell his revenue. Ultimately the constitutional principle triumphed. From the Restoration down to 1815 freedom to export home-grown corn was controlled and regulated by the legislature in accordance with scales of prices current in the home market. At the same time the power of the king in Council to suspend the laws regulating both exports and imports of grain was retained in use and sanctioned by Parliament.
At the Restoration the fiscal policy of the country towards corn assumed a more definite shape. Statutes were passed in 1660, 1663, and 1670, which regulated both exports and imports of corn. The two sets of regulations cannot henceforward be considered separately. The one was the complement of the other. The Act of 1660 allowed home-grown corn to be exported when prices at the port of shipment did not exceed, for wheat, 40s. per quarter; for rye, peas, and beans, 24s.; for barley and malt, 20s.; for oats, 16s. The same Act levied a duty of 2s. a quarter on imports of foreign wheat, when home prices were at or under 44s. a quarter above that price, the duty was reduced to 4d. Proportionate duties were imposed on other foreign grains according to their prices in the home market. These scales of duties and prices were revised in the Act of 1663. In the Acts both of 1660 and 1663 the object of the Government seems to have been revenue, for the scales of duties on foreign imports are remarkably low: In 1670, however, this policy was changed. In this Act "for the Improvement of Tillage" corn might be exported, though the home prices rose above the limit fixed in 1663. At the same time prohibitive duties were levied on imports of foreign corn. When wheat, for instance, stood at under 53s. 4d. a quarter, a duty of 16s, a quarter was imposed on foreign corn; when the home price was between 53s. 4d. and 80s., the duty was reduced to 8s.; when prices rose above 80s., the ordinary poundage of 4d. a quarter only was chargeable. On other foreign grains, at proportionate prices, similar duties were levied.
In the reign of William and Mary an addition was made to the system. When the home price of wheat was at, or under, 48s. a quarter, a bounty of 5s. a quarter was allowed on every quarter of home-grown wheat exported. Similar bounties were allowed on the export of other grains at proportionate prices. In the Parliamentary debates on this measure the interests both of consumers and producers were avowedly considered. On the one side, the Act was unquestionably framed for the benefit of producers, to relieve them of accumulated stock, and so to enable them to bear increased public burdens. On the other side, it was expected that the stimulus of the bounty would promote production, bring a larger area of land under the plough, increase the quantity of home-grown grain, and so provide a more constant supply of corn at steady prices and a lower average. For the first sixty-five years of the eighteenth century results seemed to justify the argument. But it is difficult to determine how far the low range of prices which prevailed from 1715 to 1765 was due to prosperous seasons, or how far it was the effect of the stimulus to employ improved methods on an increased area of land. In years of scarcity, the direct effect of the bounty was inconsiderable, because not only was that encouragement withdrawn, but the liberty to export any home-grown corn was also suspended. In years of abundance, the bounty, by stimulating exportation, may have checked the natural fall of prices. But it was urged that this advantage to producers was a reasonable compensation for the loss they sustained in years of scarcity from the frequent prohibitions of exports; that prices were steadied; that no violent fall drove parts of the corn-area out of cultivation; that the home-supply, on which alone the country could depend, was therefore more abundant than it otherwise would have been; that, as the bounty was paid without regard to the quality of the exported grain, English consumers benefited by the retention of the superior qualities for home consumption. Possibly consumers may have found that these advantages counter'-balanced the loss sustained in years of abundance by the interference with natural cheapness, and were a set off to the loss of the six million pounds, which, between 1697 and 1765, were raised by taxation, and in the shape of bounties paid over to producers.
The fiscal policy on which the Government embarked in 1689 practically governed the corn trade down to 1815. Scales of regulating prices were often revised; but the principles remained the same. On one side, the import of foreign corn was in ordinary years practically prohibited by heavy duties. On the other side, home production was artificially stimulated in order that a larger area might be maintained under corn cultivation than was required in average seasons for the maintenance of the population. In the 125 years during which this system prevailed, two periods may be distinguished; the first lasting from 1689 to 1765, the second extending from 1765 to 1815.
In considering the results of the fiscal policy of the Government during the first of these two periods, it must be remembered that both sets of laws were in operation at the same time. When prices were below a certain level, foreign imports were practically prohibited, exports of home-grown corn permitted, and the quantity of production stimulated by bounties. When home prices rose above a certain level, the bounties ceased, exports were prohibited, and imports of foreign grain admitted duty free or at reduced rates. It is, therefore, not easy to decide, whether consumers gained most by the laws which kept corn in the country, or lost most by those which kept it out. In the twentieth century, when there is a large additional or alternative supply of grain, produced under different climatic conditions to our own, there could be no question that the loss inflicted by the prohibition of imports would be incomparably the greatest. But the conditions of the corn-markets of the world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were so widely different, that the policy of the Government may not then have been unreasonable. Additional supplies were only obtainable from Northern Europe. But the north of France, the Netherlands, Denmark, North-west Germany, and, to a less extent, North-east Germany and Poland, were affected by similar climatic conditions to those of England. Thus in unfavourable seasons the whole corn-area then available suffered simultaneously from deficient harvests. Throughout the period 1689-1765 the average price of wheat in England is stated to have been less by 4d. a quarter than the average price in Continental markets. Foreign corn, therefore, after bearing the cost of transport and insurance, seldom less than 12s. a quarter and often increased by war-risks, could not have reduced English prices, even if no import duties had been levied. Consumers were not shut out from an alternative and cheaper supply, because no other supply was available except at higher prices than were being paid for homegrown grain. On the other hand, they profited considerably by the results of the fiscal policy pursued in England. In average seasons England grew not only corn for her own people, but a surplus for exportation. It was only in adverse seasons that any deficiency was probable. When this was anticipated, the Government had two strings to its bow. The ports were closed against exports, and, if the supply continued inadequate, were opened to imports. It seemed probable, therefore, that consumers suffered no injury from the heavy duty on imports, or that, if they were injured at all, their loss was infinitesimal.
During the period 1689-1765, neither the bounties, nor the liberty of exportation, nor the restriction on imports, were continuously operative. In nine years the bounty was suspended, or the exportation of home-grown corn altogether prohibited. Generally this expedient succeeded; the unusual quantity of corn retained in the country met the deficiency. But in three years out of the nine the further step was taken. In 1741, and both in 1757 and 1758 foreign corn was admitted duty free. The total amount of wheat imported into the country in those three years was 169,455 quarters. In these exceptional years, war and war-taxes, the restoration of the currency, or the gradual growth of the population may have specially affected English prices, and the bounty may, as its opponents asserted, have assisted their upward tendency. But all these causes in combination were comparatively unimportant. Throughout European markets the dearth or the abundance of grain, together with high or low prices, mainly depended one the weather, which generally affected the whole corn-area in the same way. The last seven years of the seventeenth century, for instance, were long remembered in Scotland as the "seven ill years," and in England they were almost equally disastrous. The winters of 1708-9 and 1739-40 were two of the three winters which were famous in the eighteenth century for their prolonged severity. Both were followed by deficient harvests. The wet spring, summer, and autumn of 1756 produced a scarcity of corn, and the great heat of 1757 caused the crops to be too light to make good the previous shortage. These unfavourable seasons were not peculiar to England. They prevailed throughout Northern Europe, and the advance of prices was general. But in France, where the Government discouraged exports of grain and encouraged imports, the distress was acuter and more lasting than in England, where the opposite fiscal policy was adopted. England, in other words, profited in these years of scarcity by the large reserve which the bounty helped to maintain.
With the exception of the years in which these deficient harvests occurred, the period was generally prosperous for the labouring classes in England. The level of prices was low and steady. As compared with the average price of wheat in the seventeenth century, the first sixty-five years of the eighteenth century show a fall of 16 per cent., and this relative cheapness was accompanied by a rise of the same percentage in the wages of agricultural labour. It seems probable that the reign of George II. was the nearest approach to the Golden Age of the labouring classes. Necessaries of life were cheap and abundant ; population showed no rapid increase, but the standard of living improved. Complaints of the low prices were loud. It was said that farmers could not pay their rents and landowners could "scarce support their families." The low range of prices quoted by Eden for the years 1742-1756 is remarkable for a country which was entirely dependent upon home supplies, was a considerable exporter of grain, and in nine out of the fifteen years was engaged in war at home or abroad.
A succession of prices so low as those shown in the Table would naturally have driven a considerable area out of cultivation for corn, and an advance of price would have been caused by a diminution of the supply. The practical effect of the bounty seems to have been that this natural result was to some degree counteracted, though throughout the century a large area of corn-land was being converted to pasture. Thus a surplus was provided which, in years of European scarcity, mitigated the dearth at home. During the whole period from 1715 to 1765 the total imports of foreign corn did not exceed 300,000 quarters, while home-grown corn was sent out of the country to the amount of 11¼ millions. The largest amount of wheat exported in any single year was reached in 1750, when the quantity was 950,483 quarters.
January Prices of Grain at Mark Lane and Bear Quay.
YEARS. WHEAT. BARLEY. OATS.
s. s. s. s. s. s.
1742 26 to 29 15 to 20 12 to 15
1743 20 " 23 15 " 20 13 " 16
1744 19 " 21 11 " 13 9 " 12
1745 18 " 20 12 " 15 12 " 16
1746 16 " 24 10 " 12 12 " 14
1747 27 " 30 8 " 12 6 " 9
1748 26 " 28 13 " 14 9 " 12
1749 27 " 32 17 " 18 14 " 16
1750 24 " 29 14 " 17 12 " 14
1751 24 " 27 14 " 17 13 " 14
1752 33 " 34 17 " 19 12/6" 16
1753 29 " 33 17 " 18 10/6" 12
1754 27 " 33 17 " 19 12/6" 13
1755 24 " 26 12 " 14 10 " 13
1756 22 " 26 14 " 15 12 " 13/6
During the second period (1765-1815) the Government maintained the same fiscal policy of regulating both exports and imports, and of encouraging exportation by means of bounties within a certain range of prices. But in all other respects the two periods are sharply contrasted. The first period was remarkable for low prices, a large export trade in homegrown corn, and the prosperity of the labouring classes; the second period is equally remarkable for high prices, a growing importation of foreign corn, and widespread misery among the wage-earning population. When the fiscal system was practically unaltered, to what causes must these differences be attributed?
The average price of wheat during the half century which ended in 1764, was in the next fifty years practically trebled. The tendency is shown in the following decennial averages of the prices of wheat per quarter
1765-74 - - - - - 51s. 1775-84 - - - - - 43s. 1785-94 - - - - - 47s. 1795-1804 - - - - 75s. 1805-14 - - - - - 93s. 1815-24 - - - - - 68s.
It was now that England ceased to be a corn-exporting country and became a buyer of foreign grain. The year 1765 marks the first stage in this revolution in the English corn-trade. For some few years the balance hovered from side to side, inclining to excess now of exports, now of imports. After 1792 it definitely turned in favour of imports, which from that date increasingly preponderated. During the whole period which witnessed this change, the fiscal policy, though often revised, and notably in 1773 and 1791, remained in principle the same. But from 1765 to 1774, and again from 1792 to 1814, the liberty to export corn, as well as the bounty which encouraged exportation, was almost continuously suspended. Imports of foreign corn were also repeatedly admitted at reduced rates or duty free. This was the case in 1765, 1766-8, 1772-3, in 1783, in 1790, and practically from the commencement of the French war (1793) till its final close. Besides the frequent revisions and suspensions of the regulating prices, great efforts were made to increase home and foreign supplies. Thus in 1772 the inland trade was relieved from many restrictions by the repeal of the statutory penalties against "badgers, forestallers, engrossers, and regrators." To increase the area under corn, numerous enclosure Acts were passed. To eke out the home produce, economies were enforced by Parliament. Thus the hair-powder tax was imposed in 1795, and the use of wheat and other grain in the making of starch or in distilleries was repeatedly prohibited. Still more exceptional efforts were made to secure a supply of foreign corn. Government agents were employed to buy corn in the Baltic, as it was feared that private merchants would hesitate to pay the high prices which were demanded abroad. Corn in neutral ships, destined for foreign ports, was seized and carried to England. Bounties on imports of grain which had been offered in 1773 at the rate of 4s. a quarter by the City of London, were offered by the Government at the rate of from 16s. to 20s. a quarter in 1795-6 and again in 1800 and the years that followed. Substitutes for ordinary corn, such as rice and maize, were eagerly bought: the cultivation of the potato was greatly increased. But in spite of all these efforts to provide food, the scarcity continued until there seemed to be a real prospect of a failure in the supply of provisions. In 1812 the country stood on the very verge of famine. Shut out from Continental ports, at war not only with Napoleon but with America, England was reduced to acute and extreme distress. Conditions were at their worst. In August of that year the average price of wheat at Mark Lane was 155s. per quarter; prices of other grains, as well as of meat, rose in proportion; at the end of October the potato crop was found to have failed by one-fourth. The year was one of the most severe suffering. But 1813 brought relief. An abundant harvest lowered prices with extraordinary rapidity. In December wheat had fallen to 73s. 6d. In 1814 the fiscal system which had lasted, though with many interruptions, since 1689, was finally abolished. After June of that year corn, grain, meal, and flour were allowed to be exported without payment of duty and without receiving any bounty. Henceforward the Corn Laws only survived in the one-sided form of restrictions on imports.
The high prices which prevailed in the second period (1765-1815) have been explained in various ways. They have been attributed to the improper practices of corn-dealers, the growth of population, the consolidation of holdings and diminution of open-field farming, the depreciation of the currency, unfavourable seasons, the war, or the fiscal system. Each of these causes may have contributed to the upward tendency of prices. But the most effective reasons for the dearness of corn were the weather and the war. These two causes alone would sufficiently explain the continued scarcity. Even under a system of absolute free trade, they would produce the same results to-day, if England still drew her supplementary supplies of corn from the same limited area at home and abroad.
The growth of the population is undoubtedly an important factor in the problem. Between 1689 and 1815 the increase was considerable, though, like most of the political arithmetic which relates to the eighteenth century, the actual numbers are largely a matter of guess-work. In 1696 Gregory King estimated the population of England and Wales at 5,500,000. At the accession of George III. (1760), the numbers were supposed to have risen to between six and seven millions. As the reign advanced, the rate of increase was accelerated. The first official census was taken in 1801. In that year the population of England and Wales is stated to be 8,872,980. In 1811 it had grown to 10,150,615. On these figures the population had doubled itself in 125 years, and, even if no allowance is made for an improved standard of living, it is probable that England during the same period had doubled her production of food. The increased supply required to feed double the numbers was certainly not obtained from abroad, for food imports, even at their highest, continued to be infinitesimal in amount . It was therefore produced at home.
In the case of wheat it would be difficult to prove the same rate of progress. In abundant seasons the home supply would probably have continued to feed the country, without risk of inadequacy or panic-stricken competition, and therefore cheaply. But in ordinary seasons the margin was at best a small one, and in unfavourable weather a deficit was certain. It has been disputed whether six bushels or eight bushels of wheat should be allowed as the average quantity yearly consumed by each person. At the higher rate of consumption, and assuming that wheat was the food of the whole population, seven million quarters of wheat would be required in 1760, and ten million quarters in 1811. Arthur Young, in 1771, calculated that 2,795,808 acres were then under cultivation for wheat in England and Wales, and that the average produce per acre was three quarters, giving a total yield of 8,387,424 quarters. In 1808, Comber estimated the wheat area of England and Wales at 3,160,000 acres, and the produce, adopting Young's average rate, would be 9,480,000 quarters. In other words, while the population had increased by three millions, the wheat production had increased by only one million quarters. This calculation, however, allows nothing for the increased productiveness of the soil under improved management, does not take into account the surplus wheat obtainable from Scotland and Ireland, and is at first sight contradicted by the large acreage which enclosures had added to the cultivated area. Evidence indeed exists to prove that the first effect of enclosures of open-field farms was often to diminish the corn area. Against this decrease must be set the quantity of land which, under the spur of the high prices of the Napoleonic war, were brought under the plough and tilled for corn. Comber's calculation of the wheat area appears to be extremely low; but it is impossible to prove the suspected under-estimate. It is probably safe to say that, while in an average season enough wheat was grown in England and Wales to feed ten million people, the surplus was so small as to expose the country to panic prices whenever a deficiency in the normal yield was anticipated.
This conclusion is confirmed by a closer examination of the yield of corn harvests during the period. The seasons from 1765 to 1815 were far less favourable than those from 1715 to 1764 ; the former were as uniformly prosperous as the latter were uniformly adverse. Both in this country, and throughout Europe, the harvests of 1765-67, 1770-74, fell much below the average. Prices rose high. Exports dwindled, and imports increased in volume. In the decennial period 1765-1774, for the first time in the history of English farming, imports of foreign wheat exceeded the home-grown exports. Since that period they have never lost their preponderance. For the next eighteen years (1775-1792) the seasons were irregular. Thus the harvest of 1779 was long famous for its productiveness. On the other hand; the years 1782-3-4 were most unfavourable, the winters unusually severe, and the spring and summer cold and ungenial. There was a general scarcity of food. In 1782 the imports of wheat (584,183 quarters) were the largest yet known, and the figure was only once (1796: 879,200 quarters) exceeded in the eighteenth century. Writing in August, 1786, Arthur Young says: "Last winter, hay, straw, and fodder of all kinds were scarcer and dearer than ever known in this Kingdom. Severe frosts destroyed the turnips, and cattle of all kinds, and sheep suffered dreadfully; many died, and the rest were in ill plight to fatten early in this summer." The crops of 1789 again were deficient. Exports were prohibited, and free imports permitted. But in France the scarcity almost amounted to famine. The Government spent large sums in the purchase of wheat, and Continental prices ruled considerably above those of England. Against the deficient harvests of 1790 and 1792 may be set the season of 1791, which was so favourable that, for the last time in the history of the corn-trade," the exports of the following year exceeded the imports.
It will be seen that the yield of fourteen of the harvests during the twenty-eight years 1765-92 fell so far below the average as to create a scarcity; that several others were defective; and that only two (1779 and 1791) were really abundant. Yet, during the whole period, the total excess of imports of foreign wheat over the exports of home-grown produce only amounted to 1,661,000 quarters, or an average of little more than 59,000 quarters a year. It may, therefore, be reasonably assumed that, if England had enjoyed seasons as uniformly favourable as those of 1715-64, she would have been able to feed her growing population at low prices and yet to remain a grain-exporting country. The fact is a striking proof of her agricultural progress. It is more than doubtful whether such an expansion of her powers of production would have been possible if the open-field system of farming had been maintained.
In February, 1793, war was proclaimed with France. It continued with two brief intervals till 1815. As the struggle progressed the area of conflict was widened until it embraced America as well as Europe, and not only became a naval and military war in which all the Powers were engaged, but developed into a commercial blockade directed against this country. During the whole period the Corn Laws were practically inoperative. The progress of the war created conditions of supply which alone would suffice to explain an unprecedented rise of prices. But the situation was throughout aggravated by an unusual recurrence of unproductive seasons.
The wheat harvests in the twenty-two years 1793-1814 may be thus analysed. Fourteen were deficient ; in seven out of the fourteen, the crops failed to a remarkable extent, namely, in 1795, 1799, 1800, 1809, 1810, 1811, 1812. Six produced an average yield. Only two, 1796 and 1813, were abundant; but the latter was long regarded as the best within living memory. Towards the close of the period, the increased extent of the wheat area to some degree compensated for the comparative failure of the crops. But the repeated deficiencies created an almost continuous apprehension of real scarcity which was expressed in abnormal prices. To a generation which draws its supplies from sources so remote that climatic conditions vary almost infinitely, the panic may seem unintelligible. It was not so in the days of the Napoleonic wars. The quantity available from the United States was scanty, and over the corn areas of Europe a similar series of unproductive seasons seems to have prevailed. To this, however, there was one notable exception. The harvests of 1808 and 1809 were remarkably favourable in France and the Netherlands, and, at the very height of the struggle with Napoleon, it was from the French cornfields that England obtained her additional supplies.
The deficiency of the home harvests and the consequent fear of scarcity naturally raised prices of corn. The upward tendency was in various ways enormously increased by the progress of the war and the commercial blockade which it developed. No doubt the struggle in which the country was engaged quickened the activity and industry of the population, stimulated agricultural improvements, sharpened the inventive faculties to economise both in money and in labour. On the other hand, the war raised the rate of interest, added to the burden of taxation, increased the cost of corn-growing, and withdrew into unproductive channels a considerable portion of the capital and labour of the country. Besides these ordinary results, the peculiar character which the struggle gradually assumed threatened to deprive England of any alternative supply of foreign grain which could supplement the resources that she derived from her own soil, from Scotland, and from Ireland. Again and again the political situation was reflected in Mark Lane. Thus, in 1800, it was not merely the prospect or subsequent certainty of an unproductive harvest which raised prices, for the actual deficiency had been greater in 1794-5. It was the further dread of being cut off from foreign supplies. It was the hostility of Russia and Denmark, the consequent fear that the Baltic would be closed against our grain-ships, and the almost simultaneous news that Prussia had imposed a heavy duty on all grain exports; which combined to send wheat to 130s. a quarter. At a later stage in the struggle, the deficiency in our home supply was less in 1811-12 than it had been in 1794-5 or in 1799-1800. But it was the threat of a complete stoppage of all foreign supplies by the Berlin and Milan decrees, which turned the dread of scarcity into a panic-stricken competition and carried the price of wheat in 1812 to 155s. a quarter. Even if the war never actually effected a commercial blockade, its risks, together with the restrictions on exports enforced by foreign Powers and the licences for navigation required by the British Government, forced up the rates of freight and insurance to a prodigious height. During the period 1810-12, this increase in the costs of conveyance culminated, and the charges for the transport of foreign corn rose to as much as 50s. a quarter. Thus, even if it was possible to obtain additional supplies from abroad, they could only be brought into the country at an unprecedented expense.
The history of the Corn Laws, thus briefly outlined, confirms the impression that, down to 1815, they exercised little or no influence on prices. If that is so, they were not the cause of the great rise of rents which the last quarter of a century had witnessed. Hitherto the only practical effect of the restrictions on imports had been to prevent corn from being brought into the country for the purpose of gaining the bounty on exportation. In ordinary years, no foreign corn could have been imported, even duty free, at prices which could reduce, or compete with, home-grown produce. In years of scarcity, the deficiency generally extended over Europe, and foreign supplies were either not obtainable, or obtainable only at prices at least as high as our own. During the frequent periods of war, these conditions were aggravated by the prodigious cost of transport. Great Britain had in the main fed her own population, and her prices had depended on the seasons. Consumers had not suffered irom the Corn Laws, because no alternative cheaper supply was available from abroad.
After 1815 these conditions were to a great extent altered. The bounty on exportation had been abolished. Freedom of export was allowed, and was never suspended, because there was no margin of produce which could be retained in the country by prohibiting it from being sent abroad. Population was beginning to equal production. So long as there had been a surplus of home-grown grain, which could be kept in the country by suspending the licence to export, the Corn Laws had steadied prices. Now, in times of scarcity, they only increased the range of fluctuation in rise and fall by excluding alternative supplies. Revenue was not their object, because the duties were so high as to be prohibitory. They were frankly protective, intended to shut out imports, and so maintain the prices of home-grown produce above a permanent level. Even so, the interests of consumers would not necessarily have been sacrificed to those of producers, unless an additional and cheaper supply had been obtainable. That condition was now, in most years, fulfilled. The charges of transport had fallen to their peace level; throughout Northern Europe corn was once more sown and reaped without fear of the ravages of war, and Continental prices ruled below those of Great Britain: from the New World came an increasing supply, which was not affected by the same climatic conditions as those of the North of Europe. Henceforth external sources existed, from which deficiencies in the yield of home harvests might be supplied without raising prices beyond the addition of the costs of conveyance. If to these costs were added the payment of heavy duties, it might be said that the price of bread was artificially raised to maintain the level of the profits of landowners and farmers.
Another important change had taken place in the position of the antagonists in the coming struggle over the prices of corn. The issue was no longer centred on principles of abstract morality ; it was transferred to the practical region of trade. Our ancestors passed laws to establish just prices; their successors legislated to secure reasonable profits. The change may have been a change rather of words than of ideas. But it was not without significance. Down to the middle of the eighteenth century, the great preponderance of the nation had been interested in prices both as consumers and producers of corn. Now the proportions were completely altered, and the majority had permanently shifted. The new manufacturing class was rapidly growing; the mass of open-field farmers had become agricultural labourers, whose real wages rose with the cheapness or fell with the dearness of bread. On the other hand, the interests of producers of corn were now represented by a comparatively small and dwindling class of landowners and farmers, who in recent years had enormously raised their own standard of living. Numerically small, but politically powerful, this class was convinced that the war-prices yielded only reasonable profits. The great majority of the population was convinced to the contrary.
Yet it would be unfair to represent that the protective policy of the later Corn Laws was entirely maintained by a Parliamentary majority swayed by selfish motives. It was supported, up to a certain point, by many who stood outside the circle of the landed interests, and ranked as disciples of Adam Smith. It never entered into their calculations that Great Britain could ever become dependent for its food supply on foreign countries. On the contrary, the view was strongly held that every prosperous nation must in ordinary seasons rely for its means of subsistence on its own resources, and must meet the growth of numbers with a corresponding increase in the supply of food. This doctrine was almost universally accepted. Porter, the author of The Progress of the Nation, 1847, was an advanced Free Trader. But he argued that "every country which makes great and rapid progress in population must make equal progress in the production of food." He quotes the example of Great Britain in support of his view. By comparing the growth of population with the increase in the quantity of imported wheat, he shows that improvements in agriculture had, to a remarkable extent, enabled the country to keep pace with its increasing needs. Thus in 1811, when the population of Great Britain was ascertained to be 11,769,725, only 600,946 were fed by foreign wheat. At the end of the next decade, 1811-20, the population had risen to 13,494,217, and the home supply was enough for all but 458,576. At the close of the third decade, 1821-30, the population had grown to 15,465,474 ; yet only 534,992 depended on the foreign supply. In 1841, the numbers had increased to 17,535,826; but home-grown wheat fed all but 907,638 persons. In other words, British wheat, in 1811, had fed a population of 11,168,779 ; in 1841, enough wheat was produced at home to feed a population of 16,628,188. Thus in thirty years British land had increased its productiveness by 5½ million quarters. Porter evidently expected that this proportionate progress would continue. He himself advocated the repeal of the Corn Laws; but there were other Free Traders who hesitated to go this length, for fear that improvements should be discouraged, and that the country should mainly depend for its bread upon foreign wheat.
Agriculturists also argued, and no doubt conscientiously believed, that, if corn in any quantity were brought into the country from abroad, home-prices would cease to yield reasonable profits; that agricultural land would be forced out of cultivation; that rents and wages would fall; that rural employment would diminish; that the virility of the nation would be impaired by the influx into towns and the consequent depopulation of country districts. To these arguments Parliament lent a sympathetic ear. The limit of home-prices, at which the importation of grain was allowed at nominal duties, was raised in the case of wheat from 48s. in 1773 to 85s. in 1815. Below those limits, duties, so heavy as to be practically prohibitive, were levied on imported corn or on its removal from the bonded warehouses for consumption. In 1828 the evils of this restrictive legislation, though apparently modified, were really aggravated by the adoption of a sliding scale of duties, which varied with the prices of home-grown grain. The importation of corn became a gamble, and foreign importers combined to raise home-prices in order to pay the lower scale of duties. Yet in spite of this experience the graduated system was maintained in the legislation of 1842 and 1845.
Meanwhile the whole protective policy, of which the Corn Laws only formed a part, was gradually becoming discredited. In 1815 a minority of the Peers had entered a powerful protest against the exclusion of foreign corn. In 1820 the merchants presented their famous petition, which was drawn up by Thomas Tooke, the author of the History of Prices. A war of pamphlets raged continuously. In the treatment of colonial produce especially, there were signs of the abandonment of a rigidly protective policy. The principle of colonial preference, already recognised in 1766, had been acted upon in 1791, 1804, and 1815. Corn from British possessions was allowed to be imported at a nominal duty at a lower limit of home-prices than that fixed for foreign produce. Ten years later, corn from the British possessions of North America was permitted to enter British ports at a constant duty of 5s. without reference to home-prices. In 1843 this principle was carried yet further. A special concession was made to Canada. In return for a preference granted to British trade, Canadian corn, irrespective of home-prices, was admitted at a nominal duty of 1s. Encouraged by these concessions, the agitation against the Corn Laws gathered strength. It gradually extended from a demand for the relaxation of the stringent duties to a demand for their total abolition. For a brief period the pressure was reduced by the favourable seasons of 1831-36. In 1835, wheat fell to 39s. 4d., the lowest price at which it had been sold for 54 years. Hopes revived that the improvements in farming had again placed production on a level with the growth of population. The Corn Laws were for the moment forgotten. But the unfavourable cycle of 1837-41 again forced the question to the front. From 1839 onwards the Anti-Corn-Law League used its growing influence in favour of total repeal. The demand for cheap food grew more and more insistent from the labouring classes. Manufacturers echoed the cry, because cheap food meant a lower cost of production, and because food imports would be paid for by exported manufactures. Finally, the disastrous harvest of 1845 and the potato famine compelled the Government to yield. The "rain rained away" the Corn Laws. In 1846 the existing duties were modified according to a scale which was to continue in force till February 1, 1849. After that date all kinds of foreign corn were to be admitted at the nominal fixed duty of 1s. a quarter. That nominal duty was finally repealed in 1869.