Throughout these various changes there were not wanting writers and speakers who denounced the C. L., and agitated for their removal. But the public at large, though conscious that the laws were some way improper, or at variance with the principles of political economy, did not, till the very last, earnestly unite in calling for repeal. There was a powerful party who defended the C. L., and represented, with wonderful plausi bility, that these restrictive statutes were identified with the best interests of the try. Their arguments might thus be summed up: 1. Protection was necessary, in order to keep certain poor lands in cultivation. 2. It was desirable to cultivate as much land as possible, in order to improve the country. 3, if improvement by that means were to cease, we should be dependent on foreigners for a large portion of the food of the people. 4. Such dependence would be fraught with immense danger; in the event of war, supplies might be stopped, or our ports might be blockaded, the result being famine, disease, and civil war. 5. The advantage gained by protection enabled the landed proprietors and their tenants to encourage manufactures and trade; so much so, that if the C. L. were abolished, half the country shopkeepers would be ruined; that would be followed by the stoppage of many of the mills and factories; large numbers of the working-classes would be thrown idle; disturbances would ensue; capital would be withdrawn; and no one would venture to say what would be the final consequences. It cannot be uninstructive to put on record that these arguments exercised a commanding influence over the laboring classes, the small-town shopkeepers, almost all the members of the learned professions, and a considerable section of both houses of parliament. Ignorance, prejudice, and timidity were united with selfishness in maintaining the C. L. • and in point of fact, those who endeavored to represent the impolicy of a restricted trade in corn, were generally set down as little better than mischief-makers. The most surprising thing of all was, that the statesmen who ultimately joined in condemning the C. L., could contemplate no other modification than an ascending and descending scale of duties, according as prices fell or rose in the market. About 1840, there was no term better known than that of the The object of this device was to reduce the import duty as the price of grain increased, for the purpose of virtually prohibiting the importation when the price was low, and encouraging it when the price was high, so that at famine prices grain might come in duty free. By the act of 1828, the price of 62s. a quar ter on wheat was taken as the turning-point. At that price the import duty 4s. 8d. For every shilling less in the price, a shilling was added to the duty. When the price rose above this point, a different gradation ruled, the duty decreasing by a larger ratio than the rise. Thus, when the price was 69s., the duty was 15s. 8d.; and when it
rose to 73s., the duty sunk to its minimum of 1s. The effect of this fluctuation in ren dering the trade a gambling one was, one would think, obvious, and yet it was not acknowledged until it had been proved by a series of ruinous instances. Thus, an importer who, when the price of grain was 73s. a quarter, bought a cargo, if the price sunk 4s. before he could accomplish a sale, had not only to sell at that reduced price, but with a further reduction of 14s. 8d. a quarter paid as duty. What was still more impor tant, the supplies to this country being so capricious and irregular, foreign countries did not grow corn habitually for the British market. In 1843, sir Robert Peel tried a modi fication of the slidino.-scale, which did not in the least degree mitigate the hostility to the C. L., the noxious nature of which was now beginning to be better understood. Roused by the addresses of Mr. Cobden, Mr. Bright, and other leaders of the anti-corn-law league (q.v.), the people poured in petitions to parliament; and at length sir Robert yielding to representations on the subject, and now avowedly a convert to free-trade (q.v.), carried a measure to put an end to the O. L. in 1846.
The results of the repeal are well known. Every evil prognostication has been falsi fied. The liberation of the trade in corn has not, however, lowered the price of bread to the extent that some persons anticipated. This Is accounted for as follows: an increased demand in consequence of the population increasing in numbers, and also improving in means and taste; the cost of freight and other charges virtually protect the home-grower to the extent of several shillings a quarter; and the misdirection of capital from agriculture to manufactures in the United States cheeks the development of the exports of breadstuffs from that country. The small registration duty of ls. a quarter, maintained till 1869, was abolished in that year; since which time the impor tation cf corn is absolutely free. The substantial benefits arising from the repeal of the C. L. consist in the stimulus given to trade, the removal of apprehensions as to the effects of insufficient harvests, along with a certain modification and less fluctuation in price. The following table§ will convey the best illustration of the effects of repeal of the corn laws: An alteration in the mode of making the trade returns prevents us from giving a continuation of these tables. In 1858, the total import of wheat, grain, and flour was 23,200,941 cwts. ; in 1872, it was 47,612,896. Between the period 1801-10 and 1841-50, we find an increase in the value of British and Irish exports of £16,674,524. Their value in 1871 was £282,380,726, showing an increase over the average, of the period 1841-50 of no less than £224,968,232. The value of British and Irish imports in 1851 was £100,460,433; in 1871, it was £329,855,143, showing an increase of £229,394,710.