1842 to 1849.
The following was the scale of prices and rates of duty for foreign wheat under 5 Viet. c. 14:— The lowest rate of duty (Is. per quar ter) occurs for rye, peas, and beans, when the price is 42s. and upwards the quarter; on barley when the price is 378. ; and on oats when the price is 27s. and upwards. The lowest duty for wheat is not reached by jerks, as in the former scale, by which the duty fell at each increase of Is. in price from 10s. 8d. to 6s. 8d , and next to 2s. 8d. and Is., and the "rest" between 66s. and 698. is an important modification. Still, like the preceding scale, the present did not admit of a steady trade with every country which had corn to export; and it was in fact only a mitigated evil. One hundred and thirty-eight new towns were added by 5 Vict. c. 14, to the one hundred and fifty which returned the average prices under the act of 1828. The average duty for six weeks regu lated importation as under the previous act.
From April 29th, 1842, to 5th Janu ary, 1844, the quantity of foreign wheat entered for consumption was 3,464,618 quarters ; foreign wheat-flour, 554,559. The lowest rate of duty was 8s. per quarter, at which 2,105,484 quarters of wheat and 427,579 cwts. of wheat-flour were entered ; 740,149 quarters of wheat were entered at a duty of 14s. In 1844 the quantity of wheat and wheat-flour entered was 1,026,976 quarters, and of barley 1,029,021 quarters. The duty on foreign and colonial corn and grain in 1843 was 758,2951., and in 1844 was 1,098,3331.
After the passing of 6 Viet. c. 14, an. other change was made in the corn law. Under the act of 1828 the duties on • colonial wheat were 5s. when the price here was under 67s., and 6d. when at or above 67s. the quarter. The act 5 Vict. c. 14, fixed the duties on colonial wheat as follows :—When the price here was under 55s. the quarter, the duty was 5s.; 55s. and under 56s. . . duty 4s.
568. „ 57s. . . „ 3s.
57s. „ 511s. . . „ 2s.
58s. and upwards . . „ Is.
The above, to 1049, were the rates of duty charged on wheat imported from all other colonies, except Eastern and Western Canada ; but the Canadian legislature having, at the suggestion of the home government, agreed to impose a duty of 3e. on all wheat imported into Canada, an act was passed (6 & 7 Vict. c. 29) in 1843, and came into operation 10th Oct., under which wheat from Ca nada, or flour manufactured there, might be at all times admissible into the United Kingdom at a fixed duty of ls. per quar ter, charged here. For the five years ending January, 1843, the rate of duty on Canadian wheat averaged 2s. ld. per quarter. The largest quantity of wheat and wheat-flour imported from Canada in any one year previous to this act was 259,600 quarters, in 1841, of which deli above two-thirds was in the shape of flour. The largest quantity iu any one year from 1831 to 1840 was 193,985 quarters in 1832, and the average price of wheat in this country for that year was Ms. 8d.; the smallest quantity imported during the above nine years was 12,742 quarters in 1839, and the average price in Eng land for the year was 70s. 8d. The im portations of the three years 1842-4, and the average price of wheat in England, were as follows :— Average price Q,s. for t he ar. 1842 . 214,348 . . 578. 3d. 1843 . . . 508. id. 1844 . 235,591 . . 51s. 3d.
The quantity of wheat imported from the United States into Canada, at the 3s. duty, was 31,265 quarters, from 11th
Oct., 1843, to 31st July, 1844.
This brings our retrospect to the last and most important change in the his tory of the Corn Laws, and. which was effected in 1846, under the administra tion of Sir R. Peel. The success which had attended the minister's relaxations in the tariff from 1842-4, strongly en forced the policy of the unreserved ap plication to every productive interest, of the great principle of Free Trade. The manufacturers of the North were deeply impressed with the conviction that the most certain mode of widening the mer cantile circle abroad, for the reception of their fabrics, was the throwing open the British ports for the free interchange of the products of other countries. Under this impression they continued for years, with extraordinary vigour and great pecuniary saerifieets their popular agitation against the coru-duties, and no intermediate resting-place seemed left to the government save their entire repeal. Other circumstances tended to accelerate this issue, and smooth the way to the abandonment of what might be considered the corner stone of the protective system. This was the letter from Edinburgh, dated Nov. 22, 1845, addressed by Lord John Russell to his London constituents, in which he in formed the electors that he had relies quished his former position of a fixed duty in preference to the graduated scale, and declared himself in favour of a total repeal of the Corn Laws. The public renunciation by the opposition leader of a fixed duty on corn, was an example of yielding either to the forcible representations of the Anti-Corn Law League, or other urgencies that oppor tunely lessened the obloqui of derelic tion from past professions in the minis ter; while contemporary therewith, the dreadful famine impending in Ireland, from the failure of the potato crop, pleaded strongly in favour of the prompt removal of every obstruction to the free importation of food.
Accordingly, on the first day of the parliamentary session of 1846, Sir R. Peel announced his entire conversion ; declaring that his opinions on the law which governed the importation of corn had undergone a change, that he could no longer meet the annual motion of Mr. Villiers for the repeal of the duties thereon by a direct negative, and that he now felt that all the grounds on which protection to native industry had been advocated, were untenable.
In conformity with these sentiments, the minister lost no time in bringing for ward a measure, first for the immediate reduction of the import duties on corn, and next, their final repeal in 1849. The following is the last scale of duties imposed upon the chief corn article from the passing of the 9 & 10 Viet. c. 22, up to February 1st, 1849: Wheat per quarter— a. d.
Under 48s. the duty - - 10 0 48s. and under 49s. - - 9 0 498. and under 50s. - - 8 0 50s. and under 51 r. - 7 0 51s. and under 52s. - - - 6 0 52s. and under 53s. - - 5 0 53s. and upwards - - - 4 0 From February 1, 1849, there has been levied on every quarter of wheat, barley, oats, bigg, rye, pease, and beans imported, the nominal or register duty of one shilling, and upon every hun dred-weight of wheat-meal, barley or oatmeal, &c. a duty of four pencehalf penny.