Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/441

Rh CORN LA W S 411 of British wheat in the twenty years was 2, Gs. 3d., and in only three years of the twenty was the price a fraction under 2. But the ideas in favour of greater freedom of trade, of which the Act of 1773 was an indication, and of which another memorable example was given in Pitt s Commercial Treaty with France, were overwhelmed in the extraordinary excitement caused by the French Revolution, and all the old corn law policy was destined to have a sudden revival. The landowners and farmers complained that an import of foreign grain at a nominal duty of 6d., when the price of wheat was only 48s., deprived them of the ascending scale of prices when it seemed due ; and on this instigation an Act was passed in 1791, whereby the price at which importation could proceed at the nominal duty of 6d. was raised to 54s., with a duty of 2s. 6d. from 54s. to 50s., and at 50s. and under 50s. a prohibitory duty of 24s. 3d. The bounty on export was maintained by this Act, but exportation was allowed without bounty till the price reached 46s. ; and the permission accorded by the statute of 1773 to import foreign corn at any price, to be re-exported duty free, was modified by a warehouse duty of 2s. 6d., in addition to the duties on import payable at the time of sale, when the corn, instead of being re-exported, happened to be sold for home consumption. The legislative vigilance in this statute to prevent foreign bread from reaching the home consumer is remarkable. There were deficient home harvests for some years after 1791, particu larly in 1795 and 1797, and Parliament was forced to the new expedient of granting high bounties on importation. At this period the country was involved in a great war ; all the customary commercial relations were violently dis turbed ; freight, insurance, and other charges on import and export were multiplied fivefold ; heavier and heavier taxes were imposed ; and the capital resources of the king dom were poured with a prodigality without precedent into the war channels. The consequence was that the price of corn, as of all other commodities, rose greatly ; and the Bank of England having stopped paying in specie in 1797, this raised nominal prices still more under the liberal use of bank paper in loans and discounts, and the difference that began to be established in the actual value of Bank of England notes and their legal par in bullion. The average price of British wheat rose to 5, 19s. 6d. in 1801, So unusual a value must have led to a large extension of the area under wheat, and to much corn-grow ing on land that after great outlay was ill prepared for it. In the following years there were agricultural complaints ; and in 1804, though in 1803 the average price of wheat had been as high as 2, 18s. 10d., an Act was passed, so much more severe than any previous statute, that its object would appear to have been to keep the price of corn some where approaching the high range of 1801, A prohibitory duty of 24s. 3d. was imposed on the import of foreign wheat when the home price was 63s. or less ; and the price at which the bounty was paid on export was lowered to 40s., while the price at which export might proceed without bounty was raised to 54s. Judging from the prices that ruled during the remaining period of the French wars, this statute would appear to have been effective for its end, though, under all the varied action of the times on a rise of prices, it would be difficult to assign its proper place in the general effect. The average price of wheat rose to 4, 9s. 9d. in 1805, and the bank paper price in 1812 was as high even as 6, 6s. 6d. The bullion prices from 1809 to 1813 ranged from 86s. 6d. to lOOs.^Sd. But it was foreseen that when the wars ended a serious re-action would ensue, and that the rents of land, and the general condition of agriculture, under the warlike, protective, and monetary stimulation they had received, would be imperilled. In the brief peace of 1814 the average bullion price cf British wheat fell to 55s. Sd. All the means of select committees of inquiry on agricultural distress, and new modifications of the corn laws, were again brought into requisition. The first idea broached in Parliament was to raise the duties on foreign im ports, as well as the prices at which they were to be leviable, and to abolish the bounty on export, while permitting freedom of export whatever the home price might be. The latter part of the scheme was passed into law in the session of 1814 ; but the irritation of the manufacturing districts against the new scale of import duties was too great to be resisted. In the subsequent session an Act was passed, after much opposition, fixing 80s. (14s. more than during the wars) as the price at which import of wheat was to become free of duty. This Act of 1815 was intended to keep the price of wheat in the British markets at about 80s. per quarter ; but the era of war and great expenditure of money raised by public loans had ended, the ports of the Continent wero again open to some measure of trade and to the equalizing effect of trade upon prices, the Bank of England and othec banks of issue had to begin the uphill course of a resump tion of specie payments, the nation had to begin to feel the whole naked weight of the war debt, and the idea of the protectors of a high price of corn was proved by the event to be an utter hallucination. The corn statutes of the next twenty years, though occupying an enormous amount of time and attention in the Houses of Parliament, may bo briefly treated, for they are simply a record of the impotence of legislation to maintain the price of a commodity at a high point when all the natural economic causes in operation are opposed to it. In 1822 a statute was passed reducing the limit of prices at which importation could proceed to 70s. for wheat, 35s. for barley, 25s. for oats ; but behind this apparent relaxation was a new scale of import duties, by which foreign grain was subject to heavy three-month duties up to a price of 85s., 17s. when wheat was 70s., 12s. when between 70s. and 80s., and 10s. when 85s., show ing the grasping spirit of the would-be monopolizers of the home supply of corn, and their reluctance to believe in a lower range of value for corn as for all other com modities. This Act never operated, for the reason that, with the exception in some few instances of barley, prices never were so high as its projectors had contemplated. The. corn trade had passed rapidly beyond reach of the statutes by which it was to be so painfully controlled ; and as there were occasional seasons of scarcity, particularly in oats, the king in council was authorized for several years to override the statutes, and do whatever the public interests might require. In 1827 Canning introduced a new system of duties, under which there would have been a fixed duty of Is. per quarter when the price of wheat was at or above 70s., and an increased duty of 2s. for every shilling the price fell below 69s. ; but though Canning s resolutions were adopted by a large majority in the House of Commons, his death and the consequent change of ministers involved the failure of his scheme of corn duties. In the following year Mr Charles Grant introduced another scale of import duties on corn, by which the duty was to be 23s. when the price was 64s., 16s. 8d. when the price was 69s., and only Is. when the price was 73s. or above 73s. per quarter ; and this became law the same year. This sliding scale was more objectionable, as a basis of foreign corn trade, than that of Canning, though not following so closely shilling by shilling the variation of prices, because of the abrupt leaps it made in the amount of duties leviable. For example, a merchant who ordered a shipment of foreign wheat when the home price was 70s. and rising to 73s., instead of having a duty of Is. to pay, should on a backward drop of the home price
 * o 69s. have 16s. 8d. of duty to pay. The result was to