Page:The Three Prize Essays on Agriculture and the Corn Law - Morse, Greg, Hope (1842).djvu/25

 price of corn, and if they did accomplish this end there could be no shadow of doubt as to the benefit they would confer on the tenant farmer, but that they have succeeded in no one of these results, I think events have most fully proved.

The high prices of corn which were attained in this country at the close of the war, from the accumulated effects of bad seasons, the increase of wealth and population, and the formidable obstacles thrown in the way of importation by war, had led our farmers and legislators to form extravagant ideas of the price the country could afford to pay, and of the price at which corn could be afforded to be grown, and led to the passing of the act of parliament in 1815, by which wheat was not allowed to be imported for home consumption until the price had reached 80s. a quarter. For some time previous to this period the home price had been so high as scarcely to be affected by the duty on importation.

The corn law of 1815, aided by deficient harvests, had certainly the effect of maintaining prices considerably above what they would otherwise have been, but still during the whole period the act remained in force, from 1815 to 1822, the price of wheat averaged but 69s. a quarter, and in the last three of these years 1820, 1821, and 1822, the price was respectively 65s. 10d., 54s. 5d., and 43s. 3d. a quarter.

At this period we read of great distress among the farmers, public meetings held, and parliamentary committees appointed to inquire into the cause of the distress. The question why corn was low, and why it should not have been low, seems never to have entered into any one' head; the question always was, why was it not high, and why should not acts of parliament be made to keep up the price? It never appears to have occurred to farmers why rents and tithes, and the various outgoings upon a farm were high, nor do they ever appear to have entertained a doubt of the power of the legislature to maintain prices, or to make the trade of farming a better trade than other trades, which it must always be borne in mind is one of the necessary inferences of a corn law. With a view of allaying the fears of the agriculturist, and probably reflecting also that the importation of corn at a time when it was needed, might in some degree be of benefit to the community, and indirectly to the farmer, a new law was framed upon a rather more liberal basis than the old, but still of such a restrictive nature, as more than once to require the liberation of foreign corn as a temporary expedient.