Corn Laws

Corn Laws First passed in 1815, these were always controversial. Britain's fast‐growing population was making the country a food importer rather than exporter as before. The French wars had forced up domestic prices and encouraged agricultural investment, so there was fear of a post‐war collapse of prices. Parliament prohibited the importation of wheat until the domestic price reached 80 shillings a quarter. In 1828 a sliding scale was introduced, which meant that duties would reduce as prices rose and vice versa. Peel modified this in 1842 to a lower level of duties. Despite this trend to easier importation, the Corn Laws came under fierce attack from the Anti‐Corn Law League, which blamed recurrent industrial depressions on agricultural protection. Peel, alarmed by the industrial crisis of 1842 and fearing the conjunction of high food prices with league agitation and mass unemployment, concluded that political stability required a sacrifice of the Corn Laws. Using the Irish potato famine of 1845 as an excuse, he proposed total repeal. This betrayal of party commitments and the landed interest produced a revolt of Conservative backbenchers and though Peel carried repeal in 1846, he split his party into a free‐trading minority and a protectionist majority. The main effect of repeal was delayed until the 1870s when cheap transatlantic grain flooded in and produced both sharp falls in food prices and acute agricultural depression.