1846 - Repeal of the Corn Laws
The demand for the repeal of the Corn Law was not a general or popular one. The working classes fought shy of it, the agricultural interest abhorred it, and it had not taken hold even of the manufacturers. In 1839, however, the Anti-Corn Law League was formed, and an extremely vigorous propaganda was instituted, the leading spirits being Richard Cobden, Charles Villiers, and John Bright, whose agitation was to bear fruit abundantly within a remarkably short space of time.
The Chartists began to cause grave troubles. They were divided between the moral force men who wished to rely upon constitutional agitation, and the physical force men who held that their ends could only be gained by terrorising the authorities. In 1839 the latter section was distinctly gaining the upper hand. Then, in June, a monster petition embodying the points of the charter was brought before the House of Commons. It was dismissed by the House in July without discussion. Riots immediately broke out at Newport and elsewhere, but were energetically suppressed. John Frost and two other leaders were arrested, charged with high treason, and sentenced to transportation.
Before the year 1841 was out, alarming events were taking place in Afghanistan ; and during the winter the depression reached its lowest depths. With a miserably low level of wages, the high price of bread was conspicuously a prime cause of the sufferings of the wage-earning classes. It was also obvious that the high price was maintained by the tax upon imported corn, which was intended to ensure that the price of grain should be high enough to make agriculture pay, but not so high as to prevent bread from being reasonably cheap. But, in fact, the scale operated so as to encourage speculation in corn, which caused violent fluctuations in price often ruinous to the farmer, while keeping the price of bread at the high level. Robert Peel, then, upon taking office found himself face to face with a very serious task.
So lately as in 1842, the bulk of the Liberal party still believed in protecting the agricultural interest; Lord Melbourne had declared that the abolition of the tax upon imported corn would be madness. But the change which was coming over public opinion was precisely exemplified by the rapid progress of the Anti-Corn Law League. In 1839, the League had been well content with subscriptions amounting to £5000. In 1843, it obtained ten times that amount, which was again nearly doubled in 1844. When Robert Peel introduced his budget in 1845 the League already had £250,000 to devote to political purposes.
These were facts of a kind which appealed very strongly to the prime minister, Robert Peel, whose whole record shows how powerfully his own views were influenced by developments of public opinion. His conversion was completed by the terrible potato famine which in this year invaded Ireland. Sheer starvation was staring the population in the face, and before October 1841 Peel had already come to the conclusion that grain would have to be provided. But the English corn harvest failed, grain could not be provided unless it came from abroad, and it could not be provided at a tolerable price while the tax upon imported corn was maintained.
On 1st November 1841, Peel, having summoned a cabinet council, raised the question whether the Corn Law should be modified or suspended to meet the emergency - one course conversion or the other was absolutely necessary. Once suspended, it was tolerably certain that it would be impossible to reimpose it. In his own view, modification would not meet the case. He carried with him at first only three members of the cabinet. Already it seemed probable that he might feel called upon to resign ; when towards the end Russell's of the month Lord John Russell issued the 'Edinburgh letter' declaring himself a complete convert to the doctrine of the Anti-Corn Law League. In December 1841 the attitude of many members of the cabinet had changed. Wellington and others were either converted or convinced that the repeal of the Corn Law was preferable to the shattering of the party.
There was no question that Peel and the Conservatives had come into power as convinced believers in agricultural protection. Since the party was not converted en masse, Peel felt that as its leader he was not the right person to introduce the new policy. He tendered his resignation, and Peel resigns; advised the queen to consult Lord John Russell. Russell endeavoured to form a cabinet, but his efforts were finally frustrated by the refusal of Lord Grey (the son of the former prime minister) to join the government with Palmerston as foreign secretary. In the circumstances, Peel consented to resume office on the definite understanding that he did so as a free trader.
Lord George Bentinck became the nominal, and Benjamin Disraeli the effective, leader of the Protectionist Opposition when parliament met in January 1846. In the debate on the address, Peel explained his position and his policy. Five days later, on 27th January 1846, the financial resolutions were introduced. There was to be a further remission of duties on many manufactured articles; most of the remaining duties on raw materials were to be abolished altogether. But everything else was overshadowed by the repeal of the Corn Laws. At the end of three years they were to disappear, leaving only a registration duty of one shilling.
The Protectionists, led by Disraeli, made a desperate stand, resisting the passage of the bill by every parliamentary device. The bill did not pass the third reading in the Commons until 15th May v. A fortnight later the second reading was carried in the Lords with a majority of forty-seven. On 25th June 1846 the third reading was carried in the Lords, in spite of the opposition headed by Lord Stanley, who in 1844 had been raised to the peerage in anticipation of his succession to the earldom of Derby. On the same night the government were defeated in the House of Commons on an Irish bill, by a combination of Irish Repealers, Radical Freetraders who objected to coercion, and Tory Protectionists who approved of coercion but were bent on the destruction of the ministry which in their view had betrayed the party. Two days later Peel announced his resignation. The cause of Free Trade had triumphed, but the ministry could no longer remain in office.
It was the unwearied zeal, the ceaseless efforts of Richard Cobden and his allies of the Anti-Corn Law League which had educated the public, transformed public opinion, and converted Peel himself. None the less it was also true that the repeal of the Corn Laws would not then have been carried if Peel had not been converted. It was Peel's conversion which converted also a mass of Liberal-Conservative opinion, and at the same time induced the actually unconverted duke of Wellington to use his powerful influence to save the bill from rejection by the House of Lords. Peel never returned to office; but until his death in 1850 his personality continued to exercise in the House of Commons an influence more powerful than that of any other individual.
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