History of the Anti-Corn Law League/Chapter4
CHAPTER IV.
AN ANTI CORN-LAW ASSOCIATION.
A considerable rise in the price of corn after the harvest of 1836, a pressure upon the money market, and the failure of some hanks, gave indication that the prosperity which had for some time been enjoyed was not to be of much longer continuance. Towards the end of the year an Anti Corn-Law Association was formed in London, with the following gentlemen for its committee:—
John Blackburne, M.P.,
Joseph Brotherton, M.P.,
J. S. Buckingham, M.P.,
William Clay, M.P.,
P. Chalmers, M.P.,
T. S. Duncombe, M.P.,
H. Elphinstone, M.P.,
William Ewart, M.P.,
George Grote, M.P.,
D. W. Harvey, M.P.,
Benjamin Hawes, M.P.,
Joseph Hume, M.P.,
J. P. Leader, M.P.,
Sir W. Molesworth, M.P.,
James Pattison, M.P.,
Richard Potter, M.P,
J. A. Roebuck, M.P.,
Joshua Scholefield, M.P.,
Colonel Thompson, M.P.,
C. A. Talk, M.P.,
Thomas Wakley, M.P.,
Robert Wallace, M.P.,
Dr. J. Wyatt Crane,
John Crawfurd,
Ebenezer Elliott, Sheffield,
Thomas Falkoner,
E. W. Field,
Edmund Fraser,
Alexander Galloway,
Thomas F. Gibson,
Dr. J. M. Gully,
G. H. Heppel,
William Howitt, Nottingham,
W. Ibbotson, Endclifle Hall,
J. W. Liggins,
Captain M'Arthur Law,
Robert Nicol, Leeds,
John Marshall, Leeds,
Elias Moss, Liverpool,
Francis Place,
Archibald Prentice, Manchester.
W. G. Prescott,
Goorge Charlwood,
John Anderson,
J.W. Anderson,
W. H.Ashurst,
Samuel Bailey, Sheffield,
Augustus Beaumont,
William Bitton, Portsmouth,
Dr. J. R. Black,
Laman Blanchard,
J. E. Body,
John Bridgeford, Sheffield,
George Brown,
Richard Burnett,
W. Byers, Devonport,
Thomas Campbell, L.L.D.,
H. S. Chapman,
Thomas Prout,
Samuel Revans,
W. D. Saull,
Samuel Simes, Brighton,
Colonel Leicester Stanhope,
Major H. C. Smith,
J. L. Stevens,
William Tait, Edinburgh,
Dr. John Taylor, Glasgow,
John Travers,
H. Waymouth,
William Weir, Glasgow,
R. G. Welford,
John Wilson,
Charles Wood,
John Ashton Yates.
There were on this committee several gentlemen, who, with Colonel Thompson, in the after and more efficient movement, did good service to the cause of free trade; but the body was not representative; it had not the support of a numerous constituency; and there was no arrangement for united action. Little else, therefore, came of it than to keep notice directed to the subject of the Corn Law, which, in two years more, with the sterner teacher in its train, was to force itself upon the attention of the sufferers; and to bring new men, with better organization, into the field of contest. That year, 1836, was not to expire, however, without indication of approaching adversity. Real prosperity led to the hope of continued prosperity, and that to undue speculation. In my newspaper, on the last day in the year, but not for the first time during the year, I gave the following warning to my readers:—
"But it may be that a crowd of persons, hearing of fortunes being speedily made by the purchase of bank shares, rush into the field. Half-a-dozen new joint-stock banks are projected. The shares are bought up with avidity. These shares soon bring a considerable premium, and thousands of persons rejoice at having a new source of profit opened to them. But now commences the mischief.
"Let us consider, first, how this will affect the general trade of the district. Each of the six new establishments is striving to obtain business; and as it is easy to issue paper which costs nothing, extraordinary temptations are held out in the way of discounts and advances. The man who with difficulty can have his bills cashed at one of the old establishments is glad to carry it where not only they are all taken without scruple, but a few thousand pounds of advance may be easily had. A seeming prosperity is created. Every man so favoured extends his business, or enters into new speculations. It is high noon in a summer's day, and the dark nights and the winter's frosts are things that have been.
"The end of all this is best illustrated by a supposition case of the career of some of these prosperity-creating establishments. If, in a large town, there are numbers also in the surrounding smaller towns of persons willing to accept of the proffered accommodation, it may be supposed that there are numbers who will be equally disposed to accept a share in the abundance. A score or two of branches are established, and at all of them the same liberality prevails. The shareholders rejoice in doing a large business, looking complacently at the increased marketable value of their shares; and the persons who have opened accounts rejoice also, that all manner of promises to pay are immediately convertible into the notes of the bank. Of course it cannot be supposed that the directors, who have liberally diffused happiness to all around them, will deny themselves all participation in the universal joy. They see no necessity for a self-denying ordinance. They are, therefore, in no haste to pay up instalments on their own shares, money being abundant enough already; and as it would be an insult to the bank to suppose that its own directors are not worthy of all credit, they liberally discount the bills received in the course trading in their own individual businesses, and freely draw bank for assistance in their own individual speculations.
"We have supposed a case which may have no parallel in the present day; but it is not without an example. The Ayr Bank, which failed before Adam Smith published his 'Wealth of Nations,' gave an amazing stimulus to the industry of the county of Ayr. The landowner who subscribed £1,000 to the capital of the bank, drew out the same sum in its notes, and five times as much as an advance to his account. Houses were built, plantations made, farms improved, mosses drained, and roads made. The shareholders were like the shepherd boy in the Arcadia. They all piped as though they never should grow old. 'This is a rare life—if it would but last,' said John Knox to the silken-attired, gay, laughing, beautiful ladies of Queen Mary's Court. It was a rare life to the Ayrshire landowners—but it did not last. People began to think that a bank whose shareholders had drawn out a great deal more than they had ever paid in, was not very trustworthy. The holders of notes presented them for payment Down came the bank, having its foundation upon sand, and great was the fall thereof.
"We trust that experience here will not be purchased at so great a price. Enough has already occurred to give rise to a very salutary caution. It has been found that fortunes are not so easily made by the purchases of bank shares as was imagined. Those who have bought at £6 premium and sold at £5. 10s. discount, will hereafter be more careful to look at the character of the directors for knowledge and caution than at the price of shares in the market; actual proprietors, losing one-half of what they supposed they had safely invested, will eschew such further adventures; and those who have received advances, and have had suddenly to repay them, at the risk of total ruin, will hereafter choose rather to plod on in the slow but sure routine of their ordinary business, than venture into wider speculation on the faith of credit at an ill-managed bank."
The following extracts from the Manchester Times may serve to show the unhealthy state of trade in 1837, after a deficient harvest with the continuance of a restricted commercial policy;—January 14th. "The duty on cotton is certainly a very absurd tax, and we are glad to see that a meeting is to be held, to take into consideration the propriety of petitioning for its repeal. There is, however, a tax infinitely more oppressive to our trade—the tax on corn; which not only raises the price here, but shuts us out from markets abroad for the sale of our goods. Why the members of the Chamber of Commerce, with whom the requisition originates, should be so energetic for the abolition of the smaller tax, whilst they never make a movement against the greater, is beyond our comprehension."—March 11. "There was a great scarcity of money in Liverpool and Manchester on Monday, but it does not appear to have led to any stoppages."—March 18. "A few weeks ago, in treating of the pressure on the money market, we ventured to express our opinion, at variance with that of our contemporaries, that the crisis had not come. Our views have been strongly confirmed. Large issues by the Bank of England to meet the emergency of heavy payments on the 4th have indeed averted the evil day ; but the exhibition of a strong stimulus after inebriation is not always the way to restore health."—April 8. After notices of heavy failures in London, Manchester,Liverpool, and Glasgow, "It appears that in consequence of the sudden restriction by the Bank of England of its discounts to the American houses, such discredit has at length attached to their bills as to render them of no use for ordinary commercial purposes. The consequence is, that all the remittances from America, in payment for goods, or debts of any kind, are no longer available, because bankers refuse to receive them. Cotton and other articles of produce have also become of no value for the purpose of meeting engagements, for they cannot be sold and advances cannot, as at the Bank of England the drafts of merchants on brokers who hold produce are refused discount."—April 15. "The Bank of England has come to the determination to assist the American houses on proof of solvency and assignment of their effects to two bank proprietors."—April 23. "The distress has now reached the working classes. In this town and its neighbourhood, many of the factories are working only four days a week, and some thousands of hand-loom weavers have been discharged. The next effect will be the impoverishment of the retail dealers."—May 6. More heavy failures reported.—May 13. Heavy failures in Glasgow and Liverpool.—June 10. "The failure of Thomas Wilson and Co., George Wildes and Co., and Timothy Wiggin and Co., consequent upon the refusal of the Bank to render them any further assistance, was unexpected, as it was generally understood that the directors, when they assisted them before, had, by an actual examination by two of their own body, assured themselves of the undoubted solvency of each of the houses."—June 17th. "In Liverpool great anxiety was felt to know the determination of the Bank of England with regard to W. and J. Brown and Co., but it was yesterday removed by the arrival of an express with the intelligence that they were to be supported, their statement to the bank showing a surplus of a million sterling after paying all liabilities."—June 24th. "We are happy to have it in our power to state that the grey market this week has undergone a decided improvement. We do not mean to say that prices have advanced, but then the sacrifices on cloth which have been made for the last two months, have now ceased, and if profits are not yet to be realized, goods are fetching the cost of production."
Facilities of obtaining discounts much encouraged over-trading; the sudden contraction of discounts created a panic; "confidence" was restored by the resumption of discounts, and some judiciously applied loans. The evil day was put off—for a time. During the fright, and after it was over, few thought that it might not have occurred at all, had we been able to import corn as regularly as we imported cotton.
In the House of Commons, in March, Mr. Clay moved the adoption of a fixed duty of 10s. a quarter on wheat, and the following members, connected with government, voted in favour of the motion:—
Lord Howick,
Lord Morpeth,
Sir George Grey,
Mr. John Parker,
Sir R. Rolfe,
Mr. C. P. Thomson,
Sir Henry Parnell,
Mr. Labouchere,
Mr. J. A. Murray,
Mr. W. Cooper.
On the division only 89 voted for the motion, and 223 against it. In debate upon another question—the ballot—Lord John Russell repeated the declaration he had made during the progress of the Reform Bill, that he intended by that measure to leave a preponderating weight in favour of the landed interest. The division on the Corn Law motion was not a bad proof that he had succeeded.
In June, William the Fourth died, Victoria reigned in his stead, the whig ministers were continued in office, and the people were told that her Majesty had "confided to Lord Melbourne the most ample powers to regulate his plans in such a manner as to secure an efficient government to advance the public welfare." This assurance, sent forth through a great many channels, with the belief that although Queen Adelaide had obstructed some beneficial measures, Queen Victoria would be more favourable to the advancement of representative and commercial reforms, was not without effect upon the subsequent general election, and ministers found better support than might have been expected after the previous gradual declension of their popularity. It was charitably supposed that backed, instead of being opposed, by the court, they would "bombard the Lords with good measures;" and yet, perhaps, votes were given rather to keep the tones out than to keep the whigs in.
The electors of Manchester re-asserted their free trade principles by again electing Thomson and Philips. The former had a majority of 1,803 votes, and the latter 1,434 over Mr. W. E. Gladstone. Salford, in spite of intimidation and shameless treating, re-elected Brotherton. Wigan and Oldham each ousted a protectionist. Cobden, who had by that time fairly come out into public life, and had proved that he could speak as well as he wrote, was proposed, during his absence on the Continent, as a candidate for Stockport, and the contest was so close as to give a positive assurance of success at any future election. Hindley, one of the early free traders, was re-elected for Ashton, after a fierce and unprincipled opposition. Mr. J. B. Smith, soon afterwards to be more heard of in connection with the free-trade movement, was defeated at Blackburn only by corruption.
It was asserted by obstructives and protectionists that there was a reaction in their favour. There might be, but it was where the constituencies were so small as to render them easily corrupted, or where the leaven of old corruption had been allowed to remain. Fifty boroughs might have been named, returning seventy or eighty protectionists, the united constituencies of which did not exceed the number of voters in Manchester. The constituents of London, Westminster, Mary-le-bone, Finsbury, the Tower Hamlets, Southwark, and Lambeth representing a quarter of a million and a half of the inhabitants of the metropolis: the electors of Nottingham and Leicester, representing a of persons in the lace and hosiery manufactures the electors of Leeds, the centre and market of the woollen manufactures, and representing commercially a million of souls; the constituency of Birmingham, representing the opinions of half-a-million of persons in the iron trade; the electors of Sheffield, representing a quarter of a million of persons in various branches of the same trade; the electors of Glasgow, Paisley, and Greenock, representing the opinions of half-a-million of persons engaged in the cotton manufactures of the west of Scotland connected with the great shipping interests of the district; the electors of Edinburgh, the metropolis of Scotland; and of Dundee, Perth, and Aberdeen, representing another half-a-million of persons—all returned reformers.
Here then were thirty-eight members, the fair representatives, because elected where bribery and intimidation had little force, of some five millions of persons. The obstructives could not show a like constituency for all the members they returned. Their gains were obtained in the old corporations, where "freemen" had for a century been bought like cattle at a market in the little boroughs, where there were only 200, 300, or 400 electors, and where the balance might have been turned by a douceur of ten or twenty pounds each to some twenty or thirty persons; in certain counties where protectionist landowners could influence at will the tenants-at-will and in certain boroughs where an extensive manufacturer, or a many-acred neighbouring gentleman, brought all his powers of intimidation into play. At a dinner given to Mr. Brotherton, in Salford, Mr. Cobden delivered an admirable speech on the vote by ballot, and showed how different would have been the result of the general election had the electors been protected from the operation of undue influences. The new Parliament did not meet till November. There was the grouse shooting and the partridge shooting to be attended to; the ministers had to consider how, with the deliverance from one Queen, whose adverse influence was a plausible excuse for stand-still policy, they could find one equally plausible for standing still under one with whom, as they took good care to let the people know, they stood in high favour.
In the early part of 1838, some journeymen cotton spinners, of Glasgow, were tried and sentenced to transportation for life, for the part they had taken, as trade unionists which led, to murder and the destruction of property. An able writer in Tait's Magazine, took occasion thence to warn the working classes that they were dissipating the strength which ought to be concentrated into one united effort for the destruction of the landowners' monopoly. In reference to the warning and the advice I said: "There is great truth in these observations. Let the working classes consider the ceaseless labour and the enormous expense they have incurred within the last dozen years to get rid of the Combination Laws, to destroy the truck system, to establish Co-operative Societies, and Regeneration Societies, to shorten the hours of labour, to bolster up the wages of some particular class of workmen by unions, to fill the country with a cry against the New Poor Law—and all this with a staff of paid treasurers, paid collectors, paid secretaries, paid itinerant orators, and paid newspapers, while, during all the time, the Corn Laws are grinding down the reward of their labour on the one hand, and raising the price of their food on the other;—let them think of all these things, and reflect in what a different position they would have stood now, had there been, throughout all these years, one combined and energetic effort against the landowners monopoly, which has been all the while closing market after market against us, and intercepting the food which a beneficent Providence has produced in abundance for all the people that dwell upon the face of the earth. England might have been a garden in all its length and breadth, had the energies of its people been employed in the right direction. But we blame not the industrious classes alone. The half starved and uninstructed hand-loom weaver has an excuse in the supineness of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, which, for seven years, has not made a single movement against the monopoly which is destroying that trade, the protection of which is the declared object of the association! Gladly should we see the merchants and manufacturers rouse themselves from their apathetic sleep ere their trade be transferred to France, to Switzerland, and Belgium, and the United States—nay, and even to the semi-barbarous Russia. And gladly should we see a contemporaneous delivery of the working classes from their false teachers. We really believe the poor will be right first. Already O'Connor murmers at the apathy of the working classes; Oastler courts imprisonment as the best means of giving an impulse to his doctrines; already does Stephens counsel a cessation of public exhibitions."
There now began to appear symptoms that merchants and manufacturers were rousing themselves from indifference as to the operations of the Corn Law. At the annual meeting of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, held February 14th, Mr. J. M. Lees, in moving the adoption of the report, congratulated the chamber on the attention which had been paid to the subject of the Corn Law by the directors, who had brought forward an urgent petition for the repeal of the then law. He said that the subject had been introduced to the chamber by Mr. J. B. Smith, several years ago, with great earnestness and zeal, and knowing that Mr. Smith was of the number of directors, he was glad to see the subject receiving the attention it deserved. Mr. Cobden recommended quarterly meetings instead of annual, as there were important questions which ought to come before the members more frequently than once a-year; but the chamber, having done nothing in opposition to the Corn Laws for some ten years, was not to be suddenly persuaded into taking more frequent opportunities of action, and Mr. Cobden had to withdraw his motion. The then average price of wheat was fifty-five shillings and threepence, only nineteen shillings and threepence higher than it had been after the harvest of 1835. The chamber had made its protest, and would stand still until a greater pressure came from without.
In March, Mr. Villiers brought forward a motion in the House of Commons, for inquiry into the operation of the Corn Law, and had the support of some members of the administration; but the house would not inquire—would scarcely even listen. The Manchester Times thus commented on the debate:—
On the 9th of May another division took place, proving that the slightest modification of the Corn Law would not be listened to. The motion was for the second reading of a bill to permit the grinding of wheat in bond for foreign export. The Marquis of Chandos, author of the famous "clause" in the Reform Bill, which gave a preponderance to the landed interest in the Commons, told the house that "the agricultural interest was now enjoying some little respite from the distress of past years, and all it asked was for peace and quietness, and that it should not be inconvenienced by legislative enactments of any kind. Peace and quietness! Oh, certainly; peace and quietness to the robber who retires to enjoy himself on the produce of his adroitness. "We have levied black-mail upon you. We are only now beginning to enjoy ourselves; why cannot you let us alone!" His lordship was contented with the share of the spoil which the law had awarded him, and he asked to be "let alone!" The three members for Manchester, Mr. Thomson, Mr. Philips, and Mr. Brotherton, did their duty upon the occasion, and Mr. Villiers delivered a speech full of spirit and truth. He regarded the rejection of the measure as the East-Retford of Corn Laws. "To reject this measure, would be like that preliminary folly which characterised those whom Heaven marked as its victims. He thought the rejection of the measure would really arouse that feeling which had been dormant too long on the subject of the Corn Laws; and he should, therefore, go to the division perfectly at ease, satisfied that nothing but good could follow from it. They who wanted to gain partisans in favour of the repeal of the Corn Laws could find nothing better suited to their purpose than the irrational opposition afforded by the landed interest to this measure, which was, in fact, the East Retford of the Corn Laws. (Laughter, and loud cries of 'Divide!') The rejection of such a measure as the present would excite a strong and general feeling of indignation against those by whom it was resisted." There were 150 votes for the motion, and 220 against it. Mr. Villiers' prognostication was well founded. The time was coming when men were to see that nothing was to be expected from even a reformed Parliament, without such an outward pressure as carried the Reform Bill.
On July 2nd, a petition from Glasgow was presented by Earl Fitzwilliam, praying for the repeal of the Corn Law, and his lordship gave it his earnest support. The debate that ensued was in most respects just of the character which had always marked the treatment of a question affecting the profits of that house of corn dealers on the one hand, and the comfortable subsistence of twenty-six millions of people on the other. Some symptoms of fear appeared, if not of repentance, on the part of one or two of the titled monopolists who spoke on the occasion. Apprehensions of short harvests, dear bread, and a probable famine, floated across their brains, and found utterance in some warning prognostications as to the effect of such accidents upon the fate of the question then under discussion. Their lordships were right! A wet July might come. August might find the country with scarcely a month's consumption of corn on hand, and the ports of continental Europe drained for the supply of the United States. We were then entirely dependant on the still ungathered harvest for preservation against greater misery than ever afflicted a civilised community. To the Corn Law it was owing that no sacks of wheat or other grain were filling the granaries of our own capitalists, or awaiting their orders in the stores of Hamburg or Odessa; and if starvation should stalk through the land, every additional death would be attributed to those laws.
But the remarkable feature of the debate was to be found in Lord Melbourne's declaration, that the Government would not take a decided part, till it was certain the majority of the people were in favour of a change. "This," I said, "ought to be a sufficient warning to the masses, that they must depend upon their own exertions, and not trust to the ministry, or the legislature for justice. It is a fair invitation to the people to begin that agitation from without, which whether in reform of Parliament, Catholic Emancipation, or Corn Laws, can alone extricate the many from the gripe of the monopolists, who, though few in numbers, still hold possession of the powers of government. The people must begin by returning members to Parliament favourable to the repeal of the bread tax. It is a remarkable fact, that in Lancashire, taking the town and country together, the supporters and opponents of an impost, the most destructive and fatal to our manufacturing property, should be so nearly balanced; that is, so far as regards the number of members returned. But Manchester being balanced by Liverpool, and the four county members being all tory, and of course supporters of the Corn Laws, the preponderance is greatly against the repeal of those laws. Whilst such a state of things exists, notwithstanding there are so many liberal men, and so great a number of Catholics and dissenters in this county, what is so natural as that Lord Melbourne should feel some doubts, whether the people of England are really opposed to the present restriction of the duties on corn under the sliding scale."
Early in August the price of wheat was 72s. per quarter, and rising in consequence of wet weather. It had been just half that price at the close of the harvest of 1835. The average price for the week ending August 24th, was 77s. It was high time to be up and stirring. Colonel Thompson, whose "Anti-Corn-Law Catechism," published some ten years before, had been much read, was again at work—had never, indeed, ceased to work through one channel or another—in the Sun newspaper, slaying, in his trenchant way, every fallacy that was uttered in favour of monopoly Joseph Sturge was urging instant action on the part of free traders; and newspapers which had only occasionally and gently hinted at the operation of the Corn Law, were earnestly pointing out the mischief which it inflicted. There was no longer faith that even a reformed Parliament would attack the grievous monopoly without a strong pressure from without.