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 : 19 : 6 in 1801. So unusual a value must have led to a large extension of the area under wheat, and to much corn-growing 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 : 18 : 10, 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 somewhere 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 : 9 : 9 in 1805, and the bank paper price in 1812 was as high even as £6 : 6 : 6. The bullion prices from 1809 to 1813 ranged from 86s. 6d. to 100s. 3d. But it was foreseen that when the wars ended a serious reaction 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 of British wheat fell to 55s. 8d. 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 imports, 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 were again open to some measure of trade and to the equalizing effect of trade upon prices, the Bank of England and other banks of issue had to begin the uphill course of a resumption 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 be 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 the apparent relaxation was a new scale of import duties, by which foreign grain was subjected 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., showing 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 commodities. 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 1s. 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 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 1s. 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 1s. to pay, should on a backward drop of the home price to 69s. have 16s. 8d. of duty to pay. The result was to introduce wide and incalculable elements of speculation into all transactions in foreign corn. The prices during most part of this period were under the range at which import was practically prohibited. The average price of British wheat was 96s. 11d. in 1817, but from that point there was in succeeding years a rapid and progressive decline, varied only by the results of the domestic harvests, till in 1835 the average price of wheat was 39s. 4d., of barley 29s. 11d. and oats 22s. The import of foreign grain in these years consisted principally of a speculative trade, under a privilege of warehousing accorded in the statute of 1773, and extended in subsequent acts, by which the grain might be sold for home consumption on payment of the duties, or re-exported free, as suited the interest of the holders.
The act of 1822 admitted corn of the British possessions in North America under a favoured scale of duties, and in 1825 a temporary act was passed, allowing the import of wheat from these provinces at a fixed duty of 5s. per quarter, irrespective of the home price, which, if maintained, would have given some stability to the trade with Canada. The idea of a fixed duty on all foreign grain, however, appears to have grown in favour from about this period. It was included in the programme of import duty reforms of the Whig government in 1841, and fell with its propounders in the general election of that year. Sir Robert Peel, on succeeding to office, and commencing his remarkable career as a free-trade statesman, introduced and carried in 1842 a new sliding scale of duties somewhat better adjusted to the current values. But public opinion by this time was changing, and the prime minister, convinced, as he confessed, by the arguments of Cobden and the Anti-Corn-Law League, and stimulated into action by the failure of the potato crop in Ireland, put an effectual end to the history of the corn laws by the famous act of 1846. It was provided under this measure that the maximum duty on foreign wheat was to be immediately reduced to 10s. per quarter when the price was under 48s., to 5s. on barley when the price was under 26s., and to 4s. on oats when the price was under 18s., with lower duties as prices rose above these figures; but the conclusive part of the enactment was that in three years—on the 1st of February 1849—these duties were to cease, and all foreign corn to be admitted at a duty of 1s. per quarter, and all foreign meal and flour at a duty of 4½d. per cwt.—the same nominal imposts which were conceded to grain and flour of British possessions abroad from the date of the act. In 1869 even these nominal duties were abolished by Robert Lowe in a Customs Duties Act. In 1902 a registration duty of 3d. per cwt. was imposed on imported corn, and 5d. per cwt. on imported flour, in the expectation that such a duty would broaden the basis of taxation. The duty was, however, repealed the following year. But a low duty on imported foreign corn was made an essential part of the tariff reform scheme advocated by Mr. J. Chamberlain (q.v.) from 1903 onwards.
Foreign Corn Laws.—Freedom of export of corn from customs
