n6 History of the Radical Party in Parliament. [1815- mind, but which no Government action could prevent* But, unhappily, legislation had been adopted which artificially in- tensified and prolonged the distress, and which it took years of labour and agitation to reverse. As soon as the war was supposed to be finished (in 1814), an effort was made to pass a set of corn laws which should prevent the importation of food, and artificially maintain the price of the products of English agriculture. There was no time in that session to accomplish the work, but early in 1815 it was resumed. On the 22nd of February it was proposed that the House should go into committee to consider the question, and this was carried with only seven dissentients, Gore Langton and Sir W. Curtis leading what opposition existed. The fact was, that few of the politicians of the time understood the gross violation of economic law involved in the proposal. The people in the towns, however, became at once aware that the object was to increase the price of their food, and they speedily began to protest by petitions and meetings against the bill. This had some effect, and on the ist of March the second reading was opposed by thirty members, Whitbread, Wilberforce, Horner, and the old Sir Robert Peel being in the opposition. The public feeling was so strong in London that on the 6th of March, when the bill was again on for consideration, the House of Commons was surrounded by an excited mob, who stopped members and endeavoured to force from them promises to oppose the measure. The military had to be called out to suppress the riots. The promoters of the bill did not intend to lose any time, and on the loth of March the third reading was carried, by 245 to 77 votes. Thus less than a month was occupied from the first going into a committee of inquiry to the final passing of a measure which did so much to cripple commerce and impoverish the people.
- " That the first year after the restoration of general peace should have been
characterized in this country as that of a more widely extended distress than its annals can for a long period exhibit, must doubtless have occasioned as much surprise as disappointment in the greater part of the nation." " Annual Register," 1816, p. 91.
