Laws guilty or not guilty? [Loud cries of 'Guilty!' and some cries of 'No.'] Well, then, you who think that they ought to be abolished speak out like men—in a manner no longer to be misunderstood; and never again allow yourselves to be misrepresented as wishing to perpetuate a system fraught with folly and injustice, and unattended with real benefit to any one. Thanking you sincerely for the attention that you have given me, I will now make way for those who may be waiting to address you."[1]
Rents had been rising for a good many years before the passing of the 1815 Corn Laws, which in 1843 had, as Mr. Villiers says, lasted for twenty-eight[2] years. They continued to rise steadily under the Corn Laws of 1815. The landlords being thus prosperous maintained that the Corn Laws being good for them were good for what they called the agricultural interest. The Corn Laws raised rents. Did they raise profits and wages? Are men to conclude from the fact that the farmers, or some of them, hunted in red coats, and occasionally killed foxes, that the Corn Laws had raised their profits as they had raised their landlord's rents?
