The Corn Laws and Protectionism

 

When I first saw the spoof above on Facebook, I copied it and sent it to a number of people "for amusement only". Interestingly, a friend pointed out to me that most people in the UK, and certainly abroad, would have no idea what the Corn Laws were. I pondered this for a while, and realised that I was no expert myself. That's nothing to be proud of, as two of my university History courses were on British Social History of the 19th century. This is not to decry my lecturers of that time, as they were excellent. It's just that I haven't continued reading about this subject since I graduated from Salford University in 1980. I have many history books on a variety of  periods, but not British social history.

I have to thank the friend who pointed out the gap in people's knowledge and my lapsed interest. It's unfortunate that our social history is regarded as dull and of secondary relevance. Without an understanding of how our industrial history developed, we fail to understand how our present-day society came into being. The struggles for the universal franchise,  women's rights, workers' rights and welfare provision might not match the dramas and traumas of European history, but they were bitterly fought for against implacable resistance and should not be taken for granted. And, believe it or not, these struggles of our forebears have relevance today.

The Corn Laws were introduced after 1815 to protect the crop prices of British landowners who had made huge profits selling corn during the Napoleonic Wars. During the war, it had been impossible to buy imported wheat from Europe, but, post-Waterloo, that all changed. As imported corn would have been cheaper to buy, Parliament passed the Corn laws. following pressure from the landed classes, As Spartacus Educational comments:

"Parliament responded by passing a law permitting the import of foreign wheat free of duty only when the domestic price reached 80 shillings per quarter (8 bushels). During the passing of this legislation, the Houses of Parliament had to be defended by armed troops against a large angry crowd."

The British working class are often portrayed as placid and apathetic. This reaction, together with the actions of the much-denigrated Luddites, shows that they were well aware of what high bread prices meant for them. Nor was rioting confined to London. As Samuel Bamford wrote in 1843:

"...at Bridport there were riots on account of the high price of bread; at Bideford there were similar disturbances to prevent the export of grain; at Bury by the unemployed to destroy machinery; at Newcastle-on-Tyne by colliers and others; at Glasgow, where blood was shed, on account of soup kitchens; at Preston, by unemployed weavers; at Nottingham by Luddites who destroyed 30 frames; at Merthyr Tydfil, on a reduction of wages; at Birmingham by the unemployed; at Walsall by the distressed; and December 7th, 1816, at Dundee, where, owing to the high price of meal, upwards of 100 shops were plundered."

Formal opposition began in 1820, with the "Merchants' Petition" written by Thomas Tooke. It failed, but it spearheaded the continued agitation that eventually led to the Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1845. The campaign to repeal the Corn laws was led by groups such as the Anti-Corn Law League (ACLL) and apostles of Free Trade like Richard Cobden, a sort of 19th century Milton Friedman. The Parliamentary lobbying, the ACLL, Cobden, etc, represented the resentment of the industrial magnates, who saw the Corn Laws as a bar to free trade and were concerned that their workers might demand higher wages, or simply become malnourished and unable to work. Richard Cobden put the case for repeal thus:

First, it would guarantee the prosperity of the manufacturer by affording him outlets for his products. Second, it would relieve the Condition of England question by cheapening the price of food and ensuring more regular employment. Third, it would make English agriculture more efficient by stimulating demand for its products in urban and industrial areas. Fourth, it would introduce through mutually advantageous international trade a new era of international fellowship and peace. The only barrier to these four beneficent solutions was the ignorant self-interest of the landlords, the "bread-taxing oligarchy, unprincipled, unfeeling, rapacious and plundering."

Well, the industrialists won in the end, and the Corn Laws passed into History in 1845. The Tory prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, voted with the opposition to win the motion. In Marxist terms, this was a "bourgeois revolution" in which the emergent capitalist class replaced the ancien regime of the landed aristocracy. Well, maybe. Research shows that the aristocracy in Britain married their children to those of the mercantile class, or made new peers by ennobling these industrial upstarts - a system that continues to operate today. 

Something else that persists today is the idea of British Protectionism, albeit in a different form. The propaganda of the Leave vote was undeniably protectionist, with its lies about money paid to the EU and its scare stories about refugees and EU migrants swarming in, etc, etc. Jacob Rees-Mogg is a regular target for mockery, but he is capable of intelligent comment, as Dr Keith Flett observed in The Guardian:

 

"Mr Rees-Mogg has a history degree from Oxford and he is certainly correct that Peel did cause a rift in the mid 19th-century Tory party. The purpose of the repeal of the Corn Laws, as Marx noted in a speech made in Brussels in January 1848, was to reduce the price of bread, not to help workers but to allow factory owners thereby to reduce wages and make more profit. Mr Rees-Mogg certainly agrees with that. Peel’s aim was to rebalance the Tories as a party of the ruling class away from landed interests and towards industrialists."

It is undeniable that the workers, their rights and welfare were of little interest to landowners and industrialists. Very few working class voices were heard in the campaign for the Repeal of the Corn Laws. This only began to change later in the 19th Century, with the coming of mass literacy and trade unionism. 

Nevertheless, the mass agitation did provide impetus to the rise of working-class activism. As Spartacus Educational says:

!The Corn Laws had an important political impact on Manchester... It also influenced working class radicals and the Corn Laws was one of the main issues that was to be addressed at the meeting that they had organised at St. Peter's Field on 16th August, 1819."

And we know what happened at that meeting...

After the Peterloo Massacre, 18 people lay dead, including a 2-year-old boy, William Fildes, and a pregnant woman, Mary Hayes. Hundreds of people were injured. The Prince of Wales (the future George IV) congratulated the magistrates who ordered the attack on the peaceful crowd  "for their prompt, decisive, and efficient measures for the preservation of the public peace". Parliament passed the "Six Acts" which stifled dissent by public meetings or in print for years afterwards.

The poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, wrote an impassioned poem condemning the massacre - "The Masque of Anarchy" - in September, 1819, which was banned from publication until 1832.

The government cracked down severely on the press. As Wikipedia points out:

"The immediate effect of Peterloo was a crackdown on reform. The government instructed the police and courts to go after the journalists, presses and publication of the Manchester Observer."

The working class struggle had begun.