The names of Sir Robert Peel and Richard Cobden are indissolubly
connected with the legislation which repealed the "Corn Laws" and
placed English commerce upon the basis of free trade--Cobden as
the theorist and untiring agitator, whose splendid talents were
unsparingly devoted to preparing public opinion for the economic
revolution, and Peel as the protectionist Prime Minister, who was
open-minded enough to become convinced of his error in persisting
in the policy in which he had been trained. The necessity for a
change of commercial policy grew out of the altered conditions in
the nation. The agricultural England of the eighteenth century
had in a generation been transformed into a hive of manufacturing
industry. The rapid adoption of steam power and improved
machinery in England on the one hand, and the paralysis of
industry on the Continent during the Napoleonic wars, had wrought
the change, while the commercial marine, guarded by her powerful
navy, had brought the carrying trade of the world under her flag.
The weakest point in the English system was the protective
tariff, which lay heaviest on imports of grain--or "corn," to use
the insular term. The Corn Laws were a body of legislation
enacted from time to time by Parliaments which were controlled by
the great land-owning interests. The land-owner, whose income was
derived chiefly from rents upon agricultural lands, consistently
favored a scale of tariffs which would maintain the price of
cereal grains at the highest figure. At the close of the great
war (1815) the nation was confronted with business disaster. "War
prices" for grain fell rapidly, the markets were stocked with
more manufactured goods than impoverished Europe could absorb,
while the English labor market was glutted by the influx of
several hundred thousand able-bodied soldiers and sailors in
quest of industrial employment. As early as 1821 Mr. Huskisson, a
cabinet colleague of Mr. Canning, had endeavored to lighten the
burden of British manufactures by reducing the import duties upon
the raw material used by the English looms. He was for getting at
the root of the matter and disposing of the Corn Laws, so as to
provide "free food" as well as "free raw materials," but his Tory
companions believed that such legislation would vote the bread
out of their own mouths. In 1838 an Anti-Corn Law Association was
formed at Manchester. Under the direction of Richard Cobden, a
young and successful manufacturer, who had become the most ardent
of free traders, a league of similar clubs was organized
throughout the country, and through it an agitation unsurpassed
in the history of politics was prosecuted until its object was
attained. In Parliament he became one of the most effective
orators, and the chief target of his argument was Peel, the
leader of the protectionists. In 1845-46 a more powerful argument
than Cobden's was thrown into the scale. The failure of the Irish
potato crop, the sole food supply of that unhappy island, "forced
Peel's hand." In the face of two-thirds of his own party, in
opposition to his own life-long political creed, he gave notice
as Prime Minister that he should introduce a bill for the
immediate reduction and ultimate repeal of the laws which were
responsible for the high price of food. He had become a convert
to free trade, and was ready to carry it into practice. The young
Disraeli as the representative of the Protectionist element of
his party, lashed the premier in the speech which first gave him
a following in the Parliament that he was soon to control. But
enough Peelites followed their leader into the camp of the free
traders to carry the bill. The Corn Laws disappeared from the
statute-book.