The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

THE LANDED INTEREST AND CORN LAWS 725 commerce in such a way as to stimulate employment, were 4.0 Tree accepting a measure that exposed the British agriculturist to foreign competition. The Tory, who had advocated foreign commerce in the interest of the consumer, looked askance at it, when it threatened to undersell his tenants in the home market. Like other compromises, the measure failed to satisfy any one, and it did not even answer the expectations of its author. Englishmen found that they could not count upon a steady stream from other countries, as the interruptions to commerce, and demands abroad, might render it impossible for merchants to supply the deficiencies caused by a poor harvest at home. In bad years the consumer suffered, while the foreign corn which was imported might be warehoused and increase the stock of corn, so that the English producer would find prices range very low in some ordinary years, The effort to maintain a steady price, partly from the home but Parlia- supply and partly from foreign sources, proved a failure!; ei tothe and in the last decade of the eighteenth century the most Zyincirle of prominent agriculturists of the time demanded a return to native tion the policy of stimulating home production. Sir John Sinclair argued that the passing of a general Inclosing Bill was « the first and most essential means of promoting the general improvement of the country; and the importance of that measure has not as yet perhaps been so distinctly stated as ib deserves. In general, those who make any observations on the improvement of Land, reckon alone on the advantages which the landlord reaps from an increased income ; whereas, in a national point of view, it is not the addition to the rent, but to the produce of the country, that is to be taken into consideration. It is for want of attending to this important distinction, that people are so insensible of the wonderful prosperity that must be the certain result of domestic imn- provement. They look at the rental merely, which, like the 1 Arthur Youug's protest against the changes introduced by the Act of 1773 on the ground that the price at which export was permitted should not be too low, was justified by evenis. He held that, with the increasing demand and increasing difficulties of production, the farmer in 1770 ought to be able to calculate on a higher price than he could look for in 1689, and that the legislature should endeavour to keep the price of corn as steadily as possible at this higher level. Parliament bad attempted instead to make corn cheaper, with disastrous results, to the consumer in bad years. and to the producer in good ones (4dnnals of Agriculture. XLI. p. 308).

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: The Industrial Revolution

Monograph

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation