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 THE CORN LAWS 729 system of the country would go to pieces if they became 4.D.1776 bankrupt, while the finance of the realm would be thrown into disorder. In any case they could urge that they had an equitable claim for the fullest consideration, owing to the incidence of national and local taxation. It was on these els grounds that a stringent Corn Law was passed in 1815, by was passed which the importation of foreign corn was prohibited, so long as the price of wheat did not rise above 80s.% It was possible to urge, and to urge in good faith, that the course which was so essential to the landlords asa class was also beneficial to the community. There was an obvious ible political danger in allowing the country to be normally grounds. dependent for its food supply on foreign sources; the nation had experienced the misery of famine, during the recent wars, at the times when the harvest had fallen short and the in- terruption of commerce had prevented adequate importation. It was plausible to insist that the country must endeavour to raise her own food supply from her own area, and not be dependent on maritime intercourse for the necessaries of life ; and it seemed possible that by artificially maintaining a high price, agricultural production might be so stimulated as to call forth an ample supply in good years, and a sufficient supply in bad ones. This was only, after all, a modification of the immemorial policy of the country’, in seeking to foster a vigorous rural population and provide adequate food. But times had changed since the English Revolution. but in the The public interest no longer coincided with the private ra interests of the landlord class, as had been approximately the 2 i io case in 16892; it had come to be closely associated with the private interest of the manufacturers. The hardware and textile industries were becoming the chief source from which the wealth of the country was derived. Shipping was needed, to fetch materials and to carry away finished goods; it had long ceased to have much employment in exporting our surplus corn. Maritime prosperity was bound up with the development of industry ; the shipping interest was indifferent to the maintenance of English tillage; and might even be opposed to it, since the regular importation of corn would 1 55 Geo. III. c. 26. 2 See above, p. 85. 8 See above, pp. 541, 542.

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