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 731 for the population’. In years of scarcity a comparatively AD. 1776 small deficiency in the crop immediately caused a startling rise in price. Encouraged by these rates, farmers would break up more ground and take crops on a larger area, but a year or two of lower prices would soon compel them to give up steady agri : . cultura the task of trying to grow wheat, except on their better land ; improve- the uncultivated area was often left wild, without any attempt ™"* at laying down pasture. The most serious of these variations of price occurred just after the conclusion of the war. In January 1816, notwithstanding the protective legislation, wheat was selling at 52s. 6d.}; owing to a deficient harvest in 1816, not so much in our own country as abroad, the price rose very rapidly, and in June 1817 stood at 117s.%. Similar startling fluctuations characterised the end of the period, and rendered the farmer's business a constant speculation in which hundreds were ruined? Under these circumstances it was true that only a section of the landed interest, the proprietors and the tithe-owners, gained by the continuance of the traditional policy with regard to corn, while the mischievous consequences of the dearness of bread were felt by consumers in all classes. The uncertainty and scarcity in regard to food, which had been temporarily introduced by the war, continued to cause n- creasing distress. No substantial difference was made by the sliding scale of 18284, which permitted foreign corn to be imported and warehoused, on the payment of duties, if it was sold for consumption at home. Some relaxation was indeed allowed in the famine year of 1828, but on the whole the system of protection was strictly maintained, but with more and more hesitation?, till it was at length abandoned in 1846°. i The Committee of 1821 belived that enough wheat was grown for the requirements of the country, Report from Select Committee to whom the several Petitions complaining of the depressed state of agriculture were referred (Report, ste., 1821, 1x. 9); while that of 1833 recognised that we were dependent on foreign supplies * in years of ordinary production.” Ib. 1833, v. 5. - Tooke, 11. p. 4. 2 Tooke, 11. 18. 3 One Parliamentary Committee after another reported on the state of the agricultural interest. In 1821 it was shown that there had been many failures among the farmers in Dorsetshire in the preceding years. Reports, 1821, Ix. 138. + 9 Geo. IV. c. 60. 5 Sir R. Peel's sliding scale in 1842 was quite an inadequate reform. 3 9 and 10 Vict. ec. 22.

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