THE RELATIVE DEPRESSION OF THE LANDED INTEREST 841 
in the sole interest of a special class. Who were the land- 4-0-1776 
lords, and what had they done, that they should be thus 
favoured ? And when the question was put in this way, it en they 
. enefiteq a 
was obvious that there could be but one answer. An arrange- particular 
ment, which pressed heavily upon the community, must be “** 
allowed to drop; even though it did enable the class on whom 
a large share of national, and the chief burden of local 
taxation ultimately fell, to meet the demands of the State. 
It was as a class question that the matter was discussed, and 
decided ; and the sense of bitterness it roused was not allayed 
when the repeal was effected. Some of the legislation of 
the latter half of the nineteenth century seems to have 
been affected by an unworthy desire to retaliate on the 
landed proprietors for the special indulgence they had 
secured for a generation? 
The case against the Corn Laws was so strong that, when f,the hi 
once the issue was fully raised, repeal was inevitable. On of the 
. _ mant- 
the one hand there was all the evidence of the Commission facturing 
. oe . snl . 
on hand-loom weavers, which showed that the limitation of *¢** 
the food-supply was the greatest grievance to the operative 
classes ; owing to the large proportion of their earnings which 
was spent in food, their power of purchasing clothes was 
curtailed, and the home demand for manufactures was checked. 
The Corn Laws also interfered indirectly with our foreign 
commerce ; the high tariff on imported corn introduced an 
obstacle to the export of our manufactures. There were 
many of our customers who had not the means of paying for 
our goods; the Baltic ports and the United States were 
regions from which food might have been obtained, but for 
1 Mr Gladstone’s Budget of 1853 was regarded at the time as an intentional 
blow at the landed interest as such. Disraeli said: “I have shown you that in 
dealing with your indirect taxation you have commenced a system and you have 
laid down a principle which must immensely aggravate the national taxation upon 
the British producer. I have shown you in the second place that while you are 
about to pursue that unjust and injurious policy, * * * while youn are aggravating 
the pressure of indirect taxation upon the British producer, you are inflicting 
upon the cultivator of the soil a direct tax in the shape of an income tax, and 
upon the possessor of the soil a direct tax in the shape of a tax upon successions. 
**» Twill not ask you was it politic, was it wise, or was it generops to attack 
the land, both indirectly and directly, after such an immense revolution had taken 
place in those laws which regulated the importation of foreign produce. * * * I will 
remind you that the Minister who has conceived this Budget * * * is the very 
Minister who has come forward and in his place in parliament talked of the vast 
load of local taxation to which real property is exposed.” 8 Hansard, cxxvI. 985.