1826.
Ap pr

164

LIFE OF COBDES. rom’

By the law of 1815 corn conld be imported when whest ha
risen to eighty shillings a querter. By the lew of 1822 oh’
wag improved to the extent of permitting importation whe?
the price of wheat was seventy shillings » quarter. The
landlords vowed that this was the lowest rate at which ©
British farmer could live, and not a few of them cried ov
for total prohibition. They had powerful allies in the
cabinet, and even the Liberal wing in the Cabinet whic!
was led by Canning, never dreamed of being able to pus?
the landlords very hard. When pressed by a motion fo
extending to the case of grain the same principle which pad
just been so wisely glorified in the case of cotton, wool?”
silk, linen, and glass, Huskisson resisted it on the to?
familiar ground that the motion was ill-timed. He did zo
deny that it would presently be necessary to revise the Cor?
Laws ; and he added the important admission that gover?
foreign countries were not only in distress, owing to ov
exclusion of their corn, but that in revenge they wolf
proceeding to shut out our manufactures.”
Two years elapsed before the Ministry ventured to oud
the burning subject. The new measure was not broug”
forward by Huskisson. It was officially given out a8 is
reason for this that he was ill, but this was only one of tbe
peculiar blinds that serve to open people’s eyes. Everybod)
suspected that Huskisson’s illness was in reality the chag”
of the good economist at a bad measure. It was Conni®
who, in the spring of 1827, introduced the new Corn pil
It proceeded on the plan of making the duty vary inverse’
with the price of the grain in the home market. When tb
price of wheat in the home market reached sixty shilling®
quarter, foreign wheat was to pay on importation a duty °
one pound. For every rise of a shilling in the home pric
the duty was to go down two shillings; for every fall of
®t April 28, 1885. $ March 1, 1887.