CHAPTER III.
High estimate abroad of English Navigation Laws—Change necessary, owing to the Independence of America—Other nations at first Protectionist—Mr. Pitt’s proposals with reference to trade with America—Mr. Pitt resigns, and a temporary Act ensues—Shipowners and loyalists in America successfully resist his scheme—Congress the first to retaliate—Restrictions injurious, alike, to England and her Colonies—Commercial treaties with America between 1794 and 1817—Acts of 1822 and 1823, and further irritation in America—Order in Council, July 1826—Conciliatory steps of the Americans in 1830—Foreigners look with suspicion on any change in the Navigation Laws—Reciprocity treaties of 1824-6—Value of treaties in early times, but inadequate for the regulation of commercial intercourse, and liable to unfair diplomacy—Reciprocity treaties only, partially, of value, and do not check the anomalies of Protection—Committee of 1844-5 promoted by the Shipowners, who seek protection against Colonial shipping—Reciprocity must lead to free navigation—New class of Statesmen, well supported by the People—Exertions of Lord John Russell, who leads the way against Protection—Richard Cobden and the Anti-Corn-Law League—John Bright—Effect of the Irish famine, 1845-6—Sir Robert Peel carries the Repeal of the Corn Laws, and resigns.
In proceeding to consider the great alterations in the ancient commercial system of England which have ultimately led to the entire abrogation of the Navigation Laws, it is advisable to trace their remarkable history under several distinct heads, premising, however, that, previously to 1844, their complete repeal had probably not suggested itself to any of the statesmen who, at various periods, had held the chief power in England.
High estimate abroad of English Navigation Laws.
For nearly two centuries an opinion had prevailed in England, as well as in all foreign countries carrying on maritime commerce, that the English Navigation Laws, created originally to check, if not to annihilate, the maritime power of Holland, had been the means of raising Great Britain to her unquestioned superiority on the ocean. But this opinion is best answered by the fact that, long after the creation of these laws, the Dutch still remained more powerful at sea than any other nation;[23] while, on the other hand, the shipping of England, under a different policy, has become much more prosperous than it ever was at any period during which the laws of Cromwell were enforced.
Change necessary,
Other nations, however, could not fail to see that English shipowners upheld these laws with much tenacity; hence when, on the cessation of the wars of Napoleon, they had more time to devote their attention to individual pursuits, they asked themselves two questions: (1st) if protective laws had been beneficial to English ships, why should they not follow the example of that country and enact for themselves similar laws? and (2nd) if England persisted in excluding their ships from her ports, why should they not treat her vessels in the same manner? In other words, they were already prepared to act on the principle of retaliation, and adopt the course pursued by the United States of America in 1817, when Congress passed a law, the counterpart, if not the copy, of that in the English Statute-book, which was adopted with the declared intention of retaliating on Great Britain.
owing to the Independence of America.
In the case of the American States, so long as they were dependencies of the British Crown, their ships could trade with all British dependencies on the same footing as our own; but, when they became independent, their ships, like those of any other foreign Power, were excluded from every port where our laws prohibited the entry of such vessels. Previously they could freely trade with the British possessions in America and with the West Indies, with which they had hitherto carried on a profitable intercourse, supplying them with lumber for their houses, staves for their casks, corn, fish, and other provisions, together with horses and cattle for their plantations, besides affording our people there a sure market for their surplus produce of coffee, sugar, and rum.
Other nations at first Protectionist.
Mr. Pitt’s proposals with reference to trade with America.
Mr. Pitt resigns, and a temporary Act ensues.
Up to this period the practice of foreign nations had not very materially complicated our navigation system. If Great Britain, on her part, persisted in refusing to receive, for instance, the produce of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in any but British ships, Spain and Portugal, on their side, declined to send their goods to England in any ships but their own. So that our law in such cases, rigorous as it was, did nothing but determine how a trade, in which we had never had a share, must be carried on, should we be permitted to enter it. But the case of the United States was attended with much greater difficulty. Here was an extensive and flourishing maritime commerce, averaging nearly 3,500,000l. yearly, which had hitherto been open to English and American vessels, indifferently, but which was now, by the operation of our Navigation Laws, confined entirely to the former.[24] It was then that the strength and elasticity of our exclusive system were first severely tested. Mr. Pitt foresaw this serious difficulty so early as 1783 when Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the necessity of immediately introducing a temporary measure to regulate the commercial intercourse with the now independent States of North America. The Bill then actually introduced by Mr. Pitt proposed to allow American vessels to import into our colonies any articles whatever of the growth, produce, or manufacture of the United States, and to export any articles from our colonies to the United States. But, unfortunately, while this wise measure was under the consideration of the House of Commons, the ministry to which Mr. Pitt belonged resigned, and their successors, to save themselves the trouble of passing a Bill of this prudent and necessary character, passed a temporary Act, afterwards renewed from time to time, vesting in the Crown alone the power of regulating the trade with America.
The shipowners and loyalists in America successfully resist Mr. Pitt’s scheme.
As might have been anticipated, considerable discussion immediately arose with regard to the manner in which this power of the Crown should be exercised. The West Indians, on the one hand, represented the ruinous position in which they would be placed if they were forbidden to trade with the United States: while, on the other, the loyalists of the remaining North American Colonies pleaded that they were quite able to supply the people of the West Indies with all they required, and prayed that the monopoly the war had given them should not be abrogated. These views were maintained by the shipowners of Great Britain, on the plea that, if American vessels were allowed to export West Indian produce, they would convey it to foreign countries as well as to the United States, thus securing a materially improved position as carriers by sea; and, after this case had been fully argued before the Board of Trade, the shipowners and the loyalists unfortunately won the day.
Congress the first to retaliate.
Exasperated by such conduct, three of the American States made a requisition to Congress to prohibit all commercial intercourse with the British colonies;[25] and, before Congress met in 1789, no less than nine of these States had demanded retaliatory measures on British commerce and navigation. The result was that two Acts of Congress were immediately passed: one imposing a tonnage duty of six cents on all American built and American owned vessels, of thirty cents on vessels built in the United States but owned by foreigners, and of forty cents on foreign vessels; while the other imposed a tariff of duties in the ordinary form, and provided for the remission of 10 per cent. of such duties in case the goods were imported in American ships. The Americans thus paid us off in our own coin, and continued this retaliatory system till 1817, when they passed the Navigation Act to which I have just referred, in all respects analogous to our own. Nor, indeed, can there be any question but that they were fully justified in these retaliatory measures. If one nation insists on excluding the vessels of other nations from their trade, they must naturally expect that the legislators of the countries, whose vessels are thus excluded, will take similar steps, even to the injury of their own people; in fact, this is just what England did when she prohibited her people from obtaining from other countries, at the lowest cost, the produce or manufactures essential for their existence.
These restrictions injurious, alike, to England and her Colonies.
But besides this, these restrictive measures on the part of Great Britain, had in more than one instance, proved, in many other respects, most injurious to her own people, while inflicting the greatest hardships and most lamentable sufferings on her own West Indian colonies. Thus, between 1780 and 1787 no less than 15,000 slaves perished from starvation, having been unable to obtain the requisite supplies of food from the North American colonies at a period, when the home-grown portion of their sustenance had been destroyed by several hurricanes. Yet, notwithstanding this terrible calamity, the British Parliament persevered in the system it adopted, and ultimately passed an Act (28 Geo. III., cap. 6) whereby no goods could be imported into the West Indies from the United States, even in British ships, except about thirty enumerated articles, the produce of these States. Indeed, the Act went so far as to prohibit the importation of even these articles from any of the foreign West Indian Islands, except in cases of public emergency, when the governors of individual colonies were allowed to relax this prohibition. Similar laws were also passed to prohibit the importation of goods into our North American colonies from the United States, except for similar reasons.
Commercial treaties with America between 1794 and 1817.
The injurious consequences of such policy, especially in the provocation it gave to the Americans, led to the conclusion, in 1794, of the treaty to which I have already incidentally referred[26] (though, strange to say, even this was disapproved of by many persons in England), whereby American vessels, not exceeding seventy tons burden, were allowed admission into the British West Indies with such articles of United States produce as were not generally prohibited, and, at the same time, permitted to export therefrom to the United States any produce of the West Indies legally exportable thereto in British vessels. Curiously enough, the following proviso was appended to this clause:—“That this liberty only extends to a direct intercourse between the British West Indies and the ports of the United States, and the United States engage to prohibit the carriage of molasses, sugar, coffee, cocoa, or cotton in American vessels, either from his Majesty’s dominions or from the United States to any other part of the world.” The treaty also provided for placing the trade between Great Britain and the United States on a permanent footing, it having till then been regulated by Orders in Council. This treaty, which gave even greater dissatisfaction in the United States than in England, was not ratified by Congress till 1796; nor was the Act for giving effect to it in Great Britain passed till the following year.
This Act, however, made no provision for the admission of American vessels generally into our colonies. It simply provided that American ships were at liberty to import into Great Britain such produce of their own States as was admissible in British vessels; it moreover imposed a tonnage duty on the ships, and a discriminating duty on the goods imported by them, in order to countervail any duties levied on goods imported into the United States by British ships. The provisions of the treaty as to opening the trade of the West Indies appear to have fallen to the ground. An additional article to the treaty of 1794 stipulated that the article containing those provisions shall be suspended; while a later treaty (1806) contained a recital that the two high contracting parties had been unable to arrange the terms on which the commerce between the United States and the West Indies was to be carried on. In fact, they came to no definite arrangements till the United States passed their retaliatory Acts in 1817 and 1820, and, even then, it took more than ten years to settle the differences between them on almost any one question. Indeed, the only alterations of any importance made between 1806 and the passing of the American Navigation Act, in 1817, were the opening of the trade between the United States and our North American colonies, in 1807, and the conclusion of a treaty in 1815 abolishing the differential duties levied by the two countries on the ships of each other in respect of direct voyages between them.[27]
In 1808, and more fully in 1810, similar privileges were granted to the Portuguese dominions in South America; and, in 1822, these were extended to all countries in America, being, or having been, under the dominion of Spain. When the Customs Laws were first consolidated in 1825, the exceptions became the rule, and importations from Asia and Africa were placed on a similar footing to those from America. Thus our original rule as to importations from Asia and Africa, as well as from America, was broken down.
Acts of 1822 and 1823, and further irritation in America.
Though the Act of 1822 allowed a considerable number of articles to be imported into the free ports of the West Indies from any foreign country in America in ships of such country, it contained a clause reserving to the King the power of prohibiting such intercourse with any foreign country not treating British shipping with equal favour. The President of the United States, having been previously empowered by Congress to open the ports of that country to British vessels on the same terms as were required from United States vessels when coming from any British port in the West Indies, passed on the 21st March, 1823, an Act to regulate “the commercial intercourse between the United States and certain British ports.” By this Act the ports of the United States became open to British vessels coming from the free ports of the British North American and West Indian possessions, while power was given to the President to remove the differential duties levied on goods so imported, on receiving information that similar privileges had been conceded in such British colonial ports to the vessels of the United States. The Act, however, required all goods so imported to be the produce of the colony whence they came and to have been imported thence direct. It further enacted that such British ships might take back produce of the United States, provided they gave bonds to land it directly at the port for which they cleared out. As the provisions of this Act were, however, to depend on the continuance of those enacted by the British Legislature in 1822 (3rd Geo. IV., cap. 44), and, as the vessels of the United States were not placed on precisely the same footing in the ports of the West Indies as British ships, this power of the President was never exercised, and a British Order in Council in opposition to it was subsequently issued on the 21st July, 1823. Here again arose another war of tariffs, for this Order levied countervailing duties on vessels of the United States and their cargoes in the ports of the British North American and West Indian possessions from the ports in the United States to the extent of 4s. 3d. per ton, as well as a discriminating duty of 10 per cent. on imported articles.
Order in Council, July, 1826.
In 1825, when the consolidation of the Customs Laws was under consideration, as well as the extension of treaties with other countries, negotiations were again renewed with the United States, but they were not successful, and another Order in Council was issued on the 27th July, 1826, reciting that the conditions laid down by the Possessions Act, 6 Geo. IV., cap. 114, had not been fulfilled, that is to say, that the United States had not reciprocated the privileges Great Britain had granted to American ships, and that, therefore, the privileges possessed by American vessels of importing the produce of their country into British possessions abroad, and of exporting the produce of those possessions to any foreign country whatever, would cease on certain dates fixed in the following year. As might have been anticipated, the President issued, on the 17th March, 1827, a proclamation prohibiting the trade and intercourse with the British possessions authorised by the Act of Congress of 1st March, 1823.
Conciliatory steps of the Americans, 1830.
Happily, however, these retaliatory measures did not remain long in force; and, after various negotiations, it was enacted by the American Congress on the 29th May, 1830, that, whenever the President should have evidence that Great Britain would open the ports of her colonial possessions in the West Indies, South America, and the Bermudas, for a limited or indefinite time to United States ships, at the same rate of impost and tonnage and with the same cargoes as British vessels, and that they would be allowed to export from such British possessions to any country whatever any article which could be exported in British vessels, leaving any other intercourse with Great Britain in other respects as it then was, he might grant similar privileges to British vessels coming from the said possessions to the United States. This conciliatory measure was followed on October 5th, 1830, by a proclamation from the President, extending the provisions of the Act to the British colonies therein specified, and which had been opened to American vessels. Finally, a British Order in Council of the 5th November of that year, repealing the various Orders passed between 1823 and 1827, was issued, authorising vessels of the United States to import into British possessions abroad any produce of the United States from those States, and to export goods from the British possessions abroad to any foreign countries whatever.
Foreigners look with suspicion on any change in the Navigation Laws.
Subsequently to the failure of Mr. Pitt’s measure respecting the trade of the United States, no great effort was made for many years to modify grievances with other nations, which every one felt were caused by the Navigation Laws. Protection had become so thoroughly engrafted on the whole policy of the nation, that the question of the repeal of these laws could only be approached by degrees, the country being so impressed with their necessity, that any attempt during the first quarter of this century to sweep them away would have proved a signal failure. Indeed, at the close of the French war, when modifications were offered, conditionally, to other countries, it is not surprising that such foreign nations as believed the prosperity of England to be due to her protective system were not satisfied of the honesty of her intentions: most of them, in fact, looked with suspicion on proposals which, in the dawn of sound commercial knowledge, were not unnaturally thought by them inimical to the interests of England. Foreign nations were slow to recognise that the comparative freedom of her constitution, her vast mineral resources, the skill and energy of her people, the security of property, and the equality of taxation, could secure for England either her commercial or her manufacturing superiority; and, still less, could they comprehend how much such causes as these had to do with her maritime supremacy. They were equally unable to discover to how great an extent the prosperity of these interests and of shipping were mutually dependent on each other, ships being really the adjuncts only of commerce, as without it there would be no reason for their existence.
Reciprocity Treaties of 1824-6.
But after much discussion reciprocity treaties were concluded by Mr. Canning and Mr. Huskisson with several Continental Powers, the object of these statesmen being to hold out the right hand of fellowship to other nations, and to surrender in exchange for some concession on their part the more stringent conditions of our Navigation Laws. The earliest of these treaties was with Prussia, on the 2nd April, 1824: on the 16th June, we made another with Denmark; on the 29th September, 1825, with the Hanseatic Republics of Lubeck, Bremen, and Hamburg; on the 16th January, 1826, with France, and on the 26th December, of the same year, with Mexico. Various other treaties followed; opening, on certain terms of reciprocity, the ports of Great Britain to the ships of the nations with whom they were made; but reserving to her own ships, as a rule and with jealous care, her colonial ports.
Value of treaties in early times,
During the Middle Ages, when foreigners were too frequently subjected to unjust treatment, treaties were, no doubt, necessary for their protection. For instance, at one time, all foreigners residing in England were held liable for the debts and even for the crimes of each other. Shipwrecks, though attended with less of the barbarity of earlier times, were regarded in most countries as fortunate opportunities for plunder; while tolls and local charges of the most arbitrary description were levied on aliens by states, princes, corporations, and the lords of manors. There were also many other matters scarcely less oppressive and unjust which could only be redressed by negotiations.
but inadequate for the regulation of commercial intercourse, and liable to unfair diplomacy.
Under such circumstances it was necessary for commercial States to secure, by treaties, that protection and security for the person and property of their subjects abroad against the injustice they were liable to, and which they could not obtain from the laws of the countries where they might happen to be. Treaties were also required for the regulation of neutral commerce during war, and for defining clearly what goods could not be carried by neutrals for the belligerents. For all such purposes treaties were, of course, essential; but, when they came to be used, with the further object of teaching different nations how to conduct their own business, a practice arose which, however useful at the time in assisting a change of system, could not long endure. Regulations as to the duties chargeable on certain articles, or for the privileges of certain ships, according as they were built by, or belonged to, particular countries, inducing constant misrepresentation and tending to create grave differences between nations, were soon found to be neither the best nor the wisest means for producing economic or friendly commerce. Moreover, the whole system of treaties so constructed was attended with a mode of bargaining, in which the clever diplomatist might frequently gain unfair advantages for the people he represented. Such a course of action was so obviously undignified in the conduct of national affairs, that all merchants of high standing in different countries at length protested against it. Statesmen, also, began to discover that, as a rule, it was better for commerce to flow on with no interference from treaties or other legislation—that, as a matter of fact, it prospers best unaided; and, further, that such a state of things, while unsatisfactory so far as the intercourse between nations is concerned, was also discreditable, alike to the nations entertaining such propositions, and to the ministers or officers by whom they were proposed.
As the whole of the treaties, with their numerous protocols and appendices, their labyrinths of “clever clauses” and mysterious paragraphs, have been published,[28] and can be examined by those of my readers who are interested in such diplomatic intricacies, it is only necessary to give here the general purport of them, as I shall have occasion to notice, hereafter, in reviewing the progress of merchant shipping, those more directly affecting that interest; but, that my readers may understand more clearly the nature of these treaties, I furnish the text of that with France.[29] It gives the general conditions embodied in such documents, and the extent of the concessions England was prepared to make with those countries which were willing to reciprocate with her.
Reciprocity treaties only, partially, of value,
The results of these “Reciprocity Treaties,” however, as shown in the note,[30] were, for the time, satisfactory to both countries, in so far as they materially tended to increase intercourse, while they, certainly, proved advantageous, in the long run, to the shipowners of England. But they were full of inconsistencies, and, as the trade between nations increased, it became simply impossible to carry them out satisfactorily.
Nor was it, indeed, likely that people of different nations, who had been thus far “educated” to the advantages derivable from free intercourse, would continue to endure the absurd clauses of treaties prohibiting them from using corn, cotton, sugar, and numerous other necessaries of life, piled in heaps as these often were in their stores and warehouses, merely because they had been imported in other ships than those of Great Britain, or of the countries where they had been produced.
and do not check the anomalies of Protection.
The fact was, that while these treaties did create a sort of uniformity before unknown, and so far increased the facilities of intercourse, they did not obviate the most glaring hardships and inconveniences of the previous system of protection. An American vessel, for instance, might bring American cotton to England direct; but if this cotton had been landed at any foreign port, neither the ships of that country nor of any other could have conveyed it thence to our shores; while the corn of Russia, if landed in Prussia, or in the ports of any other nation, was prohibited in England, however great might be the demand for it at the time.
Nevertheless, when it was first proposed in 1821 to allow British ships to import non-prohibited articles from any part of the world, the proposal was, for the time, effectually resisted by our shipowners, on the plea that the cheaply built and navigated vessels of other countries would carry the produce of America and Asia into continental ports, and leave to British ships only the small profit to be derived from its conveyance across the English Channel!
Committee of 1844-5 promoted by the Shipowners, who seek protection against Colonial shipping.
But though it was abundantly clear that great changes were necessary beyond the treaties which had been effected (an enlightened class of merchants and manufacturers having now arisen who required that they should be entirely unfettered in the conduct of their own affairs, and that they should be at liberty to import and export whence, whither, and how they pleased) it was no easy thing to induce Government even to consider the advisability of taking a further step in advance and repealing laws so long in force. No important changes were, therefore, contemplated until 1844, when a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire into the working of those treaties and the condition of the commercial marine of the country: indeed, the appointment of even this Committee appears to have originated from complaints preferred by our shipowners, as one of the duties imposed upon it was the consideration of the best mode of encouraging and extending the employment of British shipping. Curiously enough, the chief complaint of the shipowners, in this instance, was against the privileges granted to colonial-built ships, the owners of which were, of course, on the same footing as those of vessels built in the United Kingdom. It was alleged that the latter, as costing a great deal more, were unable to compete successfully with the less costly ships of North America, and, therefore, legislative protection was sought, on the ground that the competition of these ships had materially lowered the rates of freight.
The Committee of 1844 was appointed at the instance of Mr. Lyall, a shipowner, and one of the Members for London; and, although it sat during the whole Session, it reported that, from unforeseen circumstances, it had been prevented from going fully into the matter, and requested re-appointment in the following Session, which was acceded to. But, as about this time, after a long period of depression, prosperity returned to the shipping interest, employment for ships having become better, while, in many important trades, the rates of freight had advanced, the inquiry by the Committee, under such auspicious circumstances, was allowed to drop. It was, however, plain enough from the temper of Parliament, that no recurrence would be permitted to anti-colonial protective measures.
Reciprocity must lead to free navigation.
The General Shipowners’ Society[31] attributed this prosperity to the guano trade, which had recently arisen on the coast of Africa; but other and far more influential causes had been at work. The treaties of reciprocity had, with all their imperfections, no doubt, tended materially to increase our intercourse with foreign nations, while the admission of their ships to our own ports, strange as it may appear, had greatly increased the employment for our own. Though our shipowners resolutely denied that these measures had anything whatever to do with the increased prosperity, more enlightened men had arrived at entirely different conclusions, and were convinced that the policy of reciprocity, however unsatisfactory in many respects, was not merely a step in the right direction, but was the best, and perhaps then the only, mode of breaking down, bit by bit, the huge fabric of protection, the growth of more than two centuries: indeed, it was clear that the “Great Maritime Charter of England,” as the Act of Cromwell had been somewhat ostentatiously denominated, could only be destroyed by degrees. This vast tree, if it may be so described, had taken too deep root in the soil of England to be overthrown at one blow; and the Reciprocity Treaties undoubtedly served as wedges for its destruction.
In the meantime, Sir Robert Peel had made great changes in the Tariff. Commencing with the coarser sorts of manufactures, he had relinquished all duties on the importation of wool, linen, and cotton, and had reduced the duties on the finer qualities of the same goods from twenty to ten per cent., and on manufactured silks from thirty to fifteen per cent., making equally important reductions in the duties imposed on various other articles.
New Class of Statesmen, well supported by the People outside.
But a new class of men had now arisen to extend the principles of Free-trade, and to force home the wedges of unfettered commerce with heavier blows than Canning, Huskisson, or even Peel, had ever done. The people, led in this instance by men from among themselves, of the industrial classes; and, guided by the voice of Wisdom, were now trumpet-tongued proclaiming their rights and demanding justice, on conditions which, however large, were yet so unanswerable, that, before long, the proudest of our aristocracy and the most exalted of our statesmen paid their homage to the “unadorned eloquence” resounding throughout the land.
Exertions of Lord John Russell,
Though Lord John Russell, an honest adherent from his youth to the enlightened policy of Charles James Fox, followed in their footsteps, and struggled onwards amid innumerable difficulties, it was impossible for him to force his way, almost alone against the class to which he belonged, and through the rank grass and tangled brushwood which surrounded this huge old tree. Indeed, almost every member of the ancient aristocracy except himself was opposed to the course he had resolved to pursue; and although the Parliamentary Reform Bill of 1832 carried on his motion, and, in a great measure, by his early and unwearied exertions, had returned to the House of Commons many men ready to render him every assistance, the power of that House was still insufficient to effect, to anything like the extent he had in view, the laudable and, indeed, noble object of his ambition, a thoroughly unfettered commerce. On the people, however, he could fully rely: they were now inquiring more earnestly than they had ever done how it was that the food necessary for their existence was so heavily taxed, and why they were not allowed to buy that food where they pleased, and to import it on the most economical terms. If their knowledge of geography, as they were sometimes sneeringly told, extended no further than what they had learned from the Sacred writings, that grand old historical record taught them, that Egypt produced grain at less cost and in far greater abundance, than England; so great, indeed, that its granaries had once supplied the wants of Rome and of the Ancient World. When, therefore, they learned that that grain could not be had, because a comparatively small number of men—landowners and shipowners—who, from their wealth, exercising great influence in Parliament, were of opinion that the importation of food from other and cheaper countries meant ruin to them, the people, in mass, unequivocally desired to know, in a more detailed and more satisfactory manner than they had hitherto been told, “the reasons Why.” The question they had now asked, through their leaders, was one which demanded an answer. First promulgated in the workshops of Lancashire, it spread in all directions. It was whispered in Belgravia; loudly proclaimed by the toiling millions; talked about by the cottagers in every valley and by the shepherds on every hillside; till, at length, it was adopted, in the most earnest manner, by the middle classes, the bone and sinew of Great Britain.
who leads the way against Protection.
With such overwhelming aid, Lord Russell and his exploring party were enabled to penetrate the dense forest of protection, and reach the roots of the huge and rank old tree, which not merely overshadowed the rich soil of their native land, but spread its branches over their seaports, so as to prevent the importation from other lands of articles necessary for their existence. They saw that, under its shadow, no herbs grew except such as, from their position, were favoured by a ray of the hazy sunlight of protection; healthy shrubs, luxuriant in their nature, withered and decayed wherever its branches extended.
Richard Cobden and the Anti-Corn-Law League
The chief of the new class of politicians, who had arisen was no common man: he was one whose clear judgment, while it embraced existing wants, penetrated far into the future. Richard Cobden, the son of a Sussex yeoman, and, practically, one of themselves, who had been trained to commerce,[32] saw perhaps more clearly than any one else the pernicious effects of all protective laws. Supported by an overwhelming array of facts, he arranged them in a manner so clear, and made them known in so pleasing and homely a style of eloquence, as to command attention and carry conviction to every man who was open to reason. In a word, he was the first to thoroughly convince the people of Great Britain that they had a right to be allowed to purchase the necessaries of life wherever they could obtain them, and to dispose of their manufactures wherever they could sell them, on the most advantageous terms.
John Bright.
In directing the attention of the masses to this all-important question he sought the aid of men who had sprung from the people and had been trained to commerce; and he found many able and truly earnest colleagues, but none more so than John Bright, a man of greater, though perhaps not more convincing eloquence than his own, who like himself had no object in view, as the whole experience of his life has proved, than the good of his country. While Cobden and Bright proclaimed, with overwhelming force, the policy of Charles James Fox, which Huskisson and Canning had first practically put in operation, and which Lord John Russell was now zealously pursuing in Parliament,[33] an Association, under their leadership, was being formed out of doors destined to give the fullest freedom to commerce. The first object of the Anti-Corn-Law League was to lower the price of bread, which with every deficient harvest approached a famine price, and thus enable the working classes of every grade to compete with greater prospects of success and to the best advantage, in the production of those articles most in demand in their own and other countries, and, at the same time, to secure them more steady employment and a higher rate of wages. With this object, its members set themselves heartily to work, proclaiming their views at public meetings in almost every city and town in Great Britain, and, in the course of their labours, making many converts to their policy among the higher classes, among whom Charles Villiers ought to take high rank, for he was unwearied in his exertions on behalf of the people. Nor did they lack some associates among even the shipowners of England, who, seeing that the free importation of corn from other countries would afford greatly increased employment for their ships, readily joined the league. It is certain, however, that many of this class did not at the time perceive that, though the immediate object of the association was to cut down the chief branch of the huge old tree of protection, other branches, such as those interfering with free navigation, must likewise be pulled down as the supplement to free importation of corn: probably they did not reflect that, should the Free-traders abolish the protection then afforded to the proprietors of land, a protective system for the maritime interest alone could no longer be maintained.
Effect of the Irish famine, 1845-6.
But an event happened which, although in itself a grievous national misfortune, brought about, at an earlier period than might otherwise have been the case, the abolition of the Corn Laws, as well as the suspension, for a time, of the Navigation Laws. This calamity was the failure of the potato crop in Ireland in 1845 by “a pestilence so minute that it eluded the power of the finest microscope, so mysterious that it defied the researches of the most searching philosophy, but strong enough to overturn governments, general enough to alter established commerce, powerful enough to cause the migration of nations.”[34]
The whole crop of potatoes in Ireland having been destroyed, the price of grain rose at one bound from 45s. 9d. to 60s. the quarter, and Cabinet Councils assembled in November to consider the propriety of throwing open the ports of the United Kingdom. As the Cabinet was divided on the subject, Sir Robert Peel, impressed with the dangers of the approaching crisis, resigned office, and Lord John Russell, whose celebrated letter on that occasion must long be remembered, was called upon to form a new Administration; but personal jealousy among the Whigs[35]—a jealousy which lasted many years—prevented the formation of a ministry by the opposition party. Nor was Lord Stanley, who had been a member of Sir Robert Peel’s Cabinet, more successful in a similar attempt: hence, with the exception of his Lordship, the members of that Cabinet resumed their former places.
On the 4th December, 1845, it was intimated through the ‘Times’ newspaper, which had for some months previously avoided the question of total repeal, that Sir Robert Peel would propose the entire abolition of the Corn Laws. The Queen’s speech, as well as the speech of Sir Robert Peel on the Address, more distinctly announced the policy of the reconstructed Administration, and, having called attention to the measures of commercial reform already adopted, which had tended so materially to the greatness of this country and the welfare and happiness of its inhabitants,[36] he called on the agriculturists to submit to some sacrifice on their part, proposing a sliding-scale of duties on corn until February 1849, with the condition, however, that wheat and other cereal produce should, after that date, be imported from foreign countries at a duty of 1s. a quarter.
Sir Robert Peel carries the Repeal of the Corn Laws, and resigns.
It is not the province of this work to describe the struggles of parties during this momentous period, and it is therefore sufficient to state that the measures of Sir Robert Peel, supported as they were out of doors by the vigorous action of the Anti-Corn-Law League, and in Parliament by the Liberal party, were carried by large majorities through the Commons and were, ultimately, passed by the Lords. But, meantime the Irish Arms Bill had furnished the Opposition with a temporary accession of members to defeat that measure, and consequently with the means of overthrowing Sir Robert’s Administration, so that the night of his triumph on the great question of the repeal of the Corn Laws was a witness also of his downfall; and, in the records of the debates of that ever-memorable evening, may be read the words now so familiar to our ears:—“It may be,” he remarked, in his concluding speech, “that I shall be sometimes remembered with good-will in those places which are the abodes of men whose lot it is to labour and earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow; in such places, perhaps, my name may be remembered with expressions of good-will, when those who inhabit them recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because no longer leavened with the spirit of injustice.”