If the wise Mr. Dennis will study the subject more thoroughly he will probably reach the conclusion that poverty in England is the product of land monopoly, a vicious financial system and a governmental establishment in which a lot of hereditary bloodsuckers prey upon the body politic.
Free trade is the law of nature; it never did, and never can produce national misery, poverty or decadence.
If the wise Mr. Dennis will study the subject thoroughly he will discover that the Corn Laws of 1815 were passed for the purpose of giving special benefits to the landlords of Great Britain. By the poor the act was regarded as such a direct attack upon themselves—such a barefaced design to make them pay higher prices for the necessaries of life—that resistance to the law grew riotous and had to be put down by force.
Says Justin McCarthy, the historian:
“The poor everywhere saw the bread of their family threatened, saw the food of their children almost taken out of their mouths, and they broke into wild extremes of anger.”
But the soldiers were called out, the riots put down, and a sufficient number of the poor hanged to quell the remainder.
Thus the land monopolists of Great Britain—many of whose titles to their enormous holdings are tainted with all manner of fraud and wrong enforced and odious law which robbed the poor to benefit the rich.
In 1817 the troops were used again to crush the laborers who were crying out against oppression.
In 1819 soldiers were used once more.