The British nation a history / by George MWrong . keep upthe price, an act was passedprohibiting the importation offoreign wheat until the priceiu Britain reached eighty shil-lings a quarter; colonial wheat,which was unimportant in quan-tity, might be brought in whenthe price reached only sixty-seven shillings. In 1832 a slid-ing scale of duties was adopted. When the price of wheatwas low the duty was to be high, that the English land-owner might be always free from the competition of cheapwheat. Eadical reformers attacked these Corn Laws bit-terly, and of course laid emphasis upon the injusti
The British nation a history / by George MWrong . keep upthe price, an act was passedprohibiting the importation offoreign wheat until the priceiu Britain reached eighty shil-lings a quarter; colonial wheat,which was unimportant in quan-tity, might be brought in whenthe price reached only sixty-seven shillings. In 1832 a slid-ing scale of duties was adopted. When the price of wheatwas low the duty was to be high, that the English land-owner might be always free from the competition of cheapwheat. Eadical reformers attacked these Corn Laws bit-terly, and of course laid emphasis upon the injustice tothe poor in making wheat dear to benefit well-to-do land-lords. But both the Tory and Whig leaders supported theCorn Laws, and Lord Melbourne declared in 1839 that freetrade in corn was the wildest and maddest scheme everimagined. Eichard Cobdens clear and forcible reasoningenlisted John Brights great eloquence in the cause. Theseleaders Joined the Anti-Corn-Law League formed in 1838,and soon their influence was felt. Eisid Whigs and Tories. SiK Robert Peel (1788-1850). THE MODERN ERA 527 still made light of the movement, but Sir Eobert Peel saw-that the existing system must be changed. In 1842 and1845 he lowered the duties, not yet on corn, but on manyother commodities, and when there was famine in Ire-land in 1845 he begged his Tory colleagues to relievethe starving multitudes by removing the duties on refused, and he it was found that no oneelse could form a ministry ;Peel resumed office, and therepeal of the Corn Laws wasthen certain. Supported bymany Whigs under Lord JohnRussell, but amid the exe-crations of his former Toryfriends. Peel carried throughin June, 1846, the great meas-ure by which, after February 1,1849, wheat was admitted freewith the exception of a regis-tration duty of a shilling aquarter ; even this duty wasabolished in 1869; it was reimposed in 1902, but so weddedwas the nation to free trade that it was again abolishedin 1903 T
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