In Our Time - The Corn Laws

Episode Date: October 24, 2013

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Corn Laws. In 1815 the British Government passed legislation which artificially inflated the price of corn. The measure was supported by landowners but strongly opposed by manufacturers and the urban working class. In the 1830s the Anti-Corn Law League was founded to campaign for their repeal, led by the Radical Richard Cobden. The Conservative government of Sir Robert Peel finally repealed the laws in 1846, splitting his party in the process, and the resulting debate had profound consequences for the political and economic future of the country.With:Lawrence Goldman Fellow in Modern History at St Peter's College, OxfordBoyd Hilton Former Professor of Modern British History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity CollegeCheryl Schonhardt-Bailey Reader in Political Science at the London School of EconomicsProducer: Thomas Morris.

Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time, for more details about In Our Time, and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk slash Radio 4. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello, one evening in March 1815, a riot broke out in Canterbury. According to the following day's edition of the Times, quote, a number of the lower orders paraded the effigy of a noble earl through the principal streets of the city, and in the evening consigned it to the flames amidst hootings, hisses and groans. The protesters then broke the windows of the local MPs before two of their ringleaders were arrested and thrown into jail.

Similar events unfolded elsewhere in Britain. The rioters were protesting against the corn laws. Legislation introduced to control the price of grain. Passed in 1815, the corn laws led to an ideological dispute between manufacturers and landowners, city dwellers and farmers. They were eventually repealed by Robert Peel's government in 1846 after three decades of disagreement.

The episode led to a major alteration government policy and some argue change the face of British politics. With me to discuss the Corn Laws are Lawrence Goldman, Fellow in Modern History at St. Peter's College, Oxford. Boyd Hilton, former professor of modern British history at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity College, and Cheryl Sean Hart Bailey, reader in political science at the London School of Economics.

Lawrence Goldman, this episode began at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. Could you give us some idea of the state, was in? Well, in June of course of 1815, the Battle of Waterloo ends a generation of warfare against France, which began in 1793. But the state of the country throughout this decade is really poor shape. It's one of the most difficult decades in modern British history. Before Waterloo. Difficult economically difficult in terms of the conditions of the poor and so forth. Before Waterloo in the last years of the Napoleonic conflict, there is great privation, shortages and considerable unrest. And then after the war is ended, there is the problem of bringing a wartime

economy back to peacetime stability, demobilisation of sailors and soldiers and so forth, finding jobs, there's high unemployment. It's a difficult time, and it's at this point, of course, that Parliament passes these inflammatory laws, the corn laws, which only feed into another theme in these years, which is the rise of a democratic movement, the rise of a movement concerned with manhood suffrage and parliamentary reform, and if you like, reforming an old system

and making it more representative. Yeah, a great deal is going on. Let's focus on the corn laws at the moment. What were they intended to do when they brought them in and what did the colonelers themselves do? Right, they were passed, or at least the first of them was passed in 1815. It was the Importation Act, and it was designed to ensure a protected home market in grain

for the landholders in Britain. Why did they want to do that? Well, it would keep prices high and keep prices stable. What landholders feared at the end of the Napoleonic Wars would be a sudden drop in price, particularly given the thought that, cheap foreign corn from overseas would flood into British ports, reducing, as it were, their remuneration, their returns from rents, from their tenants. So they want, as it were, to keep the

price high. Now, in the minds of the rest of the community of almost every class, this looks like exploitation of their position. They control Parliament, they can pass laws that in a sense line their own pockets. They being whom? They being the landholders, because Parliament is representative largely of the landholding interest. But from the landholders' point of view, they have a rationale, they have a defence. They've paid very high taxes, land taxes, during the Napoleonic Wars, to fund British victory. And in addition, they complain that they've taken marginal lands into cultivation, the sorts of lands you wouldn't normally cultivate in order to maintain food supply during the wars

when getting food from abroad was very difficult. And they fear the loss of revenue and indeed finding themselves with debts and so forth having taken this marginal land into cultivation, which they can no longer meet. So they, in a sense, defend themselves on the basis of their patriotism during the Napoleonic Wars. Shurban-Hoult-Hanhat Bailey,

what was the pressure to control the price of grain in the first place? Why was that pressure? Well, the concept of protection for agriculture is not a novel one, but the novelty of this act in 1815 is that it was the first bit of legislation that was deliberately and defiantly protectionist. There had been corn laws in earlier centuries, but they were not meant to be protectionist. They were simply meant to ensure that the price of grain did not rise above that. That could be paid for by consumers or that would not allow farmers to gain a living.

But the Act in 1815 was clearly protectionist, as has been described in favor of the landowners. And it was actually very blunt as an instrument. So the bluntness is one aspect, but the protectionist aspect is one aspect is one that reflected a sentiment of fear of scarcity, which is not necessarily dissimilar to what we see today, i.e. the reliance upon foreigners for foodstuffs is a very tricky thing for governments to embark upon. You use the word blunt. Could you develop that, please? Well, it was blunt insofar as it set the price at 80 shillings per quarter. And if the price were...

Quarter of what? of corn. And so if the price were to go above 80 shillings, there would be free entry below. It would be prohibited. So there was no revenue gained from the act, but it was meant simply as a blunt instrument. So in terms of the fear of scarcity, I mean, as I mentioned, the rationale was meant to ensure that there was essentially a native industry that is for agriculture. These laws, as I said at the beginning, a polarized opinion of the riots in the streets and so on. What were the main constituencies at that time, in around 1815,

supporting the corn laws, if you can tell us a bit about the support they get, and opposing the corn laws at the beginning? Well, I mean, as has been described, those in favor, those supporting it, of course, were the landowners who were the landowners who were, plummeting prices. Can we develop the line down a little bit? Are we talking about the old aristocracy or what are we talking about?

Well, primarily those in those in Parliament, but we're still in a period before rapid industrialization and which you find in particularly the 1820s, the 1830s, the growth of the contextual manufacturers and the railway industry. So, you know, you're still in an economy which has been industrializing, But at that point, you don't have a mobilized constituency against, and I would call it simply the corn law, because what we're talking is at that point, really, the law of 1815. And you don't have a mobilized constituency, as you read in your opening remarks, I mean, you had sort of disparate protests, but you had no collective effort to mobilize against that law of 1815. So in terms of a growing opposition, in part, it might be said to be more of an intellectual one by the political economists. So David Ricardo, McCulloch, John Stuart Mill, which happens a little bit after the law is passed. And reflections are then based on the implementation of that 1815 law and its impact.

And, of course, the bluntness and its ineffectiveness is then assessed by the political economist in terms. of how do we go from here, how do we change it, which is then the debate, the subsequent debate, which leads us then to the plural for corn laws and the discussion in the 1820s and then later on in 42. But in a sense, from the very beginning, you'll tell me if I'm wrong, obviously,

the stage you said, because the landowners, who've been there in most of them for several centuries, owning, really landowners, owning most of the country, full stop, put this through, that's their bill, That's that. And protests begin immediately. Now, they might just be scourished in the streets of Canterbury and other cities. But the stage is set for a battle from the beginning. Would you say that's true? It is true. But if you look at what MPs and peers were saying at that point, they were very dismissive of the protests outside of Parliament.

And in fact, part of the ethos of MPs was to pursue what they perceived as. the national interest and not necessarily be swayed by the protests out of doors. So there was a bit of a deaf ear on the part of parliamentarians. But we're still talking about MPs in terms of a country which had not had the first reform bill in 1832, which even that changed things in a small way. So the idea was that if you owned Otterland, you were in Parliament, you ruled a government roost. Would you go along with that boy, help? Yes, indeed.

I mean, as has been said, the great fear is one of scarcity. Thomas Robert Mathurst has told us that there are too many people for agriculture. The French Revolution began in hunger and so forth. But, as Lawrence said, the expansion of agriculture in wartime just fed a hope that perhaps Britain could be sort of self-sufficient or approaching self-sufficiency. every two or three years out of six you'd almost certainly need to import corn

but perhaps for the other four if you kept capital in agriculture and that was what the act was meant to do then maybe we could approach self-sufficiency and that would be a relative safety. Now by 1821 it's obvious that that policy is in tatters in what way? Well I'll explain. Well first of all there's massive decultivation

and a collapse of prices after 1815. That wasn't meant to happen, but it did happen. There's a glut of corn both in Europe and in Britain. In 1815, the minister said very arrogantly, look, it's okay buying in foreign corn just say two years out of six because the farmers in Poland and Lithuania and Saxony. They'll go on growing corn just for those markets every two years. An occasional market is better than no market at all.

They'll go on growing corn. get it in when we need it. But it's perfectly obvious from travellers' reports by 1820 that in fact the farmers are giving up farming in Saxony, turning to cotton spinning, that sort of thing. So sudden panic, that means that in the every fourth, fifth year, when we have a really bad harvest, we simply won't be able to get it in from abroad. Furthermore, British farms are decultivating because the marginal land

that was cultivated in wartime that Lawrence talked about, it just can't cope, it can't continue. you with the collapse of price. The hope that Ireland might provide a granary for Britain, a very strong hope in 1815, that collapses with the potato collapse and weak collapse in Ireland in 1817. So by 1821,

despite great clamour from the agriculturists, the landlords, for increased Cornwall. At this stage, all the real pressure is coming from them to increase the law of 1815. But the government, despite the fact it's dependent on those landlords politically, Issues a very clear report in 1821. The report is written by William Huskerson, who is the government's economic guru and easily the most important minister for these matters. And he is backed up by the radical political economist Ricardo. And they write a report and say, look, the future of the corn laws has to be downwards. We can't do anything immediately because of agricultural distress. But you must, the landlords must get used to the fact that we need to, we need to, we need to. to bring prices down to a level not too far above those of other countries.

And we must take corn regularly every year from foreign farmers. We can't just wait for a scarcity and then expect to get it. And the great thing about corn is it's not perishable. So the idea is that if you get market conditions by lowering prices, then the market will work out how much the country needs over a cycle of five or six years. You take roughly an equal amount every year and you store it in the warehouses, which you can. do free and there it will be

to be taken out of the warehouses if come some November or December there's famine at home. Who were the main supporters of what we can then call free trade in the 20s? Because this is intermingling with the growth of radicalism, what will become the Great Reform Bill in 1832. I know I'm rushing you a bit, but if you can bring those together and I think they did go together and tell us characterize the people who are leading that movement.

Well, first of all, I would say that the main proponents of free trade are indeed the political economists, as Cheryl said, and certain government ministers. But, yes, there is a pressure building up, particularly in the second half of the 1820s, when you have sustained manufacturing distress, and particularly in those export industries like cotton, which are dependent on foreign trade, and to see the corn laws as a hamper, as a restraint on trade, and also raising prices and therefore making British goods less. competitive. So can we just stop your former one? Because this is

the key, isn't it? The manufacturers see the corn laws as an act of protectionism, which is stopping them trading and stopping trade to and from this country in a very damaging way. So they spot that early on. Correct. And it places particularly, like Lancashire, where this is

these feelings are being articulated. There are other industrial parts like the West Midlands where they don't produce for the international market, but for the home market, where they don't care sometimes about the corn laws, it seems to me, What they want to do is to go off the gold standard and reflate the economy. So it's not all manufacturers, but there is a certain manufacturing lobby.

So we're getting the manufacturing lobby and an intellectual lobby for free trade and a reform lobby beginning to coalesce. What, as it were, Lawrence, happens next? Well, I suppose what happens next is the foundations of the anti-cornlaw league. Now, it's not the first time that there have been organised protests against the Cornwalls, as is clear from your introduction. But in Manchester, in late 1838, a small association was formed

the Manchester Antichorn Law Association. That took off very rapidly. And within six months, you have an anti-corn law league founded. At its heart are the manufacturing interest of Lancashire, the cotton industry, which requires, if you like, reciprocal markets, which makes exactly that argument

that if we don't, don't take the raw materials from Europe, they won't buy our finished goods. And in that way, as it were, we expand the market, we expand employment. There is higher wages and better opportunities for the workers of Lancashire. And the League is enormously successful. It's probably the most successful pressure group of the 19th century. It propagandises enormously successfully through the nation it sends out lecturers, it publishes journals, the economist, which we still read today, is founded at this time to propagandise for free trade.

Who are the most prominent members? Well, the core of the league are Manchester and Lancashire manufacturers, and the two most famous are a kind of duo Richard Cobden and John Bright. Both of them involved in the cotton industry. Cobden is a calico printer. He prints cotton cloth. and the two of them working together, close friends, are both elected to Parliament in the early 1840s. So can we just take a little digression to make, because that was very important.

The Reform Bill did extend the franchise a bit, and it was a breakthrough a bit, and the breakthrough seems to have favoured the Industrial North for the first time. Yes, well, that's right. I mean, what the Great Reform Act did was not only expand the franchise, more or less doubling it to about 800,000 men having the vote, in England, but it also, and this is the more crucial point, redistributed seats. So before the Great Reform Act, Manchester, the great centre of industrialisation, had no MPs at all.

After the Great Reform Act, it is represented. And seats are moved from the agricultural south and west of England to the industrialising north. And the geography of politics is now, in a sense, more in line with the geography of economics, you might say. So the League, and can we develop what Lawrence started about the anti-corrhizantial? Corn law League's very effective campaign. It is said to be in the notes of one of you more effective than a campaign against slavery, which is quite a claim. Well, the Anti-Coron Law League, as Lawrence says, is I think the first modern pressure group.

And its leaders were absolutely astute in their ability to exploit both the use of the ideas, as Lawrence has outlined, in their national propaganda campaign. So both in terms of the circulation of the anti-corn law circular, thousands of speeches given by its members throughout the country. But the second feature, which is particularly relevant to the fear that was then experienced on the part of both MPs and peers in the 1840s, was their electoral registration campaign. And this brings us up a little bit to,

after the period of 1841, when the Peel government comes in. So what was anticipated was that there would be a general election of 1848, which of course didn't happen, but that was the anticipation. The Cornwall League then sought to target its effort in its electoral registration toward 1848, or the anticipated election of 1848, by essentially swamping Parliament, the House of Commons, with supporters for free trade. And they sought to do so in two ways. One was to try to delete as many of the protectionist electors from the electoral registers.

And so on the annual revisions of the registers, they sought to register as many objections as possible to delete the protectionists. But at the same time, and this was very clever, They created thousands of free trade electors, and they sought to do so by a, it might be called a loophole, but it's actually a feature that goes back to 1430, but it was preserved in the 1832 Reform Act, and that is a feature called the 40-shilling county qualification. And what this did was allowed a free trade elector to be created for 40 shillings in the counties. Now this became relevant in 1832 because the county seats increased from 29% to 38% of the total seats in Parliament.

So it then weighted things a little bit more in favor of the county seats and the idea was, of course, then to shift the balance in the House to ward free trade. And there's speculation as to whether that may or may not have been ultimately achieved, but it was a credible threat. Boyd Hilton, can we talk about the central questions of the debate. Is it crass to think of it?

Well, one of the underlying things was what we might call, I don't know whether you'll maybe please refine the term, a class conflict going on here, industry versus the land, the artist's hands versus the ancestral privilege, and so on and so forth. Can you give us some idea of the ideology? Well, clearly there were sectoral divisions,

and these are developed in the late 20s and early 30s. There was indeed a rhetoric of land versus. as industry, it was quite powerful, reflected in some of the Reform Act debates. One of the very interesting points about Cobden's message, and it was very, very successful, was to say, look, the thing about free trade, it's a very optimistic view. It will grow the economy, we'll pull out of the old Malthusian finite sum economy, and we will create growth through free trade, and all classes will benefit. Some will benefit more quickly than others, but all we'll.

benefit in the long term and indeed all countries will benefit because there will be world economic growth through what we would call globalisation and the wealth will trickle down to the poor but also to the poorer nations so it's a very optimistic and really class harmonising theory and it takes on it's a sort of optimistic theory

that people are really are appealed by now it's nothing to do with what Peel thought if I could go back to Peel for a minute if Peel if the Tory's a not fallen in 1830.

They were expected to have repealed the Corners by 1836. Had they done so, they would have done so before the League got going. Indeed the League got going because of the failure to do anything about the Cornwalls. If they had repealed the Corners by 1836, you would have seen

the Peelian ethos if I could call it that of free trade for what it was, which was not at all optimistic and growth-oriented because Peel an older man is a thorough-going Marthuson. in and he can't conceive of sustained economic growth. In his

mind, you've got to understand that free trade is all part of what we might call free market economics. It's about minimal government, harsh welfare, attack the shirkers, help the workers, the new poor law, which is very much behind, you know, will keep the state

will keep you alive, but only if you submit to the most degrading and horrid conditions and so forth. It's a very sort of minimal welfare, minimal taxation state. And what he says is a great thing about free trade, is not that it will create growth. Even in 1846, he's saying the

appeal of the corn laws won't stop distress. It always comes around. Every season of excitement is followed by depression, but in future, thanks to the repeal of the corn laws and free trade and getting nearer to the economy of nature, in future, when distress comes,

you will have the consolation of reflecting that that distress has not been caused by laws of man, regulating in the hour of scarcity of the supply of food, the distress is the dispensation of providence. God deals with sinful mankind by testing

them and tempting them in the market and if people suffer or if our nations suffer, then this is a dispensation of providence sent for some just and inscrutable purpose. So he took the state out of the area of blame? Yes. Which was quite very clever. One of the many clever things is it.

Lawrence Goldman, we have got the wigs as Boyd-Hilton alluded to the Tories fell. It didn't fall. The parties are embryonic and shifting, a lot of Wiglanders. But it's the useful tag. The Wigs got the reform built through. A lot of the Tories were... And so we now have the two parties sizing each other, don't we, in the 1830s?

And this... But apart from that, we've got, as Cheryl said, an extremely effective league, anti-Law. And anti-league league. League sprang up, didn't it? Yes, well, and actually it does spring up later on in about 1844, but it's a bit of an apology for an extra-parliamentary group, really. I mean, as Cheryl actually said at the beginning,

the problem for these landholders is they don't really believe in extra-parliamentary agitation. They hate the idea of taking politics out of doors, taking it to the people. They are hostile to the popular politics of this era, precisely because it empowers people in the sort of, streets, the crowd, the mob as they see it. And so in a sense, they're in a difficult position. Trying to make the anti-free trade cause popular runs against their grain, as it were, coin a pun.

But the point that I would make as well is that they're not well-organised. They try to draw together these agricultural protection societies which have sprung up in a central organisation, which is what's called the anti-league. and the people who run it are just not the kinds of people for running a big public campaign. If you compare Cobden and Bright to the Duke of Richmond, who is the sort of titular figurehead, a man of the turf of broad acres in Sussex, much happier at Goodwood, I think, than in the Mills of Lancashire or even in Parliament. If you compare him with Cobden and Bright, or indeed his lieutenant,

the second Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, who loses the great country house of Stowe and becomes heavily indebted, a wasteoral and a libertine. These are not the kinds of people to run public campaigns. In many ways, they simply enforce the caricature of a landed aristocracy, which is very much out of touch. So, Cheryl, how did they... I painted a pretty bleak picture.

Not much for Cheryl to pick up, but nevertheless there was a campaign. What strength did the resistance have? They can be strong and being competent at the same time, I presume. Not much. I'll just give you a figure. So in comparison, as Lawrence noted, they really only got going in the mid-1840s. So to give you concrete figures,

the Anti-Corn Law League grew from an annual fund of £5,000 in 1939. By 1845, it had an annual fund. of a quarter million. In those terms? Yeah, $250,000. Meanwhile, that same year, 1845, the Anti-League, based in Essex, had an annual fund of £2,000.

So their organizational efforts were pretty poor. Okay, now we have to come on, Boyd-Hilton, to a man who is fascinating, he says, a thread through all of this, Robert Peel. One of the things I think he has is that he came from an industrial, his father had made himself rich twice,

and then massively rich the second time. We told one of the richest men in the country through industry. He sent his boy to eat and quite shirt, and straight into Parliament. But he had that kind of background somewhere or other, even though he was a great grandee. And he was a Tory, and then he... And he was... He seems to me...

He steered the thing. He was there. He was where it mattered to be in the 30s and 40s. And he was trying to find a way to repeal this and keep the Tory party intact. Yes, I think... that is right. He's in a terrible bind, as I've already said, he is convinced that for reasons of national security,

we can't delay repeal of the Cornwalls too long. It's got to happen fairly soon, unless the population suddenly stops growing, but that's not going to happen. But the trouble is he's got a Tory party that is very heavily protectionist. We talked earlier about the 1832 in format. It also doubled the number of English county seats. So, in fact, there's still a very strong protectionist lobby, within Parliament. And when the anti-corn law he gets going with this huge propaganda against agriculture, there is

a sudden sort of woosh of support for protection in the counties at the very end of the 30s. And the great landslide victory for Peel in 1841, when the Conservatives come back, is based on the counties and the small towns and it's based on protection.

So here's this man who wants to repeal the Cornwalls, but has got a party that he's committed to protection very largely. And he's also a man the member who has already once betrayed that party when he went for Catholic emancipation 1829 and he's only just been forgiven.

So what does he do? Well, immediately taking office, he embarks on a downward step of the Cornwall and he presents it to his and we know this is just the first of a two or three steps to repeal in his minds. But what he said to the party

is, look, let us do a downward step and then we'll be able to hold protection at that So he's telling them, I'm still a protectionist, but just take this downward step, and they take it. And I think he probably intended, this is guesswork, to do another downward step in 45. And then when it came to the election that Cheryl was talking about that might have been held in 48, he could have said to his supporters, look, we've had two downward steps. It hasn't damaged the farmers, because there's lots of demand. If I win the next election on the back of a successful government, I'm going to have to have.

to do real repeal. And that would have been open and above board and he wouldn't have been accused of betrayal. But at some point, he suddenly decides, down about 84, that he's got to do the repeal of the Cornwalls before the next election. Cheryl has given us one very important reason why he feels he might lose the election because the league is creating votes in the counters. It may have been a more general feeling that with chartism, the working class protest movement and hunger, the hungry forties after all, it would be dangerous to fight the next election on the food of the people. But anyway, he suddenly has to do it before the next election.

That means he's going to face charges of having betrayed the party again, of having cheated in 41, pretending to be a protectionist when he wasn't. So he has to find an excuse. And the main excuse that he finds, and I think we'd all agree this was a red herring, is the Irish potato famine, which starts in Lake 45. He knows perfectly well, this is clear from his letters, that repeating the Cornwall isn't going to get any food into Irish mouths.

And he even says at one point that there's one part of the United Kingdom, I'm afraid, will suffer from Cornwall repeat. It is Ireland. But he can say in a very general way to his backbenchers, his country gentleman, how can you worry about your rent rolls when over in Ireland there are people going hungry and, of course, later to starve and so forth? So it's a red herring, but it provides him with an excuse to do what he intended to do anyway. Can we just

continue with this Lawrence Golden because he does bring everything together he's trying to do something almost impossible and also what Boy Hilton has raised is they are the inside parties that is conflict it isn't just wigs versus Torres

the Torres are at each other says they don't like Peel really they want hunting and shooting and fishing and he despises them he thinks they're sort of sick really he doesn't like that sort of thing but he's richer than any of them clever than any of them Paul, and they're stuck with him.

And there's a feeling, as again, of a revolution in the air. This is the 1840s, and this is all over Europe. As he turned out, one of the few countries that escaped it. So this, Peel seems to be conscious of all these forces and storms, doesn't he? Absolutely. I mean, the first point that one would make is that he is very conscious of revolution. If you look at his biography, there's always a fear that the mob will get into the streets, into his estates and sweep it all away.

These people, particularly Peel's generation, live in the shadow of the French Revolution. So whenever... And so hunger means revolution. Indeed. And also, protest is potentially very dangerous to the state. So that over Catholic emancipation, allowing Catholics to sit in Parliament,

when there's the threat of rebellion in Ireland, he gives way. Over the Reform Act in 1832, when the crowd in May of 1832 go into the streets, Peel decides not to join an anti-reform administration, a government, and the Whigs are allowed finally to pass the Great Reform Act. And what the Taurus have against him is that again in 1845-46, he seems to be afraid of mass action of some sort, and he's giving in.

And the protectionists are saying, no, hold firm, hold fast, you don't have to do this. And there is a sense in which Peel is willing it. His government resigns, he resigns in late 1845, hoping that the Whigs will come in and that they will repeal the Corn Laws. The Wigs have difficulty forming an administration, and in any case they'd rather see the Tories divide over this question. And then the real sticking point is that in January of 1846, Peel decides to come back unnecessarily, in the view of many in his party, to form an administration with the interruption. attention of actually repealing these laws. So we've got to the number of it here, Cheryl.

They were repealed in 1846. Can you give us more information about what actually happened? So January of 1846, Peel sets the tone in a three-hour reading of the legislation. And he gives a... This is in Parliament. This is in Parliament. And he gives a battery of rationale. rationales for why the government should move for repeal.

Appealing to a number of different constituencies. So as we mentioned, the difficulty here is that he needs to gain at least a good portion of his own party, get them on board. Because between 1843, 1845, the liberal support for free trade had gone from about 71% to 89%, but in about the same time period, only four conservative MPs had voted for repeal. So the key was to get part of his party on board. Now that meant there was essentially a fraction, and here we're talking about the split in the conservative party between

what were dubbed the Pellites and the non-Pilite conservatives, the Pellites, of course, being the ones who followed Peele, and that constituted about a third of the conservatives. So Peel introduces the legislation in January, and ultimately about a third of the conservatives are swayed in favor. So the question is why? Why were they then, you know, why did they agree to this abrupt reversal from the steadfast adherence to protection for agriculture? Well, part of the reason requires an analysis and look at who those constituencies were and the changes in the constituencies that the Peel represented and there had been transformation in terms of the interests based in the

Pellite districts they had become a bit more urbanized a bit more industrialized so there was a little bit of attention that had been ongoing in the early 1840s within those constituencies already among the Pellites so by them then shifting their stance toward repeal it at least from an electoral position made sense. But the argument that appealed to them in terms of a cover, a figly, for their to say, well, we really are true conservatives, is that part of the rationale that Peel gave was to redefine conservativism as an ideology. So rather than protection being one of the cornerstones of conservatism as an ideology, he argued that in order to maintain the landowning

aristocratic control of Parliament, a concession, a timely concession is required and that timely concession is an economic one to the middle classes to opt for repeal. Did he realise Boyd Hilton or did he take on board that he was doing something that would destroy his political career?

That's a very interesting question. I think he thought he might get away with it by moral appeals and appeals to the national... Because inside his own party, Israeli emerged hammering him in Parliament, isn't it? Exactly. Yes. I think he hoped to get away with it. But I think he secretly rather liked the

martyrdom that came with not getting away from it and so forth. There's a lot of religious phraseology. And as you say, he despises these backbenches. So to be crucified by them is in a way a mark of sainthood. And incidentally just having mentioned that

an anti-cornolley member this is the sort of hype that is swirling around at this time describes the repeal of the Cornwall after it has happened as the most altruistic act in history since the crucifixion. Right. Lawrence Goldman, what effect did that repeal have on the economy? What happened afterwards? Well, it's an interesting question because it's actually in some ways rather difficult to say. The two decades and more after 1846, the 50s and 60s are periods of very good harvests,

plentiful supply of corn grown at home. You would have some. difficulty proving, as it were, that repeal increased nutritional standards in this country by, as it were, foreign corn coming in, because it looks as if domestic demand picks up. The golden age of English agriculture. Absolutely. But in the longer term, of course, it does have an effect. Go back to the 1830s and a minuscule amount of our food is coming in from abroad. Then, of course, if you look half a century on to the 17thes, 1880s, and more than half of food is coming from abroad. The world is in fact in the late 19th century awash with cheap food, with cheap grain, and a lot of it is coming to this country. And the price of food is in real

terms going down. It's a good age to be an urban worker because food is cheaper. But it would be difficult, I think, to say that it destroys British agriculture. It doesn't. In fact, the farmers do quite well. and when problems emerge in the late 19th century, they're ubiquitous through oversupply across the whole globe. Sorry, Charles, can you just say, he killed off the Tory parties, the conservative parties, chances of being in power for quite a while, didn't it?

Well, he did, and whether that was intentional or not, you know, is another question. But in terms of thinking about the long-term consequences of repeal and just picking up on Lawrence's point, is I think it embedded the subsequent prosperity, the national prosperity in the subsequent decades, I think was really associated with free trade in the minds of the British electorate and in key institutions like the Board of Trade.

And so when you had subsequent challenges to the idea of free trade, so the fair trade movement in the 1870s and the 1880s, or ultimately, and more seriously, in the tariff reform movement, leading up to the election of 1906, both were halted because in part there was a steadfast belief that British prosperity was linked, was inherently linked to free trade. And I think that's one of the, you know, the legacy, part of the legacy of the repeal.

And also hammered home by another great figure of the 19th century Gladson, who came in in 1853 on free trade, minimal states. low taxes. And Gladstone has learned his politics at Peel's feet. I mean, he was there in Peel's government in the early 1840s, and he learns that, as it were, free trade provides not only a good economic policy, but a kind of philosophy for the way in which you might run the state and the government in the future. The great irony is that Cobden had presented free trade as creating peace between the nations. We would trade with each other rather than make war.

In fact, what happens, our determination to take cheap food from abroad, America mainly means by the end of the 19th century that we are dependent on foreign food. We've got to go. I'm really sorry. We've got to go. Thank you very much, Boyd Hilton, Lance Goldman, Cheryl, Schoenhart Bailey. Next week we'll be talking about the Conference of Berlin in 1884.