Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/442

412 C O Pi N LAWS introduce wide and incalculable elements of speculation into all transactions in foreign corn. The prices during most part of tins period were under the range at which import was practically prohibited. The average price of British wheat was 96s. lid. in 1817, but from that point there was in succeeding years a rapid and progressive decline, varied only by the results of the domestic harvests, till in 1835 the average price of wheat was 39s. 4d., of barley 29s. lid., and oats 22s. The import of foreign grain in these years consisted principally of a speculative trade, under a privilege of warehousing accorded in the statute of 1773, and extended in subsequent Acts, by which the grain might be sold for home consumption on payment of the duties, or re-exported free, as suited the interest of the holders. The Act of 1822 admitted corn of the British possessions in North America under a favoured scale of duties, and in 1825 a temporary Act was passed, allowing the import of wheat from these provinces at a fixed duty of 5s. per quarter, irrespective of the home price, which, if maintained, would have given some stability to the trade with Canada. The idea of a fixed duty on all foreign grain, however, appears to have grown in favour from about this period. It was included in the programme of import duty reforms of the Whig Government in 1841, and fell with its propound ers in the general election of that year. Sir Robert Peel, on succeeding to office, and commencing his remarkable career as a free-trade statesman, introduced and carried in 1842 a new sliding scale of duties somewhat better adjusted to the current values. But public opinion by this time had penetrated the imprudence of the whole system ; and the prime minister, convinced, as he confessed, by the argu ments of Cobden and the Anti-Corn Law League, and stimulated into action by the failure of the potato crop in Ireland, put an effectual end to the history of the corn laws Ly the famous Act 9 and 10 Viet. c. 22. It was provided under this measure that the maximum duty on foreign wheat was to be immediately reduced to 10s. per quarter when the price was under 48s., to 5s. on barley when the price was under 26s., and to 4s. on oats when the price was under 18s., with lower duties as prices rose above these figures ; but the conclusive part of the enactment was that in three years on 1st of February 1849 these duties were to cease, and all foreign corn to be admitted at a duty of Is. per quarter, and all foreign meal and flour at a duty of 4^d. per cwt. the same nominal imposts which were con ceded to grain and flour of British possessions abroad from the date of the Act. Moreover, in 1860, even these nominal duties were abolished in a Customs Duties Act, and since that time corn and other provisions have been admitted into the United Kingdom free of all fiscal charge, r:; i grossing -^ s ^ as been remarked above more than once the distribu- n id fore : tion of corn supplies in the kingdom was much impeded stalling. by laws directed against all dealing in corn as an article of ordinary merchandize, apart from questions of foreign import or export. The theory was that when corn was plentiful in any district it should be consumed at what it would bring, without much respect to whether the next harvest might be equally abundant, or to what the imme diate wants of an adjoining province of the same country might be. The first statute on the subject appears to have been passed in the reign of Edward VI. , though the general policy had prevailed before that time both in popular prejudice and in the feudal custom ; and by this statute any one who bought corn to sell it again was made liable to two months imprisonment with forfeit of the corn. A second offence was punished by six months imprison ment and forfeit of double the value of the corn, and a third by the pillory, and utter ruin. Severe as this statute was, liberty was given by it to transport corn irom one part of the country under licence to men of approved probity, which implied that there was to be some buying of corn to sell it again and elsewhere. Practically " engrossing " came to be considered buying wholesale to sell again wholesale. " Forestalling " was different, and tire statutes were directed against a class of dealers wh< went forward and bought or contracted for corn and other provisions, and spread false rumours in derogation of the public and open markets appointed by law, to which our ancestors appear to have attached much importance, and probably in these times not without reason. The statute of Edward VI. was modified by many subsequent enact ments, particularly by the statute of 1663, by which it was declared that there could be no " engrossing " of corn when the price did not exceed 48s. per quarter, and which Adam Smith recognized, though it adhered to the variable and unsatisfactory element of price, as having contributed more to the progress of agriculture than any previous law in the statute book. In 1773 these injurious statutes were abolished, but the penal character of "engrossing" and " forestalling " had a root in the common law of England, as well as in the popular prejudice, which kept the evil alive to a later period. As the public enlighten ment increased the judges were at no loss to give interpreta tions of the common law consistent with public policy. Subsequent to the Act of 1 773, for example, one Waddingtou was convicted and punished for engrossing hops ; but though this was deemed a sound and proper judgment at the time, yet it was soon afterwards overthrown in other cases, on the ground that buying wholesale to sell wholesale was not in " restraint of trade " as the former judges had assumed. Popular antipathy to corn-dealers and corn- dealing survived to still more recent times ; but meal riots, and violent interference with the storing or move ment of grain, may be said to have wholly disappeared from the United Kingdom since the repeal of the corn laws in 1846, Freedom of export of corn from customs duties has Fc become the general rule of nearly all foreign countries. co The opening of so great a market as the United Kingdom for corn free of import duty, from every quarter alike, was calculated in itself to have considerable influence in dispel ling the ancient prejudice against a free export of grain. It is somewhat curious to remark that Spain, which has not Sj been forward in adopting modern ideas of trade, saw the advantage to her various splendid wheat-producing provinces of freedom of export of wheat as early as 1820, and three years afterwards extended this freedom to all " fruits of the soil " in Spain, which has since remained the policy of the country. But heavy duties on the import of cereal produce continue to be levied there, and must fall with very different effects on various parts of a kingdom in which the physical difficulties of interior transport are so great, and so little has hitherto been done to overcome them. Rice imported into any part of Spain is subject to a duty of 75s. per ton, wheat to 25s., dry pulse to 25s., oats to 21s. 8d., and barley, rye, and maize to 18s. 9d. per ton. The cereal produce of Portugal is exported free of duty, but on the PC import of wheat and flour by s:-ri, there are duties at the rate of 6 rees per kilo on wheat and 8 rees on flour ; inland, or through " dry ports," the duty is 2 rees on wheat and 4 rees on flour. Export and import of grain in France were Fr prohibited down to the period of the repeal of the British corn laws, save when prices were below certain limits in the one case and above certain otter limits in the other. But export of grain and flour from France has for many years been free of duty. On the import of grain and flour, on the other hand, France not only levies duties, but makes a distinction between countries within and beyond Europe.

The duty on grain imported into France from countrie3