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A large amount or a small? Revenue and the nineteenth-century corn laws

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

John Prest
John Prest
Affiliation:
Balliol College, Oxford
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Type
Communications
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , June 1996 , pp. 467 - 478
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 Susan, Fairlie, ‘The nineteenth-century corn law reconsidered’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, XVIII (1965)Google Scholar, no. 3, Vamplew, W, ‘The protection of English cereal producers: the corn laws re-assessed’, Economic History Review, 2nd series XXXIII (1980)Google Scholar, no. 3, Hilton, B, Corn, cash, commerce: the economic policies of the tory governments 1815–1830 (Oxford 1987)Google Scholar, McCord, N, The anti-corn law league, 1838–1846 (London 1958)Google Scholar, Prest, J, Politics in the age of Cobden (London 1977).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 ‘Second Report from the Select Committee appointed to inquire into the allegations of several petitions…complaining of the depressed state of the Agriculture of the United Kingdom’, Parliamentary papers 1822, V, 9Google Scholar. ‘Report of the Commissioners of Customs, dated gth July 1822, on the subject of the Clandestine Importation of Foreign Corn’, PP 1822, XXI, 83.Google Scholar

3 See for example, ‘Report from Select Committee on the Sale of Corn’, PP 1834, VIIGoogle Scholar, and ‘Report of the Commissioners of Customs, dated the 10th day of March 1864, relating to the Proposal to Levy the Duty on Grain by Weight, instead of by Measure’, PP 1864, LVIII, 155.Google Scholar

4 55 George III, c. 26, 23 Mar. 1815.

5 3 George IV, c. 60, 15 July 1822.

6 Barnes, D. G., A history of the English corn laws 1660–1846 (London, 1930), pp. 174, 178, 187Google Scholar. Canning formed this impression at the time, Hilton, , Corn, cash, commerce, p. 156.Google Scholar

7 Interim figures were published every year, but I have used throughout figures taken from ‘Customs Tariffs of the United Kingdom from 1800 to 1897 with some notes upon the History of the more important branches of Receipts from the year 1660’, PP 1898, LXXXV, 258–60Google Scholar. At first sight it is difficult to log in to these statistics. In 1898 the Customs attributed the revenue to the year in which the books were made up, and the whole table appears to have been displaced by one year. I have assigned the figures to the year in which the duties were collected – or most of the duties. Until 1854 the customs year ended on 5 Jan. In 1854 a single quarter's returns were recorded from 6 Jan. to 5 April. Thereafter the returns ran to 31 Mar. each year. The figure for 1854 covers the period from 6 Jan. 1854 to 31 Mar. 1855. Thereafter the figures refer to the period 1 Apr.–31 Mar.

8 6 George IV, c. 65, 22 June 1825, 7 George IV, c. 70 and c. 71, 31 May 1826, 7 and 8 George IV, c. 3, 13 Dec. 1826, and 7 and 8 George IV, c. 57, 2 July 1827.

9 9 George IV, c. 60, 15 July 1828.

10 5 and 6 Vict., c. 14, 29 Apr. 1842.

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14 ‘Return to an Order…dated 1 March 1842, for a Statement of the Quantities of Foreign Grain of each Kind, and of Wheat Flour, which paid the several Rates of Duty, together with the Per-centage Proportion which those Quantities bore to the Total Quantities of the respective Kinds of Grain entered for Home Consumption, during the whole Period from the passing of the Act 9 Geo. 4, c. 60, (July 1828) to the 5th day of January 1842’, PP 1842, XL, 417.Google Scholar

15 Walmsley, , Life of Sir Joshua, p. 61.Google Scholar

16 ‘Report from the Select Committee on Import Duties’, PP 1840, V, Qn. 697.Google Scholar

17 Ibid. Qn. 1228.

18 PP 1842, XL, 417–18. Very little rye was imported, but it appears to have traded like wheat. Was it used for human consumption?

19 B. Escott, (Winchester), Parliamentary debates 3 ser. LXXXIV, 799, 6 03. 1846.Google Scholar

20 PP 1840, V, Qn. 1041.

21 Figure arrived at from PP 1867, LXIV, 657–62.

22 PP 1840, V, Qns. 1035, 1079.

23 PD 3 ser. LXXXIV, 458, 2 Mar. 1846.

24 Figure arrived at from PP 1867, LXIV, 657–62.

25 6 and 7 Vict., c. 29, 12 July 1843, to come into force on 10 Oct., i.e. after the end of the shipping season for 1843.

26 PD 3 ser. LXXXV 192, 24 Mar. 1846, J. Stuart (Newark) quoting from a speech made by Cobden at Newcastle, on 22 Jan. 1844.

27 PD 3 ser. LXIX, 945, 26 May 1843.

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33 The best informed Member appears to have been Miles, W (East Somerset), PD 3 ser. LXXXIV, 788–91, 9 03. 1846.Google Scholar

34 Merk, F, ‘British party politics and the Oregon treaty’, American Historical Review, XXXVII (1931–1932)Google Scholar, no. 4, and The Oregon question (Cambridge, Belknap Press, 1967).Google Scholar

35 Vernon, H (East Retford), PD LXXXIV, 1466, 23 03. 1846.Google Scholar

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38 10 and 11 Vict. c. I, 26 Jan. 1847,

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41 An act to amend the laws relating to the customs, 12 and 13 Vict., c. 90, 1 Aug. 1849. The provision is in s. 34.

42 PP 1867, LXIV, 657–62.

43 PD CXXV, 1419, ‘Looking back to the remissions which have been made in late years, which began in 1842, and which were renewed on a very large scale in 1845 and 1846, we find that these remissions – within terms, as to some of them of eleven years, some of them of five or six years, but in the mean term of seven or eight years – have completely, or almost completely, recovered themselves’, 18 Apr. 1853.

44 PD CLXXIV, 563–64, 7 Apr. 1864.

45 ‘Returns “showing, so far as can be given, the Quantities of Tea, Sugar, Coffee, Wine, Malt, Spirits, Tobacco, and Corn, taken for Consumption in Great Britain and Ireland respectively, in each of the Years 1841, 1851, 1861, 1862 and 1863:” “Showing also the Quantity of each Article Consumed per Head of the Population in each Country, the Amount of Revenue derived in each Country from each Article in each Year, and the Amount of such Revenue per head in each Country:” “And, of the Population of each Country in each Year”’, PP 1864, LVIII, 717–22.Google Scholar

46 PD CXCV, 386–90, 8 Apr. 1869.

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50 ‘Forty-seventh Report’, and ‘Forty-eighth Report of the Commissioners of His Majesty's Customs’, PP 1903, XIX, 193–4, and 193 XVIII, 203Google Scholar. The 1903 Report also drew attention to the fact that maize had been exempted because ‘it forms the staple article of food of a large proportion of the Irish poor’.

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52 PD LXXXIV, 766, 6 Mar. 1846.

53 Cobden to his wife, 28 Jan. 1846, Morley, , Life of Cobden, p. 375.Google Scholar

54 Cobden to George Wilson, 29 Jan. 1846, idem.

55 PD LXXXIV, 454–5, 2 Mar. 1846.

56 PD LXXXIV, 455, 2 Mar., and 563, 3 Mar. 1846.

57 PD LXXXIV, 561, 3 Mar. 1846.

58 PD LXXXIV, 564, 3 Mar. 1846.

59 Read, D, Peel and the Victorians (Oxford 1987)Google Scholar, Hamer, D. A., The politics of electoral pressure, a study in the history of Victorian reform agitations (Hassocks, 1977).Google Scholar

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