Election of 1841. of 1842. breach of free trade etiquette cost him his head, and he lost his place as president of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce.' It is hardly necessary to inquire which was the most truthful, the petition or Mr. Wood's speech. It is a significant fact, however, that the Corn Laws were not mentioned by the Queen in her communication to the law-makers of the realm. In fact, the only necessity for alarm at that time was the one being created by the Anti-Corn Law League. The petition presented was ignored by parliament. In June, 1841, parliament was brought to a sudden close. A motion of want of confidence in the ministry was carried by 312 against 311 votes. A dissolution followed and an election was immediately held. Sir Robert Peel, an avowed protectionist at this time, had triumphed over the ministry, and a new election was held without a direct appeal to the country upon the tariff question by either the Whigs or the Conservatives. Yet during the election which followed, the Anti-Corn Law League waged a vigorous campaign to procure the election of members of parliament who would favor free trade, but their efforts were only in part rewarded, there being only about one hundred free traders elected. The election of 1841 was a disappointment to the Anti-Corn Law League. The course of Sir Robert Peel, afterwards Prime Minister, and of Mr. Gladstone and other influential statesmen, in still adhering to protection, stood in the way of a consummation of the Manchester plan. Sir Robert Peel had been elected by protectionists, and every tie which binds honorable men to their constituents, required a devotion on his part to those principles which had won him the confidence and Legislation support of his people. A further revision of the tariff, however, was within the purpose of those men who still adhered to the policy of protection and opposed the doctrine of free trade. It could be made upon the lines which had been followed by protectionists for over twenty years. The sliding scale of duties on corn, which was adopted in 1826, was still in force. The experience during the seasons of good crops had shown that the duties were higher than the farmers required, to afford them ample protection in times of abundance and low prices. The experience had also demonstrated that the duties were higher than justice and fairness. would permit during the seasons of deficient harvests and high prices. It was within the plan to revise the Corn Laws and still further reduce the duties on manufactured goods and raw materials, and make further provisions for the imposition of direct taxes. Accordingly, on the ninth of February, Sir Robert Peel introduced the famous measure known as the Act of 1842 for a revision of the Corn Laws. It permitted the importation of wheat with a duty of fifty cents per bushel when the price was $1.50; as prices advanced the duty was reduced, being fixed at thirty-three cents a bushel when the price was between $1.83 and $1.86 a bushel; falling to 1 Mongredien's History of Free Trade, p. 23. measure. twelve cents when the price was between $2.10 and $2.13 a bushel; and to six cents a bushel when the price had reached $2.19 a bushel. Considering the crude means of cultivation and harvesting which then prevailed, $1.50 was a price which was conceded at the time to be fair and reasonable. While a duty of fifty cents a bushel was in its effect in most Peel's years almost prohibitory, it secured to the English farmers their home. market, without interfering with the general current price in the country. Notwithstanding the very reasonable and moderate provisions proposed by this measure, the Anti-Corn Law League was vigorous and unsparing in its denunciation. The league demanded a removal of all duties and the establishment of free trade in all agricultural products. While the measure was pending before parliament the free traders were active in holding. meetings in the chief manufacturing towns, for the purpose of denouncing the bill. Lord John Russell, Lord Palmerston and Mr. Villiers favored absolute repeal. They were, of course, supported by Mr. Cobden, who was elected to parliament in 1841. The first move on the part of the free trade opposition was taken on the fourteenth of February, when Lord John Russell offered an amendment to the bill, to the effect that the House was not prepared for its adoption. This amendment was lost by a majority of 123. A few days later an amendment was offered by Mr. Villiers, for the absolute repeal of the Corn Laws. It was upon this proposition that Mr. Cobden first distinguished himself in parliament as a debater. After a spirited discussion the amendment was rejected by a vote of 393 against, and only 90 for the proposition, showing a majority of 303 protectionists in the House of Commons. The bill, as proposed by Peel, finally passed both Houses and became a law on the twenty-eighth of April, 1842. tax. The next step taken by the Prime Minister was the introduction of a Income bill imposing an income tax. The constant and steady revisions of the tariff which had occurred since 1815, so reduced the receipts of the government as to cause a deficiency of $12,500,000. The expenses of the government, involving as they did the interest on the national debt, were so enormous that any species of taxation, direct or indirect, was necessarily high and burdensome. The duties on imports had been so reduced by former parliaments that nearly the whole of the customs revenues was being collected upon eighteen out of over eleven hundred articles subjected to duties. Further steps could not be taken without devising new means of taxation. The income tax imposed by Mr. Pitt to provide for the Napoleonic wars had been repealed at its close. A return to that system of direct taxation, which was regarded as a species of war taxes, was very distasteful to many members of parliament, yet the necessities of the situation procured sufficient votes for the passage of the bill. revision. The next measure embraced within the legislation of this year was Tariff now introduced by Sir Robert Peel. It was the famous measure for the modification of the customs tariffs. It reduced the duties on seven Gladstone on protection. Act of 1842 a protective measure. hundred and fifty articles, leaving four hundred untouched. The reductions made in the duties on raw materials were approved by the manufacturers, while the duties on manufactured goods were left high enough to afford ample protection to the few industries which might possibly suffer from foreign competition. The prohibition was removed from the importation of cattle, and they were subjected to a duty which afforded ample protection to the agriculturist. It is worthy of note that this legislation was the work of a protectionist parliament, carried against the opposition and votes of the ninety free traders who sat in the body. It preserved all the essential principles of protective tariffs. Every industry and interest was considered and guarded. Mr. Gladstone participated in the debates, and earnestly and ably advocated protection to agriculture. Speaking on the bill for the revision of the Corn Laws in 1842, he said: The agricultural interests have a demand for protection on two grounds. These grounds are: First, the peculiar burdens upon the land. Secondly, the immense investments which have taken place under the present system (i. e., before the repeal), and which would be seriously affected by the sudden and violent change. Those circumstances convinced him that they must be prepared to have a certain quantity of corn always disposable in the foreign markets, at what might be called an unnaturally low price; and that it was against those unnaturally low prices that the agriculturists of this country, so far as a system of protection could be reasonable at any time, claimed with reason to have it applied. 1 But we must surely proceed with a due regard to our industry and interests, both at home and abroad; and it would be absurd indeed if we were to regulate our trade so as to leave ourselves altogether at the mercy of the policy or of the impolicy of the countries with which we trade." He contended, therefore, however desirable it might be in the abstract to buy cheap, that those principles were not to take effect, and should not take effect without a careful examination having first been made of the result they would be likely to produce in the displacement of labor, and interfering with the course of the investment of a capital of trade and the exchanges.3 He did not wish to cast a stigma upon the principle of political economy, but he felt called upon to object to the strict application of a principle, when circumstances were greatly modified and restricted.' That the principles of protection were fully upheld by the Act of 1842 is shown by Mr. Gladstone in his "Recent Commercial Legislation,' in which he said: It was an attempt to make a general approach to the following rules: Secondly, the reduction of duties on manufactured articles, and of protective duties generally to an average of 20 per cent, ad valorem. Thirdly, on partly manufactured articles, to rates not exceeding 10 per cent. Substantially the same views were expressed by Sir Robert Peel, in his speech on the introduction of the measure." Hansard, Vol. 60, p. 375, Feb. 14. 1842. Hansard, Vol. 66, p. 509, Feb. 13, 1843. 3 Hansard, Hansard, Vol. Vol. 68, p. 922, April 25, 1843. 4 Hansard, Vol 87, p. 1273, Feb. 26, 1845. The requirements of the government made it necessary that reduction of duties and changes which would lessen its income should be cautiously made. The requirements were so large, that revenue from one source could not be surrendered until it was replaced by taxes levied on something else. Neither at the time of the organization of the Anti-Corn Law League nor after the passage of the Act of 1842 was there any necessity for tariff agitation for the removal of burdens on English industries. The following statement shows the situation of tariff laws at this time: The custom house accounts exhibited in 1842 a list of one hundred and ninety articles upon which duties were levied, independent of such as were not considered worth enumerating, but were described as "all other articles," and the duties upon which, in that year, amounted to $366,755. It is a curious fact that out of this long array of substances the net produce of the duties upon which amounted, in 1840 to $116,709,065, the large proportion of 93 1-5 per cent, or $109, 362, 540 was collected upon eighteen articles, as shown in the following list. By extending the list so as to comprise all articles which yield annually $50,000 and upward, it will be found to comprehend, altogether, only forty-five articles, yielding $113,713,005, or 97%1⁄2 per cent of the whole, leaving one hundred and forty-five articles besides all those unenumerated, and which yielded $2,996,060, or 21⁄2 per cent of the produce.2 Eighteen articles from which 93 1-5 per cent of the revenue was Revenue collected in 1840: Tea, .. Sugar and molasses, from duties on imports in 1840. Silk manufactured goods, . 1,203, 135 1,007,885 Forty-five articles yielding 97% per cent of the revenue: Pepper, . Dye and hard woods, Turpentine, Oils, .. Lemons and oranges, Hides, . 425,970 Furs, Total of forty-five articles, . $113,713,005 1 The figures given are reduced to United States money, at the rate of $5 to a pound sterling. 4 A similar examination of the custom house accounts for 1849 shows the following result of these important changes, viz., that upon twelve articles yielding each more than $500,000 the revenue has amounted to 951⁄2 per cent of the whole; that upon fourteen articles, yielding each between $50,000 and $500,000, the proportion was beyond 22 per cent, while all other articles, the revenue from each of which was less than $50,000, yielded less than 2 per cent of the yearly amount, which, notwithstanding the abolition and reduction of duties since 1840 to the extent of $37,398,425 or 32.88 per cent, yielded in 1849 within $2,368,690, or about 2 per cent (2.08) of the revenue of 1840. Twelve articles above $500,000 per annum : 1 Sugar and molasses, $20,632,520 Effect of reducing duties. Pepper,. $111,344,315 Further analysis of the legislation in question was made by Mr. Edwin Williams, in Fisher's National Magazine, of September 1846, as follows:" The following statements show the net annual produce of the duties of customs on all articles imported into the United Kingdom in the two years which preceded the alterations in the tariff made in 1842, and in the two years after these changes were effected: |