ABSTRACT
The economic thought of the first half of the nineteenth century was very much the product of the problems that beset England and, to a lesser degree, France, after the Napoleonic wars came to an end in 1815. While England was relatively prosperous during this lengthy and expensive struggle, the end of the war was accompanied by severe economic depression. Widespread unemployment and high food prices encouraged a re-examination of the usefulness of restoring the Corn Laws as a possible corrective policy. The Corn Laws in mercantilist time were intended to stabilize grain price through a system of import duties and bounties that were linked to changes in their domestic supply. Their object was twofold: first, to prevent significant changes either up or down in prices of the grains which comprised the principal foods consumed by commoners and farm animals; second, to maintain a level of grain prices that were consistent with the preservation of landlord rents and lifestyles. Accordingly, if poor harvests raised grain prices to levels that attracted foreign imports, duties were imposed on them as a method for collecting revenues to pay subsidies to landowners. These would lower the price of grain (and bread) to levels consistent with worker needs
to support their families without depriving landlords of their rents. In spite of increased acreage and improved methods of cultivation, continued population growth caused English grain prices to remain high so that grain imports were virtually duty-free from 1795 to 1812. I Grain prices and, consequently, landlord rents were high, even without the payment of bounties, throughout the Napoleonic Wars. Thus, Parliament had no reason to continue the Corn Laws, as landlord interests were well served without them. Not until the return to peacetime conditions, and the prospect of large imports from the Continent, which threatened lower grain prices, did landlords again clamor for the bounty that had historically been provided by the Corn Laws. Manufacturers and merchants, on the other hand, were quick to realize the advantages that free trade would yield them because of the relationship between wage rates and low food prices. Malthus and his contemporary David Ricardo emerged as intellectual adversaries on the question of whether England is better served by free trade in corn and other agricultural products or by protected markets.
