ABSTRACT
The Corn Laws had been one of the sorest points in the national life—a permanent irritant of urban, manufacturing, and exporting interests against the politically dominant landlord caste which had imposed them. The particularly anxious corn year of 1826–7, which served to convince even the Liverpool Government that some modification of the existing Corn Law was necessary, saw the appearance of a work destined to be a rallying-point of opposition to the Corn Laws until their repeal. Another work of 1827 which served as a permanent incitement of the populace against the Corn Laws was Ebenezer Elliott’s Corn Law Rhymes. A single stanza may be taken to illustrate the kind of attack to which the “Landed Interest” laid itself open by its stiff-necked attitude on the Corn Laws. A “distressed agriculture” and relatively cheap bread did not offer Radicals the best campaigning conditions against the 1828 Corn Law, the winter of 1833–1834 saw nevertheless quite vigorous Anti-Corn Law activities.
