ABSTRACT
There was a dreadful moment, in 1815, when the country gentry and the farmers feared that their pleasant manner of life was to be brought to an abrupt end. The war was over, and it was possible to import grain from abroad. The harvest at home was bad, and foreigners were offering wheat at a price with which British produce could not compete. There was acute distress in the industrial regions, because foreign nations were erecting tariffs against British manufactures. But Parliament listened to the complaints of landowners and farmers, and imposed a heavy duty on foreign grain. As a result, the richer classes in the country remained rich-at what cost to the rest of the nation we shall see.
