Crisis and Compromise in Great Britain 61 1imposed a sliding tariff on imported wheat (then known as “corn”). When
the price of wheat produced in Britain fell below a certain level, import
duties would keep out cheaper foreign grain. Foreign grain could be imported
virtually free of import taxes only when the price of wheat stood at or above a
certain level. The laws protected landowners, but were detrimental to the
interests of businessmen who imported or sold imported grain and, above all,
to ordinary people, who were forced to pay higher prices for bread. Failed
harvests in 1839-1841 brought great deprivation, as parishes cut back on
allocations to the poor. The “Great Hunger” in Ireland, caused by the potato
famine that began in 1845, brought mass starvation (see Chapter 14).
The issue of the repeal of the Corn Laws pitted proponents of laissez
faire economic policies against wealthy property owners, Whigs against
Tories. British manufacturers and spokesmen for the poor denounced the
entrenched “bread-taxing” and “blood-sucking” oligarchy. In 1839, the
Anti-Corn Law League
started up, joining busi
nessmen, Whig politicians,
and political radicals, who
believed that the repeal of
the Corn Laws would be a
major step toward universal
male suffrage. John Bright
(1811-1889) argued that
the repeal of the Corn
Laws would be a major step
toward political democ
racy. The son of a Quaker
cotton mill owner, Bright,
although not an MP, incar
nated British liberalism, as
he thundered against aris
tocratic privilege and its
close ties to the Estab
lished Church. He warned,
“Until now, this country
has been ruled by the class
of great proprietors of the
soil. Everyone must have
foreseen that, as trade and
manufactures extended,
the balance of power
would, at some time or
other, be thrown into a destitute, hungry Irish family searching for
another scale. Well, that potatoes in a stubble field during the potato
time has come.” famine.