A large amount or a small? Revenue and the nineteenth-century corn laws

Historical Journal

Volumn 39, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 467-478

  Prest, John ^a  

^a BALLIOL COLLEGE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 78049321218     PISSN: 0018246X     EISSN: 14695103     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X00020331     Document Type: Article

References (57)

1. Susan Fairlie, ‘The nineteenth-century corn law reconsidered’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, XVIII (1965), no. 3
2. W. Vamplew, ‘The protection of English cereal producers: the corn laws re-assessed’, Economic History Review, 2nd series XXXIII (1980), no. 3
3. B. Hilton, Corn, cash, commerce: the economic policies of the tory governments 1815–1830 (Oxford 1987)
4. N. McCord, The anti-corn law league, 1838–1846 (London 1958)
5. J. Prest, Politics in the age of Cobden (London 1977).
6. ‘Second Report from the Select Committee appointed to inquire into the allegations of several petitions… complaining of the depressed state of the Agriculture of the United Kingdom’, Parliamentary papers 1822, v, 9. ‘Report of the Commissioners of Customs, dated gth July 1822, on the subject of the Clandestine Importation of Foreign Corn’, PP 1822, XXI, 83.
7. See for example, ‘Report from Select Committee on the Sale of Corn’, PP 1834, VII
8. ‘Report of the Commissioners of Customs, dated the 10th day of March 1864, relating to the Proposal to Levy the Duty on Grain by Weight, instead of by Measure’, PP 1864, LVIII, 155.
9. D. G. Barnes, A history of the English corn laws 1660–1846 (London, 1930), pp. 174, 178, 187.
10. Canning formed this impression at the time, Hilton, Com, cash, commerce, p. 156.
11. Interim figures were published every year, but I have used throughout figures taken from ‘Customs Tariffs of the United Kingdom from 1800 to 1897 with some notes upon the History of the more important branches of Receipts from the year 1660’, PP 1898, LXXXV, 258–60. At first sight it is difficult to log in to these statistics. In 1898 the Customs attributed the revenue to the year in which the books were made up, and the whole table appears to have been displaced by one year. I have assigned the figures to the year in which the duties were collected - or most of the duties. Until 1854 the customs year ended on 5 Jan. In 1854 a single quarter's returns were recorded from 6 Jan. to 5 April. Thereafter the returns ran to 31 Mar. each year. The figure for 1854 covers the period from 6 Jan. 1854 to 31 Mar. 1855. Thereafter the figures refer to the period 1 Apr.-31 Mar.
12. H. N. Walmsley, The life of Sir Joshua Walmsley (London 1879), p. 46.
13. Walmsley, Life of Sir Joshua, p. 61.
14. ‘Report from the Select Committee on Import Duties’, PP 1840, V, Qn. 697.
15. ‘Report from the Select Committee on Import Duties’. Qn. 1228.
16. B. Escott (Winchester), Parliamentary debates 3 ser. LXXXIV, 799, 6 Mar. 1846.
17. Figure arrived at from PP 1867, LXIV, 657–662.
18. PP 1840, V, Qns. 1035, 1079.
19. PD 3 ser. LXXXIV, 458, 2 Mar. 1846.
20. Figure arrived at from PP 1867, LXIV, 657–662.
21. 6 and 7 Vict., c. 29, 12 July 1843, to come into force on 10 Oct., i.e. after the end of the shipping season for 1843.
22. PD 3 ser. LXXXV 192, 24 Mar. 1846, J. Stuart (Newark) quoting from a speech made by Cobden at Newcastle, on 22 Jan. 1844.
23. PD 3 ser. LXIX, 945, 26 May 1843.
24. S. C. Buxton, Finance and politics, an historical study, 1783–1885, 2 vols. (London, 1888), p. 76n.
25. PD 3 ser. LXXXII, 260–4, 27 Jan- 1846.
26. PP 1840, V, Qns. 1102 1104, 1058.
27. To his wife, J. Morley, The life of Richard Cobden, 1 vol. edn (London, 1906), p. 375.
28. PD 3 ser LXXXIV, 538, G. Finch (Rutland), 3 Mar. 1846.
29. The best informed Member appears to have been W. Miles (East Somerset), PD 3 ser. LXXXIV, 788–91, 9 Mar. 1846.
30. F. Merk, ‘British party politics and the Oregon treaty’, American Historical Review, XXXVII (1931–1932), no. 4
31. The Oregon question (Cambridge, Belknap Press, 1967).
32. H. Vernon (East Retford), PD LXXXIV, 1466, 23 Mar. 1846.
33. C. Buller (Liskeard), PD LXXXV, 124, 26 Mar. 1846.
34. A. L. Dunham, The Anglo-French treaty of commerce of 1860 and the progress of the industrial revolution in France (Ann Arbor, 1930). PD clxx, 227, 16 Apr. 1863.
35. 10 and 11 Vict. c. 1, 26 Jan. 1847
36. N. Gash, Sir Robert Peel. The life of Sir Robert Peel after 1830 (London, 1972), p. 646.
37. PD xcix, 717–24, 16 June 1848.
38. An act to amend the laws relating to the customs, 12 and 13 Vict., c. 90, 1 Aug. 1849. The provision is in s. 34.
39. PP 1867, LXIV, 657–662.
40. PD cxxv, 1419, ‘Looking back to the remissions which have been made in late years, which began in 1842, and which were renewed on a very large scale in 1845 and 1846, we find that these remissions - within terms, as to some of them of eleven years, some of them of five or six years, but in the mean term of seven or eight years - have completely, or almost completely, recovered themselves’, 18 Apr. 1853.
41. PD clxxiv, 563–64, 7 Apr. 1864.
42. PD cxcv, 386–90, 8 Apr. 1869.
43. ‘First Report of the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Customs’, PP 1857 (1) 111, 317.
44. ‘Third Report of the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Customs’, PP 1859 XIV, 81.
45. PD 4 ser. cvi, 182, 14 Apr. 1902.
46. ‘Forty-seventh Report’, and ‘Forty-eighth Report of the Commissioners of His Majesty's Customs’, PP 1903, XIX, 193–4, and 1904 XVIII, 203. The 1903 Report also drew attention to the fact that maize had been exempted because ‘it forms the staple article of food of a large proportion of the Irish poor’.
47. ‘Report of the Commissioners of Customs, dated the 10th day of March 1864, relating to the Proposal to Levy the Duty on Grain by Weight, instead of by Measure’, PP 1864, LVIII, 160.
48. PD LXXXIV, 766, 6 Mar. 1846.
49. Cobden to his wife, 28 Jan. 1846, Morley, Life of Cobden, p. 375.
50. Cobden to George Wilson, 29 Jan. 1846, idem.
51. PD LXXXIV, 454–5, 2 Mar. 1846.
52. PD LXXXIV, 455, 2 Mar., and 563, 3 Mar. 1846.
53. PD LXXXIV, 561, 3 Mar. 1846.
54. PD LXXXIV, 564, 3 Mar. 1846.
55. D. Read, Peel and the Victorians (Oxford 1987)
56. D. A. Hamer, The politics of electoral pressure, a study in the history of Victorian reform agitations (Hassocks, 1977).
57. The tobacco issue was raised on 24 Mar. 1846 by Viscount Pollington (Pontefract), and both tobacco and sugar were mentioned by Sir J. Trollope (Lines, Kesteven and Holland), PD LXXXV, 5, 25.