CHAPTER V.

THE CORN LAW REPEALER.

The Corn Law is an extension of the pension list to the whole of the landed aristocracy of Great Britain.-The Times.

A far better case could be made out for a bounty to increase the importation of corn, than for a duty to restrain it.-J. DEACON HUME.

What the landlords really say (by maintaining the Corn Law) is, "Let us rob you all, and then you shall rob one another." This is the bargain they offer. Two points are their laws and their gospel: one, that they will not pay taxes and other people shall; the other, that fortunes shall be made for them at the expense of other people.-COL. P. T. THOMPSON.

Each successive Corn Law has in fact been a new and cruel deception to the unhappy farmer; yet to each has he looked with renewed confidence for his salvation. The first evil which the Corn Laws have inflicted on the farmer has been-they have induced him to contract to pay rents which-except in years of scarcity-the price of wheat will not enable him to pay; the second great mischief which they inflict upon him is, that they spoil his market by impoverishing his customers; the third, that they depress prices just when his stock of corn is largest, and when he is most anxious to realize, and raise them when he has none to sell.W. R. GREG.

IF the Free Trade question is to be understood in its most important bearings, it will be necessary to keep in view the circumstances under which the Corn Law was enacted in 1815. The European wars in which we were engaged for so many years had artificially enhanced the price of agricultural produce, of course to the detriment of the people. War taxes were imposed, not on property, but-as Mr. Livesey would have said-on poverty. Indeed, the owners of land not only escaped additional taxation, they really profited by circumstances which were disastrous to all other classes. This is a matter of fact and not of opinion, and Southey, Tory though he was, admits its truth. He says:

"Heavy as the taxes were during the war, the rents of land were raised in more than an adequate proportion; a disposition too generally prevailed to exact from the tenant the largest possible sum."*

Mr. Livesey furnishes a striking illustration of the way this policy affected the farmer, in the following painful case of individual hardship. He relates:

"A decent-looking old man, 73 years of age, called to show me a letter he had received from his parish, in answer to an application for relief. He said that he had been a farmer eighteen years; that since he failed he had struggled hard to get a living by selling eggs, etc., but found he could no longer support himself. He had brought up fourteen children. The farm he had lived upon, previous to his taking it, let for either £80 or £90 a year. He took it at £105, for seven years. At the end of that term, he took it again for a similar term, at £120. During these two tacks' he did very well. Then came high prices during the war. He took a third seven years' lease, at £240 a year. He remained only four years, and was then sold up. The farm is now let for £160, and the only consolation offered the man, in his old age, is an order of admission into the Union Workhouse! "t

"Essays, Mora! and Political" (London, 1832), vol. i. p. 310.

+ The Struggle, No. 3.

1x

Origin of the Corn Law-A Rallying Cry for 1831.

HOW THE CORN LAW WAS ENACTED.

A legislature mainly composed of men, who on the one hand had availed themselves of a national calamity to increase their rent roll; while on the other they had so manipulated the incidence of taxation as to relieve their own class of the cost of wars which had greatly benefited them, might naturally be expected to attempt by legislation the maintenance of war-prices. And this they did by enacting the Corn Law.

Mr. Livesey was not in the habit of using strong language, but it is noticeable that in his "Autobiography" he speaks of the "cursed Corn Law." The indecent haste with which the Bill was hurried through both Houses of Parliament, deprecated by Mr. Livesey, was censured in other and very different quarters. Southey, who cannot be charged with pandering to the people, may be again quoted on this point. He took an equally strong view of the proceeding, and regarded the question as a speculative one, "to be considered at leisure, and dispassionately investigated in indifferent [i.e., calm] times"; instead of which he complains that "it was brought forward as a practical question of immediate vital importance, and debated with all the blind vehemence of private interest and popular prejudice."

*

MR. LIVESEY AN EARLY REPEALER.

Mr. Livesey was an active and persistent advocate of the repeal of the Corn Law several years before the League existed. In his "Autobiography" he devotes Chapter IV. to the question, and on page 21 he quotes from his Moral Reformer for March, 1831, a startling paragraph on "Weavers' Wages and Corn Laws." In the following issue of his magazine occurs an article upon "The Question of Questions for Politicians," in which he pleads, as was ever his wont, for the oppressed, the down-trodden, and the poor,-to whose cause, he says, government "has never yet done justice." Regarding the franchise question as good as settled, he urges the people to be true to themselves, and to

"Fix upon the abolition of the Corn Laws, as the rallying point, and never be driven from it until they get cheap bread. The removal of all oppressive burdens from the land, and the repeal of the Corn Laws, is your only hope, and for these you ought to cry with all your remaining strength. Patriots of England! merge all your differences into sympathy and love for your suffering countrymen, and be determined to discuss no other subject, to make every other political question subordinate, and to give government no rest, till JUSTICE be done to the industrious tribes of Britain." †

In both the first and second series of the Moral Reformer Mr. Livesey kept the topic well before his readers, and by occasional addresses he further agitated the question. He advocated the repeal of the Corn Laws and the destruction of monopolies, on the broad ground of political justice. When the Anti-Corn-Law League was started, he joined it, and for some years acted as Honorary Secretary to the Preston Branch of the League. He threw his whole energies into the movement, rendering it services which cannot be over-estimated.

"Essays, Moral and Political," vol. i. (London, 1832), p. 309. + Moral Reformer, vol. i. (1831), p. 110.

The Press made an Effective Auxiliary.

Ixi

A WEEKLY ILLUSTRATED NEWSPAPER FOR A HALFPENNY.

Mr. Livesey's inventive genius led him to adopt several novel methods of agitation. Feeling that the Press might be made to render more efficient services than it had yet done, in December, 1841, he devised and started a small illustrated weekly paper-The Struggle-consisting of four pages about the sizeof Punch, published at one halfpenny. On the first page of the first number appears the following introductory notice:

The character of this paper is indicated by its title-The Struggle. Good and evil, truth and error, are constantly struggling against each other. The struggle is now betwixt Free Trade and Monopoly; and I feel anxious to render my feeble aid in assisting to overthrow the monstrous power of monopoly. Though this Paper will at present struggle for Cheap Bread, it may occasionally step aside to contend with other evils. It has no connexion with any association, and no person is responsible for its contents but myself.-J. LIVESEY.

Like all Mr. Livesey's papers and publications The Struggle was independent, and entirely free from the control of any organization. It was designed to instruct and interest the people in the question, and it admirably effected that object. Its illustrations, roughly executed, were often spirited, and they always conveyed a truth, or gave point and emphasis to some phase of the agitation. Each issue of The Struggle was numbered but not dated; and as each paper was. complete in itself, and contained brief articles and pointed paragraphs illustrative of the pernicious results of monopoly and the sufferings imposed on the people by the Corn Laws, the publication could be effectively distributed long after its date of issue. To persons taking quantities it was supplied at 2s. 6d. per hundred. The weight of The Struggle permitted its being enclosed in an ordinary letter; and readers were urged to forward it in that way to the next friend they wrote to. By this plan it reached the remotest country regions.

At the time Mr. Livesey commenced The Struggle, the League's only organ was the Anti-Bread-Tax Circular, a small fortnightly publication; and nearly two years elapsed before its weekly newspaper, The League, published at 3d., was started. According to Mr. Prentice, the sale circulation of The League was about. 5,000.*

In the 53rd number of The Struggle, Mr. Livesey reminds his readers that the paper had been in existence a year, and tells them that "nearly five hundred thousand impressions have been issued," that he has had, from various sources, evidences of its usefulness; and that it had taken its stand in the "aggressive ranks of bread reformers." He also announces his determination to continue the holy warfare:

"With no pretensions to literary attainments," he says, "I shall go on in my plain way, sternly defending the truths of free commerce, and endeavouring to expose, one by one, all the objections and fallacies which are promulgated to obstruct its course.' ""

* Mr. Prentice says: "It was resolved to expend £10,000 a year in distributing amongst 10,000 subscribers of one pound and upwards to the fund, a full-sized weekly newspaper, to be called The League, instead of a small fortnightly publication called The Anti-Breud-Tax Circular. The first number appeared on Saturday, September 30th, 1813." By January, 1815, the number of copies sent weekly to subscribers was 15,000. (History of the Anti-Corn-Law League, vol. ii. pp. 117-281.)

Axii

Fac-simile Reproduction of a Struggle" Page.

At the end of another year Mr. Livesey made a similar declaration, as may be seen from the fac-simile reproduction of the first page of No. 105, here inserted.

The Struggle.

"When countries shall be more enlightened in regard to the principles of commerce, commercial treaties will be unknown, becausa each country will adopt plans advantageous to itself, unchecked by the consideration that some part of the advantage may be shared ty others."-Porter's Progress.

DOG IN THE MANGER.

The Dog will neither ear the hay itself, nor allow the Cow its right to do so. The Landowners will neither cultivate the land - home properly, nor let the People be supplied with food from foreign parts.

THE STRUGGLE.

This number of The Struggle commences the third year of its publication. It was not expected, at its commencement, to remain in the field so long. But, sustained by public approval, it has continued weekly defending and illustrating the principles of free trade, ad assailing the strongholds of monopoly No, 105.

The cir

culation of eleven hundred thousand copies of the Struggle has contributed some little to the "Great Fact" which is now astounding the nation. It commences a new year with no diminished ardour; and the Struggler never intends to lay down his weapons, in one shape or another, until he see the monster Monopoly prostrate on the field.

J. LIVESEY.

During its second year's existence, the circulation of The Struggle had increased by one hundred thousand. Altogether there were two hundred and thirty-five

How the Poor Paid the Penalty, and―Starved.

lxiii numbers of this little journal issued, and the maximum circulation attained was fifteen thousand. Taking twelve thousand as the average circulation throughout the period of its existence, which would be a very fair estimate, the aggregate number of copies of the paper issued would amount to TWO MILLIONS HUNDRED AND TWENTY THOUSAND!

EIGHT

Those who are conversant with popular movements will know what a drag a weekly organ is upon the funds, and the value of Mr. Livesey's work will be better realized when it is understood that for four and a half years he sustained the most popular journal the Free Trade movement ever had. The first page of No. 105 has been selected for reproduction, chiefly on account of the character of the engraving, which was more adapted for reduction than the majority of the illustrations. It will give the reader a better idea of the appearance of the paper, than he could gather from any verbal description.

The advocates of Fair Trade-a euphonious term for the re-imposition of a bread tax-have very little conception of the condition of the people under the régime of protection. Indeed, it is impossible at this time to fully realize their sad state. Privation and suffering were stamped upon their forms and faces; nor did the children escape. Ebenezer Elliott, in describing a gala-day and procession at Preston, says:

The day was fair, the cannon roar'd,
Cold blew the bracing north,

And Preston Mills, by thousands, poured
Their little captives forth.

All in their best they paced the street,
All glad that they were free;

And sung a song with voices sweet, as
They sung of liberty!

But from their lips the rose had fled,
Like "death-in-life " they smiled;
And still, as each passed by, I said,
Alas! is that a child ?

Mr. Livesey, in his Struggle, constantly reverted to this sad side of the question. In No. 2 occurs the following paragraph indicative of the straits into which people were brought about the end of 1841:

"A poor woman came to visit her relations in Preston. She went to nine houses, and none of them could afford her a meal's meat; the last place she called at was in Albert Street, where the man pawned his shirt for 6d., with which four pennyworth of bread, one pennyworth of butter, and one pennyworth of tea were purchased for the party."

The cut which occupies the front page of No. 61, represents a poor family consisting of father, mother, and four children, about to sit down to dinner. Sit down, however, is hardly the term, since the room contains but one chair, and that is occupied by the father. The woman is in the act of emptying potatoes from a saucepan into a uish; there is nothing else on the table but salt, but the children look delighted. The mother cautions them not to "be greedy," and says that they "seem to rejoice as much in their potatoes as if they had tasted nothing all day." One child exclaims, " Ay, mam, pratoes are goodI wish we had always plenty of them." The father remarks, "Poor things, it