# History of the Anti-Corn Law League/Chapter22

CHAPTER XXII.
THE NEW TARIFF.
On the 29th of April, the new bill became law. In the following month, the twin measure, the sevenpence-in-the-pound Income Tax, passed the Commons—not without strong protests against its bearing as heavily upon precarious income as upon receipts from realized property—as a temporary tax to relieve a present emergency, but still remaining (1852), without reduction or modification. Of the £3,775,000, the estimated produce of the new tax, only £154,000 was calculated upon as the probable receipt from tenant farmers. While the object was to defend the Corn Law, the farming interest was represented as so immense, that all other interests must be taxed for its protection; but when a new tax was to be laid, the legislating landlords discovered that their tenants could contribute no more than a twenty-fifth part of the whole.
Another accompanying measure was received with better favour—a new tariff, by which there was to be a reduction of import duties on no fewer than 750 articles. This certainly was a movement in the right direction; but, while many admired the boldness of ministers in making so sweeping a change, many also wondered that a change so consonant with the principles of common sense should not have been made sooner—why the gross absurdity of ​taxing, without any benefit to the revenue, should have been permitted to exist so long. The credit, so far as credit was due to any, was attributable to the published evidence and report of Mr. Hume's Import Duties Committee, documents which, as I have said in a previous chapter, excited very little notice when they first appeared. The measure, Sir Robert Peel said, would proceed on two general principles, first, of altering prohibition in all cases, and imposing only revenue duties; and, secondly, of reducing very materially the duties upon the raw materials of manufacture, and on articles only partially manufactured. Amongst the duties reduced were those on foreign woods for the cabinet-makers, and timber for the shipbuilders, oils and extracts for the manufacturers, iron and metallic ores, live cattle, bacon, hams, onions, potatoes, coffee, salted provisions, cocoa, &c. Fresh beef, previously prohibited, was to be admitted at a duty of 8s. per cwt,, and a great outcry arose amongst the graziers, although the supply would be confined solely to countries closely adjoining to us, and although articles of consumption which might be brought greater distances still were to remain heavily taxed, the proposed duty on bacon being 14s. per cwt., on hams 14s., and on salted pork 8s., while the old duties of 10s. on cheese and 20s. on butter were still to be exacted. The bill passed the Commons on the 28th of June, amidst loud cheering, the protectionists rejoicing that their interests had been so little scathed, and the free traders glad that something had been done in the right direction—something out of which more might arise.
But the price of bread rose in spite of the new Corn Law, an apt but melancholy illustration of the falsehood of the pretensions under which it was passed, as a measure of relief. "The famine was sore in the land." In June, authentic and heart-rending details were published of deep distress in Manchester, Huddersfield, Accrington, Stroud, Longtown, Prescott, Walsall, Ilkeston, Darlaston, Glasgow, ​Paisley, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Birmingham, Mansfield, Potteries, Holmfirth, Cork, Nottingham, Sheffield, Dudley, Todmorden, Beaminster, Edinburgh, Halifax, Mirfield, Burnley, Stalybridge, Nantwich, Knaresborough, Haslingden, Bradford, Dundee, Stockport, Ennis, Colne, Westbury, Carlisle, Belper, Wolverhampton, Oldham, Hyde, Bolton, Leicester, Forfar, and a great number of other places in the United Kingdom, agricultural as well as commercial and manufacturing. The council of the League, fully aware of the danger that might arise out of the great amount of unrelieved, but, by honest legislation, easily relievable distress, thus earnestly called for a meeting of deputies in London, again to represent to Parliament the deplorable condition of the country:—
"The daily increasing sufferings of the people, the harrowing details of which are given in the Anti-Bread Tax Circular, cannot much longer be left without a remedy. Parliament is dragging on, apparently in utter forgetfulness that multitudes are perishing for want of food. The Premier has already hinted at a prorogation. This must not be allowed without another, and a strenuous effort, to bring the legislature to a sense of its duty. What is to be done? It has been resolved that a special general meeting of deputies be called, to be held in London, on Monday, 27th June—the place of meeting, Brown's Hotel.
"To this step we have been urged, not only by the necessity of the case, but by numerous and pressing communications from our friends in all parts of the country. We, therefore, intreat all the anti-corn-law associations, and every friend of free trade, throughout the kingdom, to be prompt and energetic in rendering their support to this movement, and in appointing deputies to the meeting. The country cannot brook the delay of eight months which must elapse before another session of the legislature. The question of free trade in food—must shall be re-opened before Parliament separates The Peace of the country requires it. The lives and interests of millions are trembling in the balance; it is for our friends to say which way the beam shall incline."
Previous to the meeting of deputies, Mr. Hamer Stansfield, of Leeds; Mr. William Rawson, of Manchester the; Rev. William Eoaf, of Wigan; Mr. James Lees, of Saddleworth; Mr. John Bright, of Eochdale; the Rev. C. Baker, ​of Stockport, and Mr. Dixon, of Accrington, proceeded to London, and made strong representations to ministers and to a number of leading ministerial members, in both Houses of Parliament of the appalling distress in their respective localities, and used urgent entreaties that some remedy might be applied before the prorogation of Parliament, and on the 24th, issued a letter, containing some of the more prominent facts stated in their private interviews, to be addressed to every member of Parliament, feeling, as they stated, that if they were to permit a single member to remain uninformed on so momentous a subject, they would be abandoning their duty, and incurring a heavy responsibility. In this letter they said:—
"The great bulk of the people, the customers of each other, and of all the other classes, are becoming too poor to purchase, and thus they cease to consume, and profits are destroyed. Confidence no longer exists; trade is everywhere paralyzed; wages are rapidly declining; workmen are being discharged; poor's rates are fast increasing in the agricultural as well as manufacturing districts; private charity has subscribed nobly, but yields to the overwhelming pressure; peaceable men made savage and desperate; the loyal and obedient are becoming discontented, disaffected, and revengeful; and society, in many parts of the country seems to be on the very verge of dissolution. The disease is admitted—it makes progress hourly. Where is the remedy? We believe there is but one, and that the abolition of every other bad law now in existence would not remove the evil, so long as that law remains in force which denies the people the right to exchange the products of their industry for food."
On Friday, July 1st, Mr. Wallace moved in the House of Commons resolutions, of which he had given notice, to the effect, that the labouring and industrious classes had been suffering many privations and severe distress—that the distress was increasing—that the alterations in the Corn Laws and the duties on imports and exports, coupled with an Income Tax, which would add four millions to the burthens of the people, were not calculated to afford relief, and that the house ought not to separate until a diligent and searching inquiry had been instituted into the ​unprecedented distress existing throughout the country, and an effectual remedy applied. This gave rise to a two nights' debate, in the course of which several members gave most distressing accounts of the state of the country. No division was come to, the second adjournment being to Thursday, when motions having preference over orders, the house proceeded to consider Mr. Bannerman's motion, to invest ministers with power to permit, during the recess of Parliament, the free admission of corn; which was negatived, there being 176 votes against, and 113 for it. Sir Robert Peel, in arguing against power being given to himself temporarily to relieve the distress of the country, said that if prices continued to rise, the duty on imported corn would fall to nothing. This was certainly true; but as the price of wheat must have risen 11s. before the duty came to nothing, it was obvious that the consumers would have to pay 11s. and the holders would receive 11s. more before the duty was nothing.
On Tuesday, July 4th, the members of the Anti-Corn-Law Conference met at Herbert's Hotel, Palace Yard. Deputies from each of the associations forming the Anti Corn-Law League, and from the very numerous branches of the Metropolitan Anti-Corn-Law Association, were present. Shortly before twelve o'clock, P. A. Taylor, Esq., of London, was called to the chair by acclamation. He said that the first part of their business would not be difficult. It would be no difficult matter to bring before the nation, the legislature, and the government, details of the intense suffering and misery which were overwhelming a large portion of their fellow subjects. They would have no difficulty in showing terrible statistics on that part of the subject—statistics harrowing to the heart of every man who had a heart that could feel. The next portion of their labours would be to show that the principal cause of these evils was the scarcity of food—a scarcity brought about by the operation of the Corn Laws. It appeared, however, ​that the government entertained grave doubts as to whether the remedy for starvation was a liberal supply of cheap food. If they were suffering from nakedness, he wondered whether the government would doubt if a supply of cheap clothing was the proper remedy. They had a third duty to perform. If the government still turned a deaf ear to their representations, and refused to relieve the wants of the poor, they must return to their constituents, and tell them that they had made representations to the government as to their starving condition—that they had pointed out the means of relief—that the government had turned a deaf ear to their remonstrances—that they had nothing to hope—that they had finished their work—had performed their duty—had stated the distress and the remedy—the legislature had refused the remedy; and it would be their duty then to say to the people, "God help you, for he only can."
Mr. John Bright then addressed the meeting. The alarming state of the country, he said, justified the assembling of deputies twice in one session, and he proceeded to give a statement of the distress, every particular of which would be proved before that meeting, and the proof reported to the public:
There was one remedy, he said, and that was rejected by the legislature. Much would depend upon the course which the delegates should pursue at the termination of their labours that week. He prayed that they might act wisely and firmly, that they might enable the government to see that the time was come when this question could no longer be tampered with—that the time was come when justice and mercy must take the place, of cruelty and oppression—and if the government should still refuse to hearken, he for one trembled at the result.
Mr. Thomas Flint, of Leeds, followed, and gave a frightful account of bankruptcies and insolvencies in that place, followed by a great diminution of employment and wages:
"These failures had taken place among parties who were supposed to be perfectly safe—who had been considered hitherto out of harm's way; and even among those which had yet stood firm, there was a nearer approach to insolvency than they dared to contemplate. At that meeting allusion had been made to the enormous deterioration of mill property—a deterioration then stated to be from 30 to 40 per cent. If mill property was now brought into the market, the deterioration would be found to amount to upwards of 70 per cent. He would relate an ​instance to prove this. He knew a concern which had become insolvent; a question arose as to whether it should be worked or not; the mill and property were taken at a valuation of £18,000; it had cost between £50,000 and £60,000, and even at that decreased valuation of £18,000 it was now a doubtful point whether it would not be a bad speculation. Another important fact to which he would allude was the consumption of butchers' meat in Leeds in 1841, as compared with 1835 and 1836, had fallen one quarter in quantity, while in price it had increased 40 per cent. The diminution of the consumption of butchers' meat by the working classes could not be estimated by this fall. The middle and upper classes would continue to consume the same quantity of butchers' meat in 1841 that they did in 1835 and 1836, so that the average consumption of butchers' meat by the working classes could not be considered as less than one-half in 1841, as compared with 1835 and 1836 ; and the consumption was going on lessening weekly."
Three other delegates from Leeds corroborated Mr. Flint's statements, and, after addresses from Mr. Coates, of the Tower Hamlets, Mr. J. Scoble, and others, the meeting adjourned to next day.
Wednesday's meeting was held in the Crown and Anchor, the large room at Brown's Hotel being too small to accommodate the delegates. Letters were read from Lees, near Oldham, and Hinckley, describing the misery that prevailed. The Rev. Mr. Bailey, of Sheffield, said:—
"When he was requested to attend the conference he issued an address to the working classes, requesting such as were suffering from the want of employment to send in their names, ages, and number of their in 1838 and 1842, leaving a column for families, trade, and wages, whatever remarks they chose to add. In the course of four or five statements from working and unemployed men, days he received 2,156 who with 150 exceptions, were all heads of families. He would not trouble the meeting with this statement, as it would probably appear before the public through some other medium. The distress in Sheffield now extended to every branch of its trade. He held in his hand a list which showed the reduction in the wages received by various operatives then, as compared with the wages received in 1838. He had selected for the comparison the year 1838, because that was felt to be the period of distress, and wages were then supposed to have reached their minimum. But he found, in looking over the list before him, that many in operatives who, 1838, were earning 20s., 25s., 30s., or more, were now ​earning sums varying from 5s. to 8s. or 10s. He had inquired into the cases of 2,156 families, amounting to upwards of 10,000 individuals, whose wages had of late declined, and who were suffering under the pressure of severe distress. It should be observed that the decline in the trade of Sheffield was not owing to the introduction of machinery, because the manufacturers there employed very little machinery now, which had not been in use fifty years ago. In fact, the only important article of machinery in use in Sheffield was the steam engine, which drove their wheels, and which had been in use for nearly half a century.The distress in Sheffield could not, therefore, be in any way traced to the introduction of new machinery throwing various hands out of employment, as was alleged to be the case in other districts. The decline of wages was, of course, felt by the shopkeepers, because so much floating capital ceased to circulate among them. He had ascertained that in a number of cases into which he had inquired, there were £6,000 a week less paid in wages during the present year than in former periods and that would give a yearly diminution of £300,000. All that money was withdrawn from the shopkeepers; and that accounted for the change in their condition. The poor did not in general attribute their distress to the Corn Laws, but to the influence of class legislation; and thousands of them looked to the charter as the only remedy for the evils, under which they suffered. (Hear.) Machinery, as they had already said, was not the source of the evil; and there could be no doubt but that a repeal of the Corn Laws would tend greatly to diminish it. A gentleman in the room, Mr. Ibbotson, a man well known in Yorkshire and in Lancashire, had told him if the Corn Laws were repealed,he should be able to-morrow to find employment for 500 fresh hands."
Mr. Ibbotson, of Sheffield, corroborated Mr. Bailey's statement. Mr. Bonner, of Bilston, said that in the Wolverhampton district there were 134 blast furnaces; of these 62 were at the present moment idle each of those employed 160 persons, and thus were 10,000 persons at present out of employment. There were a number of iron mills in that neighbourhood, which employed about from 200 to 300 hands each. The majority of these were now idle. The japan trade was in a dreadful state. One master was now working for 50 per cent, less than he had done three years ago of course he could not employ the same number of hands, and destitution would consequently be increased. In that town there were at the present ​moment 130 honest labouring men breaking stones in the workhouse. A jeweller told him that within the last ten weeks he had purchased fourteen or fifteen wedding rings, which had been brought to him by mothers of families to procure food for their children they were not pledged, but sold, because the parties had no hope of ever being able to redeem them. The general feeling in the minds of the working classes was of a most awful description. In Bilston and its neighbourhood there were twenty-nine furnaces; fifteen of those were out of work, and the number of unemployed in that town could not be less than 3,000. The workhouse was so full that the guardians were obliged to have beds made on the floor, and the old poorhouse, at Bradley, had been ordered to be repaired for their reception.
Mr. Taunton and Mr. Taylor, jun., of Coventry, gave an account of the distress in that city, and the forenoon's sitting was closed with an eloquent speech from Mr. Geo. Thompson.
At the evening meeting, the veteran Colonel Thompson ventured to predict that, as the agitation in the country went on increasing, government would find out that it had been wrong, and that the delegates were right. Mr. Dixon, of Accrington; the Rev. Mr. Lowe, of Forfar; Mr. Smith, and the Rev. Mr. Lustworth, of Leicester; and Mr. Ridgway, of the Staffordshire Potteries, testified to the extreme distress in their respective localities. In the course of the evening, a delegate said:—"Why should we hear these details of distress? We all know of its existence;" to which the chairman replied, that London should know of it, and every part of the country, and every man in the country should know of it and certainly the statements were made widely public by the reports in the London newspapers.
At the Thursday meeting, the Rev. Mr. Ferguson, of Bicester, said that the best field labourers in his own ​neighbourhood received about 6s. per week; that was the average wages, including lost time. The condition of the poor in general was most painful to witness the privations they endured were incredible. On entering the house of a poor man, a few days since, he found that all that the family had to sit upon was a stone. There were no beds in the house, and the father of the family was without a shirt. On calling a second time, he found the poor woman, who was the mother of the family, pouring cold water upon mouldy bread; and when he gave them a trifle, she thanked him, and said she had been praying all day to God to put it into the heart of some person to give them half a dozen potatoes to keep them from dying.
The evidence of Mr. Nelstrop, the mayor of Stockport,was important. He said:—
"At the latter end of last year the distress of our borough had arrived at such a pitch that the charitable, and those that had it in their power, could no longer stand still and look on without making an effort, at least to mitigate the distress that surrounded them; a public meeting was held, and a subscription entered into, and we raised amongst ourselves, and from gentlemen at a distance, a sum exceeding £4,000. I ought to state that we received a considerable sum from the Manufacturers' Relief Committee, in London. Since then the distress has increased, and none of the mills then standing have been set to work; in fact, there is not the (I had almost said) least possibility, for our poorrates have gone on increasing to such an extent that no man with capital and with a grain of common sense would come to a town like ours where the rates are likely to be this year eight shillings in the pound, almost on the rack rent. In April last, after being in operation thirteen weeks, and the funds were almost exhausted, it was found that we have distributed relief as follows:—Families relieved, 3,143; individuals, 73,314; average weekly income per head, 9d. 2- 10th; relief given in provisions, £208 8s. 10d.; average relief per family, 1s. 3d. 2-3rds.; average relief per head, 3d. 2-3rds; income and relief per head, 1s 26-30ths. That committee have ceased their operations for want of funds, and left on their books 13,161 individuals urgently requiring relief. Since 1836 our poor-rates have gone on increasing to an alarming amount; and, except there be a speedy alteration in things, not only will the working classes be all paupers, but the middle class, whom they are mainly dependent upon, will be paupers also. The reduction of rents of all kinds ​of property is very considerable. In consequence of the distressed state of trade a reduction of wages is taking place almost unparalleled, and I fear must go on till the manufacturing population in the cotton districts are reduced to a condition from which they can never recover themselves. Gentlemen, is this a state of things that ought to exist? I am sure you will all say, no. I thought it my duty to come here and make these statements. I wish the country to know, I wish Sir Robert Peel to know, I wish her Majesty's ministers to know, that the inhabitants of our borough have endured their unparalleled distress with unparalleled patience. There is, however, a point beyond which human endurance cannot go; and unless some means are taken to relieve the distress of the poor of Stockport, I wish the country to know, I wish Sir Robert Peel to know, I wish the government to know, that I cannot, and will not, be responsible for the consequences which may follow from the present state of things."
Such was the nature of the details given at the conference, in successive meetings for a fortnight or more, copied into the London newspapers, and, with reports of speeches well adapted to rouse the country, read with deep interest in every one of the associations connected with the League, stirring them up to increased activity.
At the meeting last mentioned, a deputation had been appointed to wait on the Duke of Sussex, to request him to present the memorial to the Queen. In the evening, Mr. Bright reported that the deputation had been received by his royal highness with the utmost cordiality and friendliness. He appeared to think that everything wrong was not to be attributed to the Corn Laws, although they were the occasion of a great deal of evil, and he himself had always been strenuously opposed to them. His royal highness appeared to be exceedingly well informed on the subject, and it was evident he kept well up with the newspapers. He said he would do everything to further their object, and, if they wished it, would find a way of presenting a memorial to the Queen; but she could not give them a reply, as she could not constitutionally do acts of sovereignty but through the agency of her ministers. His royal highness expressed great commisseration, ​with the distress of the country, and they had come away with a much greater opinion both of his heart and understanding than they had before entertained. The Rev. Mr. Massie proposed the following resolution, and it was carried unanimously:—"That this body of delegates desire to convey to his Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex their most cordial thanks for the manner in which their deputation was received by his royal highness, and for the encouraging sympathy manifested with the object which has convened the present meeting." As the Queen could not be approached in person, it was resolved that the constitutional and responsible adviser should be so told of the condition of the country, as to give assurance that the representation should reach her Majesty.