Corn Laws instance of series of Acts of Parliament of the United Kingdom
Opposition
In 1820, the Merchants' Petition, written by Thomas Tooke, was presented to the House of Commons. The petition demanded free trade and an end to protective tariffs. The Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, who claimed to be in favour of free trade, blocked the petition. He argued, speciously, that complicated restrictions made it difficult to repeal protectionist laws. He added, though, that he believed Britain's economic dominance grew in spite of, not because of, the protectionist system. In 1821, the President of the Board of Trade, William Huskisson, composed a Commons committee report which recommended a return to the "practically free" trade of the pre-1815 years.
The Importation Act 1822 decreed that corn could be imported when the price of domestically harvested corn rose to 80/- (£4) per quarter but that the import of corn would again be prohibited when the price fell to 70/- per quarter. After this Act was passed, the corn price never rose to 80/- until 1828. In 1827, the landlords rejected Huskisson's proposals for a sliding scale, and during the next year Huskisson and the new Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, devised a new sliding scale for the Importation of Corn Act 1828 whereby, when domestic corn was 52/- (£2/12/0) per quarter or less, the duty would be 34/8 (£1/14/8), and when the price increased to 73/- (£3/13/0), the duty decreased to one shilling.
type of example of manifestation of representation of