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View Full Version : Anti-Corn Laws, Irish Potato Famine, and the Manchester Free Traders



Paperback Writer
03-21-2014, 02:25 PM
Great Read Here (http://studentsforliberty.org/blog/2013/03/17/famine-versus-free-trade-the-forgotten-story-of-ireland-and-the-manchester-liberals/)

Famine Versus Free Trade: The Forgotten Story of Ireland and the Manchester Liberals (http://studentsforliberty.org/blog/2013/03/17/famine-versus-free-trade-the-forgotten-story-of-ireland-and-the-manchester-liberals/)Most histories paint the great suffering of the Irish peasants as an example of market failure brought about by the hand of their wicked absentee landlords, as heard in the historical line (http://stories.washingtonhistory.org/nhd/sampleprojects/Junior/Website/TheBlightBites/Website/causes/causes.htm) that “the Almighty sent the potato blight but the English created the Famine.” Rather than absentee landownership, the root of the potato famine was the result of the tariff laws and tax increases. What is most often overlooked is that the potato in Ireland helped spark the ascendance of lassie-faire liberalism in English politics.

During the Napoleonic Wars, owners of large landed estates made a fortune from the inflated prices of corn (wheat and other cereals). However, when the war with France ended and England’s sea lanes were once again safe, the landed gentry lobbied to Parliament to pass a tariff on imported grain to keep the prices at their war time levels. Like protectionists of the modern era, the aristocratic Lords of the Tory party — the same party who a generation earlier drove the American colonies into rebellion through a mercantilist system — defined the law as a patriotic because it protected English agriculture, insuring that the English would never have to depend on other nations for sustinance. Most economists of the day saw through the lies caped in the Union Jack and knew that the law protected the old-landed gentry from market forces at the expense of the poor who paid inflated prices for food.


The effects of corn laws were most devastating in the growing industrial centers. Cities that depended on trade and industry were the envy of the anti-tory whigs, the anti-mercantilist rival to the Tory party. Whig reforms in the 1830’s expanded the ballot to the male middle class, and from this a very radical classical-liberal faction of the Whigs based in Manchester revolted from the party in the coming decade and formed another of their own, the Liberal Party. Unlike the Tory conservatives, who wanted to uphold that tradition that the state owned the people, the Manchester Liberals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_capita) believed in individual liberty, being heavily influenced by the writings of Adam Smith and John Baptiste Say. The philosophy of the Liberals could be summed up by the Cobden quote (http://mises.org/daily/1161), “Look not to the politicians; look to yourselves.” The Liberals stood against colonialism; to them “force was no remedy.” The quest for empire was excuses to chain the people to more debt whilst dishonoring the British nation itself through uncivilized bloodshed. Wealth was to be gained not through conquest but through trade that fostered good will among nations.
http://studentsforliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/080808-irish-potato-famine-300x223.jpg (http://studentsforliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/080808-irish-potato-famine.jpg)The English landowners in Ireland made their money in growing grain, but the potato was the staple diet of the Irish laborer because it didn’t debase the soil, allowing for larger grain harvests to be grown for their landlords. There had been over 20 Potato famines since 1728, but none was as deveining as the one that struck the whole of Ireland in 1845. The crop failure that year that wiped out the staple of the Irish diet was more severe than those previous because most of the Irish had switched over to a single variety of potato.


It is a myth that the English government did nothing for the Irish people during the crisis. They dealt with the starving Irish masses in the same manner as they did with their own poor. They set up workhouses and public works projects which often fed people less than their minimum daily caloric intake. This policy only magnified the suffering of the people, as the Irish were forced to pay a significant tax increase while suffering both a famine and credit contraction in 1844. Needless to say, starving Irish were evicted from their lands for not being able to pay the taxes that were supposed to feed them. Worse yet, many sympathetic English were dissuaded from donating because they believed that their government wouldn’t let millions go hungry.


The central figures of the Liberal Party were John Bright and Richard Cobden. Hearing reports of the devastation championed louder than ever for the abolishment of the corn laws, they penned numerous pro-free trade pamphlets and delivered speeches in parliament and in packed public squares attacked the corn laws from all angles, social, economic and moral. The anti-corn law campaign attracted attention of Frederick Bastiat, who dreamed of starting a free trade movement on this scale in France. The forcefulness of Bright and Cobden arguments in parliament literally left the their Tory rivals who held a majority speechless. After hearing one of Cobden’s speeches, the conservative Prime Minister turned to his young aide William Gladstone — who would later defect and become the great leader of the Liberal Party — and said (http://mises.org/media/1511/Classical-Liberalism-in-War-and-Peace-The-Case-of-Richard-Cobden), “ You have to answer Cobden because I cannot.” The most unexpected thing that happened was that the Tory Prime Minister was the one who introduced the bill to repeal the corn laws. It passed, and Peel — now despised by his party — resigned. The repeal’s effect on the working classes according to philosopher Bertrand Russell (http://www.libertarianism.org/people/richard-cobden) “Improved their condition most remarkably.” Sadly, The repeal did not go into full effect until 1849, by then the famine had killed over a million Irish peasants.


Like the Soviet famines of the 20th century, the Irish Potato famine was manmade. It was protectionism that killed over a million Irish. Because grain could not be imported, over a million Irish in that decade exported themselves to the United States. The story of Cobdenite liberals and their fight against protectionism has been largely forgotten, mostly because it has not been fashionable for historians to these paint radical lassie-faire advocates for what they were, champions of the poor. Irish historians themselves have ignored the efforts of the English liberals and out of nationalist bias have instead focused more on the career of Daniel O’Connell a generation before the famine. Daniel O’Connell is a figure that deserving of an SFL blog post in his own right. He was the first Irish Catholic to sit in Parliament and Irish rights to the forefront and was considered one of the greatest orators of the 19th century. Like O’Connell, Manchester liberals when arguing grounded their ideas not only with reason but most importantly with morality. The lesson that libertarians should take from the anti-corn law movement is that the ideas that conquer do so when backed with authentic moral force.

Paperback Writer
03-21-2014, 02:25 PM
Thought I'd bring his up so that Americans understand that even libertarianism came from the UK.

The Sage of Main Street
03-21-2014, 03:21 PM
Thought I'd bring his up so that Americans understand that even libertarianism came from the UK.

You can have it back, and take the Libretardians with you. Their "free trade" is to get the cheapest product from sweatshops, deporting our jobs, and selling it for the highest profit margins in a collusion among retailers.

MrJimmyDale
03-21-2014, 03:28 PM
I learned a little.....thanks

Paperback Writer
03-21-2014, 04:38 PM
You can have it back, and take the Libretardians with you. Their "free trade" is to get the cheapest product from sweatshops, deporting our jobs, and selling it for the highest profit margins in a collusion among retailers.

You're obviously mental.

Cthulhu
03-21-2014, 09:37 PM
You're obviously mental.

Handle with care.

Newpublius
03-21-2014, 09:51 PM
"Because grain could not be imported, over a million Irish in that decade exported themselves to the United States."

Ireland was exporting food during the Famine to England. It could be imported but there were duties and those duties made domestically (British isles) grains cheaper, so in an era of scarcity, Irish grain flowed to England but the Irish didn't 't have the money to import it.