Events
Repeal of the Corn Laws
Also Known As Importation Act 1846
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The Corn Laws were tariffs and restrictions on imported grain, in force in Britain from 1815, that protected domestic landowners by keeping food prices high. Prime Minister Robert Peel, converted to free trade partly by the Irish Famine's exposure of the human cost of dear bread, pushed repeal through Parliament in 1846 over the opposition of his own Conservative Party's landed interest, splitting the party for a generation. Repeal is treated as the decisive practical victory of classical free-trade economics over mercantilist protection in nineteenth-century Britain.
Facts
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage supplied the intellectual case free traders used against the Corn Laws.
Associated With School
Ricardo's comparative-advantage case for free trade was the classical school's central argument for repeal.
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