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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 December 2022
… I have no hesitation in saying, that unless the existence of the Corn Law can be shown to be consistent not only with the prosperity of agriculture and the maintenance of the landlord’s interest but also with the protection and the maintenance of the general interest of this country and especially with the improvement of the condition of the labouring classes, the Corn Law is practically at an end.
Sir Robert Peel, Debate on Corn Laws, 15 March 1839.Sir Robert has an immense scheme in view; he thinks he shall be able to remove the contest [over repeal of the Corn Laws] entirely from the dangerous ground upon which it has got – that of a war between the manufacturers, the hungry and the poor against the landed proprietors, the aristocracy, which can only end in the ruin of the latter; he will not bring forward a measure upon the Corn Laws, but a much more comprehensive one. He will deal with the whole commercial system of the country. He will adopt the principle of the League, that of removing all protection and abolishing all monopoly, but not in favour of one class and as a triumph over another, but to the benefit of the nation, farmers as well as manufacturers.
Memorandum, Prince Albert, 25 December 1845.I have not sought in my place in Parliament to obstruct the course of the Government by a factious opposition. (Cheers.) I have never entered into an unnatural coalition with men of extreme opinions in politics, nor sought to court the popular favour by giving a popular vote against my conviction. (Cheers.) I have never sought to exasperate the public mind by exaggerating that distress, which, in all civil societies, a portion of the people most unhappily ever endure.
Sir Robert Peel, ‘Tamworth Manifesto’ of 1841, 28 June 1841.The split of the Conservative Party over the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 stands among the most traumatic moments in British political history. Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington forced the measure through both Houses of Parliament successfully with the help of votes from the Whig opposition. In revenge, protectionist Conservatives voted with the opposition to defeat the government’s important Irish Coercion Bill, which had become ‘merely a test case for the survival of the government’.
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