In the previous chapter we considered the actions of the Reformers during the years they controlled the Town Council and had the opportunity to shape many aspects of local life. Even here their freedom of action was circumscribed by the comparatively narrow scope of municipal government. The same was largely true in matters economic and commercial. Although the Town Council and the notionally independent Dock Committee together derived a very considerable income from commerce and did what they could to facilitate the prosperity of local merchants and the maritime trades, they had no control and minimal influence over the formulation and implementation of national laws relating to taxes and duties.393 Since these impositions often worked against the commercial interests of the merchants, there were regular manifestations of discontent. Whilst Tory merchants mostly endeavoured to stay loyal to successive Tory governments and the town’s Tory MPs (notably Canning and Huskisson), the Whigs and Radicals repeatedly agitated for concessions in this sector as well as in parliamentary reform.
In this chapter we trace the changing attitudes of Liverpool’s merchants towards the Corn Laws and wider financial reform. Over time these led to the early development of both a distinctive free trade movement and a highly articulate and influential association for financial reform. Given the importance of Liverpool to the nation’s commercial prosperity, the opinions of its merchants were undoubtedly influential. The complex history of the Corn Laws has been well documented. Susan Fairlie has written the most accessible modern study of their economic impact.394 The political context is best provided by Boyd Hilton.395 The history of the Anti-Corn Law League has been comprehensively documented by a succession of historians. Norman McCord’s concise narrative follows traditional lines; later works by Norman Longmate and, most recently, Paul Pickering and Alex Tyrrell adopt a more
393
See Chapter 2 for the relationship between the two bodies.
394 S. Fairlie, ‘The Nineteenth Century Corn Law Reconsidered’, Economic History Review,
XVIII, 3 (1965), pp. 562-75. More specialist studies include J. Prest, ‘A Large Amount or Small? Revenue and the Nineteenth-Century Corn Laws’, Historical Journal, 39.2 (1996), pp. 467-78, and A. Ward, ‘The Corn Laws and English Wheat Prices, 1815-1846’, Atlantic Economic Journal, 32.3 (2004), pp. 245-55.
395
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thematic approach.396 Little, however, has been written about this aspect of Liverpool’s history by any of the above authors. The new evidence set out in this thesis indicates that Liverpool, as a port handling infinitely diverse commodities, often saw things differently from the inland manufacturing centre of Manchester. It also provides a measure of recognition to Liverpool-based campaigners, such as Joshua Walmsley, William Brown, Thomas Thornely and Lawrence Heyworth.
396
N. McCord, The Anti-Corn Law League 1838-1846, 2nd ed. (London, 1968); N. Longmate, The Breadstealers: The Fight against the Corn Laws, 1838-1846 (London, 1984); P. A. Pickering and A. Tyrrell, The People’s Bread: A History of the Anti-Corn Law League (London, 2000).
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i. LIVERPOOL’S EXPERIENCE, 1815-1841
In 1847 Sir Joshua Walmsley, seeking to relaunch his political career after the demise of the Liverpool Reformers and his previous parliamentary aspirations, introduced himself to the electors of Leicester as “the friend and advocate of the poor man”:397
... I see that the enemy has been abroad among you, and that they have found out something very bad in this Sir Joshua: it is that he is a corn- dealer! ... I feel that I must plead guilty to the ... impeachment that I was a corn-dealer; that I did employ great numbers of ships in that trade; that I did import corn in large quantities from the sea-board, and the western districts and wide-spread prairies of America – from the shores of the Baltic and the Mediterranean and the Black Sea; yes, gentlemen, from various quarters of the world, I did bring corn to this country in spite of those laws which were passed with the sanction of the very men who raise the cry against me; and are you, the poor men, to accuse me of starving you because I sought to render corn cheaper and more plentiful among you? ... I was the first corn- dealer in this kingdom who stood boldly forward (and I am obliged to speak for myself) who stood boldly forward to demand the abolition of those laws which ground you down to the very stones. ...
This and other theatricality in a similar vein ensured Walmsley’s election to Parliament by a predominantly urban electorate that was very different in its outlook from that of Liverpool in the general elections of 1837 and 1841, which had snubbed first Walmsley’s nominee (Howard Elphinstone) and then Walmsley himself.398
Whilst Walmsley’s account of his political stand was essentially true, it necessarily glossed over Liverpool’s cautious approach to the Corn Laws question and his own discontinuous engagement with it.
There had always been laws to regulate the importation of corn but the first so- called Corn Law, the Importation Act of 1815, following on from two decades of disrupted trade, enforced self-dependence and consequentially high prices, was seen as something new and of unpredictable effect.399 A public meeting in Liverpool
397
Leicestershire Mercury, 31 July 1847.
398
The 1837 and 1841 elections are considered in detail below.
399
See Longmate, Breadstealers, pp. 1-16, for a neat summary of early agitation against the Corn Laws.
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in 1815 reflected this uncertainty.400 The very fact that the mayor agreed to convene a meeting in the Town Hall is evidence that the issue was of general concern and not simply a means of attacking the Tory government. Those who felt that domestic agriculture required protection were nevertheless uncomfortable about the high level of protection (notably, the 80s a quarter importation limit on wheat). The most vocal opponent, the excitable Radical Colonel George Williams, was well placed to see all sides of the issue, as a former military man and a farmer, and to identify the common goal:
That we should lean upon our own resources in preference to those of any foreign country, for this essential article, is our obvious policy certainly, and there can be no more pernicious error than any endeavour to depreciate the price of corn below what is requisite to encourage its growth and to produce plenty ...
Williams decried the introduction of what he termed a “poll tax”, intended to reduce the national debt, and favoured measures to encourage agricultural productivity. In passing he took a swipe at the clergy and the negative effect of their tithe, an issue that would be revisited. The discussion was mostly confined to the matter in hand and resulted in a resolution that a petition be presented to the House of Lords opposing any change to the existing laws.
The very high price of wheat for several years following the disastrous harvest of 1816 allowed some importation of foreign wheat but did little to assuage widespread popular agitation. The Importation Act of 1822 did not change much, and lower wheat prices effectively curtailed any large-scale importation until Huskisson finally introduced the sliding-scale of duty for imported corn in his Importation Act of 1828. In the build-up to this significant liberalising measure, two more public meetings chaired by the mayor were held in Liverpool. The first in April 1825 (by which time Huskisson had become one of Liverpool’s MPs) is especially significant since it preceded by just a few weeks a statement by Huskisson in the House of Commons that signalled eventual change:401
... he [Huskisson] had always understood, that the great desideratum in this important question was to provide for a steadiness of price, and to guard
400
Liverpool Mercury, 17 March 1815.
401
W. Huskisson, The Speeches of the Right Honourable William Huskisson (London, 1831), Vol. II, p. 395.
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against excessive fluctuations in it from the vicissitudes of trade. How did the present law provide for these ends? By limiting the markets from which we drew our supplies – by destroying the vent which we should otherwise have for our produce, whenever we were blessed with a superabundant harvest – and by exposing us to an alternate fluctuation of high and low prices.
At this point Huskisson – quite apart from his own severe doubts – was under pressure from various quarters but the resolutions passed by the Liverpool meeting can only have encouraged his intended change of course. Liverpool was his constituency; the Tory-run Corporation had invariably swallowed any feelings of dissent against the government; and he himself had enjoyed considerable bipartisan support. In this instance those arguing for change included the former mayor Thomas Case. This unusual consensus had been facilitated by the self-proclaimed moderation of the Whigs: in opening the debate William Wallace Currie opined that the resolutions and petition “were characterized by a moderation which could give offence to none, but must conciliate all” and “trusted that a parliamentary revision of these laws would prove ... that the landed interest and the farmer would be as much benefited by a change as any other class”.402
Currie and his fellow petitioners did not presume to tell Parliament how the laws should be revised but considered one indispensable change should be to “allow the importation of corn at all times on a fixed and ... a moderate duty, so as to do away with the present uncertainty, which was equally injurious to the landowner and the farmer, the manufacturer and the merchant”. Case stressed that there was no intention to recommend that foreign corn have no duty on it and, for his own part, favoured a moderate import duty. Most of the discussion was sharply focused on the agricultural aspects but one speaker, the Reformer John Smith, chose to set out the benefits of free trade:
... [W]e should not take corn from other countries merely to serve those countries, but to serve ourselves. Trade must not only be mutual, but beneficial, or it would not be persevered in. Corn is the money of some countries; and if we do not take such money, those countries will not purchase our manufactures.
402
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Smith then spoiled his argument rather by overestimating the likely scale of corn imports and the resulting benefits:
Our extra supplies of corn would be derived from several different countries. If one nation were likely to go to war with us, others would have a direct interest in preserving peace with us, that they might more profitably supply us with corn. The other party, perceiving the advantage they were thus throwing away, would, therefore, pause before they decided.
In November 1826, as change failed to materialise, the public debate in Liverpool resumed but the tone was beginning to change. The new mayor, Thomas Littledale, a cotton broker with an obvious interest in promoting trade with North America, was amenable to chairing another meeting in the Town Hall but there was little in the reported proceedings of a bipartisan nature.403 The resolutions were proposed and seconded by a succession of leading Reformers, the only notable exception being the future mayor Nicholas Robinson.404 According to the opening speaker (the Reformer Henry Booth), the first resolution was to have been proposed by Sir John Tobin, the Tory grandee. If this was true, Tobin’s absence from what was to be a sustained and orchestrated opposition attack on the government was understandable. More remarkable was the active involvement in the meeting of four merchants with personal experience of the corn trade – Booth, Robinson, David Hodgson and Rathbone.405 In an era when the general merchant had not yet given way to the specialist, the corn trade was an exception and was acknowledged to require particular skill. However, the merchants, brokers and dealers who worked
403
Ibid., 17 November 1826.
404
The roll-call is almost unprecedented and included Henry Booth, William Wallace Currie, James Brancker Jnr., Thomas Bolton, Thomas Thornely, William Rathbone, William Brown, John Smith, John Cropper, Egerton Smith, Col. George Williams and Dr. Peter Crompton.
405
Henry Booth, though by now fully engaged with the projected Liverpool & Manchester Railway, came from a family of corn merchants. His father Thomas and uncle George were both prominent Liverpool merchants and his cousin George Booth Jnr., a corn broker, was Joshua Walmsley’s partner. Henry had worked for his father and then run his own business in the corn trade but, though he had soon given up, he retained an active interest in the political dimension. See R. Smiles, Memoir of the Late Henry Booth (London, 1869), p. 19. Nicholas Robinson was a very wealthy corn merchant with a more liberal outlook than most of his Tory colleagues in the Town Council. David Hodgson was another corn merchant and a former treasurer of the Corn Exchange. William Rathbone is best known as a cotton broker but his company Rathbone Brothers traded in diverse commodities, including corn. In 1839 Rathbone partially rid himself of his troublesome corn business by setting up an enduring partnership to work it with Ross T. Smyth. See S. Mariner, Rathbones of Liverpool, 1845-73 (Liverpool, 1961), pp. 17-20.
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the trade stood to make themselves wealthy, Corn Laws or not. Thus their involvement in protests against the Corn Laws suggests a combination of altruism and grand commercial strategy.
The tenor of the meeting is striking: of nine resolutions, only one addressed the plight of the working classes and then in terms of “the present distressed state of our manufacturing population, arising out of the inadequate demand for manufactured goods”.406 This clearly reflected the recent economic crisis, which had
hit the cotton trade particularly hard, and scarcely did justice to those workers in diverse sectors who had been suffering from high food prices for years. By contrast, no less than five resolutions may broadly be categorised as arguments for free trade. The first set out the basic principle:407
That it is highly expedient to encourage a free interchange of commodities between different countries, by which means the people of each nation may be induced to apply themselves to the production of such commodities as they have a natural facility of supplying, reciprocally exchanging the same with each other; each country being thus enabled to obtain the greatest quantity of useful and agreeable products, and at the cheapest rate.
A later resolution cut to what may be perceived as the most pressing concern of the Liverpool merchants:408
... that for several years past, however, there has been a gradual diminution in the export of many articles of British manufacture, previously consumed in Foreign Countries, but now manufactured there; and it is the opinion of this Meeting, that several branches of manufactures in other countries have been prematurely commenced and protected by high duties, in consequence of our Laws against the Importation of Grain; and that if these Laws be not speedily amended, there is reason to apprehend a still further diminution of the Export Trade, and of the national wealth.
As in the previous year, no specific proposals were put forward on the appropriate level of duty (a tactic which avoided the obvious difficulty of reaching agreement upon any particular figure) but the consensus was for retaining an importation duty,
406
Liverpool Mercury, 17 November 1826.
407
Ibid.
408
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albeit one set at a “moderate” level and without any sliding scale. Retention was justified by two main considerations – a desire not to do an injustice to farmers and recognition that the legislators whom they were petitioning were themselves landowners. For many years there was little support for more radical measures. Walmsley noted “that the most advanced reformers had not dared as yet to advocate a total repeal; a moderate fixed duty being as yet the most startling innovation they dared to propose”.409
In fact, one veteran Reformer, Dr. Crompton, did move a resolution calling for total abolition of the Corn Laws, characterising them as “the worst of monopolies, a satire on legislation, cruel and impolitic”.410
However, this departure from the consensus occasioned anxious interventions from Booth, Currie and Rathbone before the motion was defeated. A further threat to the meeting’s harmony came, predictably, from Williams. He described the resolutions as too moderate and wished the Corn Laws and all monopolies to be “exploded”. Not just the Corn Laws but also clerical tithes and the Game Laws needed to be modified. This unwelcome outburst was ruled out of order by the mayor, with encouragement from Rathbone.
Booth returned to the fray in 1833 with an influential pamphlet on free trade.411 The corn trade was just one, albeit important, element of his argumentation. What he sought to do was highlight the negative effects of current trading restrictions on the working classes. Taking his examples from a wide variety of merchant trades pursued in Liverpool, Booth illustrated the effect on employment and poverty. On the subject of the Corn Laws he wrote:412
The advocates of Free Trade, we apprehend, would not, under existing circumstances, object to a determinate duty on Wheat, gradually introduced, commencing at 10s per quarter, and diminishing one shilling per quarter yearly, till it should arrive at a settled permanent duty of 6s or 7s per quarter.
Thus the cautious approach to reform still prevailed. However, Booth was nothing if not honest in highlighting one consequence of lower duty: “[W]e would guard
409
Quoted in H. M. Walmsley, Life, p. 59.
410
Liverpool Mercury, 17 November 1826.
411
H. Booth, Free Trade, As it affects the People, Addressed to a Reformed Parliament (Liverpool, 1833). A condensed version entitled Substance of Mr. Henry Booth’s Pamphlet on Free Trade etc was published in London at about the same time.
412
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against exciting delusive hopes in the minds of the labouring classes; for it must not be disguised, that as commodities become cheaper wages will become lower”.413
This unpalatable outcome was later a cause of concern to the Anti-Corn Law League and something that the Liverpool merchants seemed unable not to proclaim.
One indication of the potential impact of Booth’s pamphlet was that it provoked a strong response in the form of four detailed letters to the Liverpool Standard from (Sir) John Gladstone, writing under the pen-name Mercator.414 Gladstone ridiculed the notion of lower wages being acceptable and predicted both agricultural ruin from large-scale importation of foreign crops and a consequential risk of being held