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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 184.: THE CORN LAWS EXAMINER, 18 NOV., 1832, P. 739 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II

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184.: THE CORN LAWS EXAMINER, 18 NOV., 1832, P. 739 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II [1831]

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The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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184.

THE CORN LAWS

EXAMINER, 18 NOV., 1832, P. 739

This comment is appended, in square brackets, to a long letter to the editor in the “Political Examiner” signed “W.P.G.,” and headed: “A Plan for Admitting Foreign Corn, Yet limiting the Extent of Importation, so far as is necessary for preserving some given Minimum of Price to the British Farmer.” The correspondent argues that the attempt to regulate grain imports according to previous prices is inefficient because fictitious sales cannot be prevented, and immense quantities of grain can be warehoused when the duty is low. He proposes an alternative, regulating the duty according to the quantity imported and sold. The item is described in Mill’s bibliography as “Two paragraphs of observations on a letter respecting the Corn Laws; in the Exam. of 18th Nov. 1832” (MacMinn, p. 23). In the Somerville College set of the Examiner, it is listed as “Paragraphs on the Corn Laws” and enclosed in a second set of square brackets.

we have great pleasure in giving publicity to this plan, which is founded on a just train of thought, though we think it unsuited to the character which the Corn Question has now assumed. The idea of facilitating the transition to free trade by limiting (for a time) the quantity imported, instead of imposing a gradually decreasing duty, was suggested a few years ago by some able and enlightened writers in the Parliamentary Review, a work which had not the success it deserved.1

But we should object to the plan of our correspondent, as applicable to the Corn Laws, on two grounds. First, because a small difference in the quantity of food makes a great difference in its price, so that no one could judge what number of quarters must be admitted to bring the price to 54s. And secondly, on a more enlarged ground, agreeing with W.P.G. that 54s. is a price that any reasonable farmer would now be contented with, we are convinced that the importation of Corn, duty free, would not sink the price below that point. Our reason is this:—Under the present Corn Law2 the wheat which has been imported has paid, on an average, no more than from 6s. to 7s. of duty. The present Corn Law, therefore, cannot be much more than equivalent to a fixed duty of that amount; consequently, if the average price in our Corn Market be, as our correspondent affirms, 63s., you might take off the duty entirely, and wheat could not be sold for much less than 56s.

[1 ]The Parliamentary History and Review, a radical annual based on Bentham’s Book of Fallacies, ceased publication in 1828 after only three issues. Mill wrote four long essays (for the complex bibliographic details and Mill’s comments, see CW, Vol. I, pp. 121-3, 132, and 706), but none on the Corn Laws. In the Review volume for the session of 1825 (London: Longman, et al., 1826), an article on the Corn Laws (pp. 690-705) is identified in George Grote’s copy (University of London Library) as by Charles Austin (1799-1874), younger brother of John Austin and a close friend to Mill. Another article, of which the authorship is unknown, also entitled “Corn Laws,” is in the Review volume for 1826 (London: Longman, et al., 1826), pp. 662-710.

[2 ]9 George IV, c. 60 (1828).