for the same period were
2,161,813 and 4,401,000 quarters respectively. But to obtain the real
effect of free trade on prices, the prices for the period between 1815
and 1846 must be compared with those between 1846 and the present day,
when the fall is enormous.

The Act of 1815, which Tooke said had failed to secure any one of the
objects aimed at by its promoters, had received two important
alterations. In 1828 (9 Geo. IV, c. 60) a duty of 36s. 8d. was imposed
when the price was 50s., decreasing to 1s. when it was 73s.

In 1843 (5 Vict. c. 14) a duty of 20s. was imposed when the price was
50s., and the duty became 7s. when the price reached 65s.

A contemporary writer denies that these duties benefited the farmer at
all: 'if the present shifting scale of duty was intended to protect
the farmer, keep the prices of corn steady, insure a supply to the
consumer at a moderate price, and benefit the revenue, it has signally
failed. During the continuation of the Corn Laws the farmers have
suffered the greatest privations. The variations in price have been
extreme, and when a supply of foreign corn has been required it has
only reached the consumer at a high price, and benefited the revenue
little.'[632] Rents of farms were often calculated not on the market
price of wheat, but on the price thought to be fixed by the duties,
which was occasionally much higher.[633]

It was also said that but for the restrictions that had been imposed
in the supposed interests of agriculture, the skill and enterprise of
farmers would have been better directed than it had been. By means of
these restrictions and the consequent enhancement of the cost of
living, the cultivation of the land had been injuriously restricted,
for the energies of farmers had been limited to producing certain
descriptions of food, and they had neglected others which would have
been far[634] more profitable. The landlord had profited by higher
rents, but, according to Caird, a most competent observer, had
generally speaking been induced by a reliance on protection to neglect
his duty to his estates, so that buildings were poor, and drainage
neglected. The labourer was little if any better off than eighty years
before. It was a mystery even to farmers how they lived in many parts
of the country; 'our common drink,' said one, 'is burnt crust tea, we
never know what it is to get enough to eat.'[635] Against these
disadvantages can only be put the fact that protectio