depressions were rendered
all the more disastrous, because in times of high prices "the margin of
cultivation" was unduly extended.

[Pageheading: _CORN LAWS._]

With a view to diminish the violence of these fluctuations, a select
committee on the corn-trade was appointed by the house of commons in
1813, and reported in favour of a sliding-scale. When the price of wheat
should fall below 90s. per quarter, its exportation was to be permitted;
but its importation was to be forbidden, until the price should reach
103s., when it might, indeed, be imported, but under "a very
considerable duty". It was assumed, in fact, that the normal price of
wheat was above 100s. per quarter, and the price above which importation
should be permitted was nearly twice as high as that fixed in 1801,
when, moreover, it was to be admitted above 50s. at a duty of 2s. 6d.,
and above 54s. at a duty of sixpence. It is remarkable that in the
debates of 1814 upon the report of this committee, William Huskisson, as
well as Sir Henry Parnell, supported its main conclusions, upon the
ground that agriculture must be upheld at all costs, and the home-market
preferred to foreign markets. Canning and others ably advocated the
cause of the consumers, alleging that duties on corn injured them far
more than they could benefit landowners or farmers. Finally, a bill
embodying a modified sliding-scale was introduced by the government,
and, though lost by a narrow majority in 1814, became law in 1815. Under
this act the importation of foreign corn was prohibited, so long as the
price of wheat did not rise above 80s. Above that price it might be
imported free. Corn from British North America might, however, be
imported free so long as the price of wheat exceeded 67s.

The parliamentary debates of 1812 chiefly turned on Spanish affairs, the
revocation of the orders in council, the subsequent rupture with the
United States which had anticipated this great concession, and the
wearisome cabinet intrigues which preceded the accession of Liverpool as
prime minister. It is noteworthy that so conservative a house of commons
should actually have pledged itself to consider the question of catholic
emancipation in the next session, and should have passed an act
relieving nonconformists from various disabilities. The next session of
this parliament, however, never came, for an unexpected dissolution took
place on September 29. This dissolution was attributed, with some
reas