on imported wheat was to sink in
proportion. The principle of all these measures was the same. How, it
may be asked, could any sane legislator adopt such measures? As well
might it be asked, How can any civilized nation still, as some still do,
believe in such a principle? The truth is that the principle is one
which has a strong fascination for most persons, the charm of which it
is difficult for any class in its turn wholly to shake off. The idea is
that if our typical baker be paid more than the market price for a loaf,
he will be able in turn to pay more to the butcher than the fair price
for his beef; the butcher thus benefited will be enabled to deal on more
liberal terms with the tailor; the tailor so favored by legislation will
be able in his turn to order a better kind of beer from the publican and
pay a higher price for it. Thus, by some extraordinary process,
everybody pays too much for everything, and nevertheless all are
enriched in turn. The absurdity of this is easily kept out of sight
where the protective duties affect a number of varying and complicated
interests, manufacturing, commercial, and productive.

In the United States, for example, where the manufacturers are benefited
in one place and the producers are benefited in another, and where the
country always produces food abundant to supply its own wants, men are
not brought so directly face to face with the fallacy of the principle
as they were in England at the time of the Anti-Corn Law League. In
America "protection" affects manufacturers for the most part, and there
is no such popular craving for cheap manufactures as to bring the
protective principle into collision with the daily wants of the people.
But in England, during the reign of the Corn Law, the food which the
people put into their mouths was the article mainly taxed, and made
cruelly costly by the working of protection.

Nevertheless, the country put up with this system down to the close of
the year 1836. At that time there was a stagnation of trade and a
general depression of business. Severe poverty prevailed in many
districts. Inevitably, therefore, the question arose in the minds of
most men, in distressed or depressed places, whether it could be a good
thing for the country in general to have the price of bread kept high by
factitious means when wages had sunk and work become scarce. An
Anti-Corn-Law association was formed in London, It began pretentiously
enough, but it brought