ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: Thomas Tooke on the Corn Laws
Author: Smith Matthew
The main purpose of this paper is to examine Thomas Tooke’s (1773-1858) position on the English Corn Laws from 1815 until their repeal in 1846. As is well known, the Corn Laws were a major controversy in British policy debate over the first half of the nineteenth century. Like most classical economists, Tooke was a strong supporter of free trade who vehemently opposed the Corn Laws. The paper is concerned with exploring Tooke’s free trade position and the reasons why he opposed the Corn Laws in their various forms. It shows that Tooke believed the Corn Laws generally contributed to greater instability in the English price of corn as well as to monetary instability through its affects on the balance of payments without effectively protecting domestic farming and securing for England a ready supply of corn. The paper also considers Tooke’s view on the distributional impact of the Corn Laws, showing that distinct from Ricardo’s position, he believed they tended to redistribute income in favour of the ‘landed interest’ at the expense of the ‘working classes’ rather than the capitalist classes. In this regard, it is shown that Tooke mainly opposed the Corn Laws because they tended to lower the living standards of working people and, at times, contributed to acute shortages of foodstuffs that brought much hardship to the ‘lowest classes’ of society.
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