The Impact of Lord Liverpools Support of the Corn Laws of 1845 on the Coursework

The Impact of Lord Liverpools Support of the Corn Laws of 1845 on the Support for the Conservative Party - Coursework Example Despite the concerns of the parties involved, Lord Liverpool was able to consolidate the opposing political forces within the Houses of Lords and Commons to pass the legislation with a 126: 26 majority. Predictably, the poorer community fared badly as a result of artificially high corn prices and the next few years were marred by demonstrations and riots, followed by the passing of various pieces of repressive legislation in an attempt to control the rioters. Yet, despite these very unpopular measures, support for the conservative party and Liverpool rose - evidenced by the voting numbers during parliamentary business over the next few years. This has generally been attributed to post-war problems facing Britain as well as Lord Liverpool’s skills in presenting these to his peers. This explanation is not disputed, however, this paper poses that there is a powerful additional factor, namely that once the corn laws had unleashed unrest, a fear factor developed which did not, in f act, constitute support for the policies of the conservative party at all but which nevertheless caused members of the parliament to act in semblance. It is also argued that this fear was by far the strongest motivation for giving continued support to the conservative party for as long as there was a danger of further riots. There can be no doubt that the post-war problems faced by Britain in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars were grave and that the modification to existing corn laws in 1815 can be understood as a short-term measure to avoid catastrophe. Corn laws had been in place in Britain since the 17th century and had basically consisted of a  high rate of import duty imposed on a sliding scale to prevent imports and encourage exports, with import duties decreasing as corn prices increased (Fay, C. R., 1932, pp 28-43). This had kept corn prices relatively low and exports high until the middle of the 18th century when, for a variety of reasons, constant corn shortages forced frequent short-term measures to suspend import duties.