II. CHAP. cumbersome guns of the day; and shooting, in the modern sense of battues, was only beginning to be known. In 1827 Lord Eldon referred in the House of Lords to the objectionable modern practice of collecting game in large quantities for the purpose of battues.' 'Every plantation,' he said on another occasion, 'was turned into a poultryyard, and a sportsman was thought nothing of unless he could kill his thousand birds a day.'1 The Duke of Gloucester, in 1816, shot 254 head of game in one day at Mr. Coke's of Holkham; and Greville has recorded in his diary a day's sport which would have done credit to these modern times of bloodshed. The spirit of the old forest laws, which the Norman kings had introduced into England, still lingered in the statutes which Parliament had made for the preservation of game. No one, who was not a landowner, was allowed to kill game; no one was entitled to sell game. The common law distinctly recognised that game was the property of the landowner, ratione soli. But, in limitation, and to a certain degree in derogation, of the common law, a variety of statutes subjected to penalties persons who, not having certain qualifications, shall, even upon their own land, kill any of those wild animals which come under the denomination of game.' The qualification to kill game was confined by a statute of Charles II. to persons having lands of inheritance of 100l. per annum, or leases of 150l. (to which were added some other descriptions of personal qualifications), and persons not having such qualifications were not allowed to have or keep game dogs. A subsequent statute of George II. (28 Geo. II., c. 12) carried this system still further; and enacted penalties against unqualified, and finally against qualified, persons who shall buy, sell, or offer to sell, any hare, pheasant, partridge, &c. Similar penalties were enacted against unqualified persons having 1 Twiss' Eldon, vol. ii. p. 540; vol. iii. p. 4. 2 Ann. Reg. 1816, p. 193. game But legislation in their possession.1 did not cease with the reign of George II. As late as 1816 an Act, passed without a single word of comment, punished with transportation for seven years any person who should be found by night in any open ground, having in his possession any net or engine for the purpose of taking or destroying any hare, rabbit, or other game. So carelessly was the act drawn that the limits of night were fixed between October and March at from 8 P.M. to 7 A.M., so that, according to this law, even a qualified person, who went out before seven in the morning to shoot game, was liable to be transported as a felon. It was not, however, likely that a qualified person would ever be subjected to these penalties. The law was made to repress poaching, and a poacher's life was regarded with about as much respect as a rabbit's. Spring guns were commonly set in every plantation. In 1821 a farmer, renting about 500 acres of land, was fined for keeping a setter. In 1822 a farmer, coursing hares on his own land, with the permission of his own landlord, was summoned by the keeper of the adjoining landowner for doing so. The adjoining landowner in this particular instance was the Duke of Buckingham, and the farmer was literally convicted by the duke himself, in the duke's private house, at the instance of one of the duke's keepers, and on the evidence of another of his keepers.* 'The forest laws,' Blackstone had written in the previous century, and the passage still remained true, are now mitigated, and by degrees grown entirely obsolete; yet, from this root has sprung a bastard slip, known by the name of the game laws, now arrived to, and wantoning in, the highest vigour: both founded upon the same unreasonable notion of permanent property in wild crea 1 Report of Select Committee of 1816; Ann. Reg., vol. lviii. p. 443. Romilly, vol. iii. p. 275; Hansard, vol. xxxv. p. 339. 2 3 Ann. Reg. 1822, Chron. p. 8. The case, it is fair to add, was reversed on appeal. • Hansard, N. S. vol. viii. p. 1292. СНАР. II II. CHAP. tures, and both productive of the same tyranny to the commons: but with this difference, that the forest laws established only one mighty hunter throughout the land; the game laws have raised a little Nimrod in every The severe laws, which Blackstone thus reprobated, might at least have been expected to have led to the effectual preservation of game. They did, however, nothing of the kind. Neither the attitude of Parliament nor the decisions of the county magistrates could induce the people generally to regard poaching as a crime. It is incidentally stated in the 'Black Book' that 12,805 persons were convicted of criminal offences in 1830, and that no less than 1,987 of these convictions were for offences against the game laws.2 Though, too, it was illegal to sell game, it was notorious that game was sold by nearly every poulterer. Laws of the severest character had not even the negative merit of enforcing obedience by their severity. The game laws were maintained in the interest of a small body of persons. The incomes of these landowners were not so large as those which their descendants now enjoy. But some members of the upper classes had very considerable rent-rolls. The casual expressions of contemporary writers enable us to form a fair estimate of the cost of living at the commencement of the century. When the loyalty loan was proposed, Lord Colchester said that the outside expenses of the aristocracy were calculated at 6,000l. a year. Sheridan, some years after 1 Blackstone's Commentaries, b. iv. P. 2 Black Book, p. 270. 3 The sale of game was regulated by two Acts passed in the 5th of Anne and the 28th of George II. By the former of these Acts it was illegal for higglers, chapmen, carriers, innkeepers, and victuallers to sell game. By the latter, game keepers were prevented from selling game without the consent of their employers; and all persons, qualified or not, who sold game, were considered chapmen. When any game was found in the house of an unqualified person, it was considered as exposed for sale. See, inter alia, Hansard, vol. xxxv. p. 877. II. wards, publicly declared that 2,000l. a year was in his СНАР. opinion absolute poverty. The ordinary country gentleman had probably a smaller income than that which Sheridan's extravagant disposition regarded as poverty. But, as a class, they were better off than they had ever been before. The war had laden England with heavy taxation, and the country gentlemen paid a share of the taxes; but there can be no doubt that the war, while it lasted, had increased their importance and swelled their rent-rolls. Parliament was a Parliament of landlords, and the welfare of the landed interest had for generations been the paramount interest of the legislature. If the price of corn fell, it was argued, land would be thrown out of cultivation, men would be thrown out of work, rents would fall, rates would rise, and speedy ruin would overtake the country. The main object of all legislation Corn Laws. then seemed to be to keep up the price of corn by artificial means. The landed interest has had the credit of selfishly initiating this policy for its own purposes. But those, who have closely investigated the subject, are aware that this charge is unjust. The protection of corn was not originally demanded by the landowners: it was a concession willingly made by the landowners to the reasoning of the political arithmeticians of the day. At the close of the seventeenth century the economists were universally of opinion that the land should be protected; and Davenant and Mun are as much responsible for the system of protection as Adam Smith is entitled to the credit of having originated free trade. It was the interest of the consumer that corn should be cheap; the landlord thought that it was his interest that it should not be too cheap. To absolutely prohibit the import of corn was equivalent to condemning the consumer, in bad seasons, to famine prices: to absolutely prohibit its export was equivalent to compelling the farmer, ' Colchester, vol. i. p. 36; Wilberforce, vol. iii. p. 26. VOL. I. M II. in good years, to submit to a price which he thought inadequate for his produce. The dilemma had led to many remedies in former times. For nearly four centuries after the Conquest the export of corn was entirely prohibited. In the reign of Henry VI. the injustice which this law inflicted on the farmer was partially remedied. Corn was allowed to be exported when its average price was less than 6s. 8d. a quarter. Thirty years afterwards a further boon was afforded to the landed interest: the import of corn was prohibited till the price rose to 6s. 8d. a quarter. The alteration in the value of money necessitated changes in these figures. But the system still continued in force. In 1670, wheat was allowed to be exported when the price was below 538. 4d. When its price rose above 53s. 4d., it was allowed to be imported on paying a duty of 8s. A further step, in the same direction, was taken after the Revolution of 1688. Wheat was still allowed to be sent abroad: and, when its price fell below 48s. a quarter, a bounty of 5s. was paid on its exportation. The system, which had been thus adopted, and which continued in force for eighty years, was avowedly designed for the protection of the landed interest; and the advantage, which agriculturists derived from it, was very great. The farmer was protected from all foreign competition till the price of grain rose to an unusual point; and he then competed on most favourable terms with the foreigner. If, on the contrary, the price of grain fell, he could always raise it artificially by sending it abroad. The Government paid him 5s. a quarter on its exportation; or added more than 10 per cent. to the value of the commodity. It is stated by McCulloch that, during the ten years ending in 1751, no less than 1,515,000l. were paid in bounties on the exportation of corn. In other words, Government voted a direct subsidy of this amount to the landed interest. But the subsidy, which the Government |