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Canada Corn Act 1843
The Canada Corn Act or the Canada Corn Bill of 1843 was an act passed by the British Parliament governing the import of grains and goods manufactured from grains from Canada into the United Kingdom, allowing grains to enter the British market with reduced duties. British passage of the Importation Act 1815 – the Corn Law – impacted the market for Canadian grains by restricting their importation into Britain, despite the fact Canada was part of the British Empire. It augmented these existing Corn Laws from 1815 and lasted until 1846 at which point it was repealed along with the Corn Laws as a whole.

1843 Enactment
The 1843 act was enacted to provide some relief to grain farmers in Upper Canada, by reducing the duty of Canada wheat imported into Britain to (a nominal) 1 shilling a quarter.

The reduced tariff led to increasingly profitable shipping through the St. Lawrence route. To attract business for shipping businesses in the United States, the American government responded by allowing Canadian grain bound for Britain to pass through the Erie Canal without import duties.

The Act allowed for the importation to the UK of Canadian grain, be it processed or not. Accordingly, a trade sprung up in American grain, shipped to Canada for milling, and then on to the UK. This impetus caused a boom in the Canadian flour-milling industry.

British Reception
During the second reading in the House of Commons of the Canada Corn Bill, Commons Member Mr J. E. Denison commented that wheat imported into Canada has a duty of 3 shillings per quarter as passed by the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada and that this bill would make it such that wheat exported to England would have a duty of 1 shilling per quarter. He also commented that if Britain were to treat Canada as if it were an English county, then surely all English counties must petition for this treatment being afforded to Canada, or as he put it, “[Canada] may sell her own corn dear, and buy all she consumes cheap; and what English county has such a privilege?” As Mr J. E. Denison understood, Canada West was the only surplus supplier of grain out of all the British colonies in North America and as such this bill was perceived as an unfair and unneeded advantage for Canada as a whole, who could export all their grain and grain products to Britain with the minimal 1 shilling tariff and proceed to import or smuggle what is actually needed into the colony.

It was also recognized that while an English farmer might not like this reduction in tariffs on grain originating from Canada, it was a necessary measure to feed the factory workers of Britain and that something had to be done in an attempt to lower the price of grains in the United Kingdom.

Canadian Reception
Agricultural protectionism and special preference was a popular idea in Canada at the time of the Canada Corn Act. In 1842, there was a ‘Great Agricultural Petition’ in favor of such protectionism and preference. With the Canada Corn Act, this idea was furthered by the British Parliament. In addition to the Canada Corn Act, the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada was also passing its own protectionist acts. These acts put a duty on American grain being imported to Canada; they also allowed American grains to be imported for milling in Canada and then exported to Britain as a product of Canada.

Overall, it was seen as a boon for Canada to have American trade going through Canada and to have American grains being processed in Canadian mills. Furthermore, it was anticipated that as the Americans continued settlement in their more western states they would be producing more grain even more cheaply than Canadian farmers, and that some of it would be going through the St. Lawrence.

Import, Export and Price Statistics
From 1843 to 1844, the exports of wheat from Canada to Great Britain doubled from 129,000 to 260,000 quarters. In the same time period, the imports of wheat from the US into Canada also nearly doubled from 34,000 quarters to 67,000 quarters. In 1844, Quebec exported 307,961 barrels of flour, representing a significant increase from 1843 when only 50,130 barrels of flour were exported. Likewise a similarly extreme result was seen with wheat: Quebec exported 237,098 bushels of wheat in 1844, while only exporting 15,417 bushels of wheat in 1843. Despite this massive increase in the quantity of exports to Great Britain, the average Canadian farmer made less following the Canada Corn Act of 1843 than before as a result of English prices.

The tariffs for grain entering Great Britain were priced on a sliding scale dependent on the average market value of a particular grain as set out by the Corn Laws of 1815. As the price of grain increased, the duties would become comparably smaller on both foreign sourced grains as well as grains imported from the colonies, and the preferential advantage on duties given to colonial grain would decrease. Table 1. Tariffs as a percent of the total price of wheat.

This price increase of 13 shillings reduced the relative value of preference from 51% to 28%, and further amendments made to the Corn Laws in 1842 under Sir Robert Peel would reduce this preference further.

1846 Repeal of the Corn Laws
After a short time, the advantages to Canada of the Corn Act were undone when British Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel moved Britain towards free trade. A shortage of food caused by the Great Famine of Ireland created the need for cheap imported grain, and the act was repealed in 1846. This was seen at the time as blow to Canada by abolition of the (effective) imperial preference the act had created; the impact of the repeal to grain exports in practice, in the later 1840s and 1850s, remains a subject of historical debate.

Anti-Corn Law League
The Anti-Corn Law League was a political movement in favor of deregulation, de-monopolization and free trade that aimed to abolish the Corn Laws which they viewed as unjust. The members of the Anti-Corn Law League considered the Corn Laws to be unjust as they viewed them as heavily benefiting the landowning class of Britain at the expense of increased grain prices - up to 30% higher in London than in Paris. The Anti-Corn Law League often held large rallies. On October 12, 1843, a rally at the Covent Garden Theatre was so completely full that people were blocking the entrances while trying to get in. This specific rally was being held for a by-election in the constituency of the City of London for a House of Commons seat between James Pattison (Whig) and Thomas Baring (Conservative) in which Pattison won 6,535 votes to 6,334 votes.

During a House of Commons committee on March 2, 1846, pertaining to the repeal of the Corn Laws, the repeal was scheduled to take effect on February 1, 1849. In support of the Anti-Corn Law League, Charles Pelham Villiers rose in amendment to make this repeal immediate. This amendment, however, did not pass. Shortly after on March 27, 1846, Sir Robert Peel made a speech in support of the repeal of the Corn Laws. The bill for immediate repeal passed its first reading and was moved to second reading, and then onto the House of Lords, eventually passing on May 22, 1846 and coming into effect on May 26, 1846.

Impacts in Canada
It was a common view in Canada that the Canada Corn Act was the cause of the higher prices and growing market. As such, the repeal of the Canada Corn Act was expected to be ruinous to the Canadian economy. There was a commercial decline in relation to the repeal of the Corn Laws, however it did not hit all of the Province of Canada equally - Montreal had a sharp drop in port traffic whereas Toronto saw an increase in commercial activity. It is not clear that the repeal of the Corn Laws directly led to this.

As with Great Britain, the government of the Province of Canada also moved further toward free trade by remaking their tariff structure. The main goal of this restructuring was ensuring that the tariffs that did remain applied equally to all goods no matter the place of origin.