The ‘political element’ in the Corn Law debates, 1813–1846

Although the repeal of the British Corn Laws in 1846 is generally associated to the emergence of political economy, considerable controversies remain regarding the influence of economic ideas on the issue. Based on an extensive analysis of the Corn Law parliamentary debates’ rhetoric, the aim of this article is to show that a great part of these disputes rests on the shifting status and definition of political economy in the discussions. Indeed, “political economy” could refer to very different sets of ideas all through the debates, as theories were combined to political languages. Studying this translation process leads us to distinguish between different meanings of political economy in the discussions, to estimate how they became influential. The reference to Smith is used consistently with the dominant Whig political language in the early debates of the 1810s, to support the passing of the 1815 Corn Law. On the contrary, the integration of Ricardian political economy to the political discourses of the 1820s provoked decisive breaks in economic policy. But the repeal of the Corn Laws could not have been achieved without the emergence, in the 1830s, of the discourse presenting free trade as the sole condition to economic and social progress, diffused by the Anti-Corn Law League, which was very far from Ricardo’s stance.