The Corn Laws Under Siege: A Continental Chronicle of the League's Crusade

SCARLET PASS CROSSROADS, Sept. 18th, 1841. — Word has reached this remote outpost of a gathering storm in the great capitals of Europe. The Anti-Corn Law League, that formidable association of Manchester manufacturers and London pamphleteers, has extended its campaign beyond the British Isles. Their emissaries, bearing printed tracts and the fiery rhetoric of Mr. Richard Cobden, have been observed in the coffee-houses of Calais, the counting-houses of Antwerp, and even the salons of Paris. They argue that the bread of the poor is taxed to enrich the landed gentry, and that free trade would bring plenty to all. Yet here in the Carpathian borderlands, where a loaf of rye is often dearer than a dram of brandy, the debate wears a different aspect.

I have spoken with a Hungarian corn merchant at the Scarlet Pass inn, a weathered man who has traversed the mountain roads for thirty years. He fears that should the Corn Laws fall, the cheap grain of the Danubian plains might flood the markets of England, ruining the small growers of our own valleys. "The League speaks of abundance," said he, "but abundance for whom? The speculator grows fat while the peasant starves." His words echo the sentiments of many a local boyar, who see in Cobden's crusade a foreign mischief that would unsettle the ancient order of harvest and tithe.

Yet not all voices are hostile. A young German schoolmaster, lately arrived from Leipzig, told me that the League's principles are but the dawn of a new age, when commerce shall bind nations in peace and the monstrous tariffs of princes shall be dashed to dust. He spoke of railways and steamships, of grain flowing like water across frontiers. I confess I listened with a divided heart, for I have seen what the mountain passes do to fine theories. The wolves of Borgo Pass care nothing for free trade, and the bandit cares only for the weight of your purse.

From the Continental capitals, then, we may soon expect either a great liberalising of the corn trade or a fierce reaction from the protectionist courts. The Transylvania Gazette shall continue to report on this matter as it affects our own routes and markets. Let the reader judge whether the League's agitation is a blessing or a curse. For my part, I shall keep my powder dry and my ledgers balanced, and trust that the coming winter does not bring both empty granaries and empty promises.