An Act for regulating the Importation and Exportation of Corn, and the Payment of the Duty on Foreign Corn imported, and of the Bounty on British Corn exported.
The Importation and Exportation (No. 2) Act 1791 (31 Geo. 3. c. 30) is an act of the Parliament of Great Britain that consolidated acts relating to the importation and exportation of corn and amended the payment of duties on imported corn and the bounty on exported corn.
Background
As a staple of life, as well as an important commodity of trade, corn and its traffic was long the subject of debate and of government regulation – the Tudors legislating against speculating in corn, and the Stuarts introducing import and export controls. Import had been regulated as early as 1670;[1] and in 1689 traders were provided bounties for exporting rye, malt and wheat (all classified as corn at the time, the same commodities being taxed when imported into England).[2] In 1773, the Corn Act 1772 (13 Geo. 3. c. 43), "An act to regulate the importation and exportation of corn" repealed Elizabethan controls on grain speculation; but also shut off exports and allowed imports when the price was above 48 shillings[b] per quarter[c] (thus compromising to allow for interests of producers and consumers alike)[1][4].
By the 1790s, the issue remained one of public debate (by figures such as Edmund Burke)[1][5], and parliament desired to make changes to favour agricultural producers.[5]
Provisions
Repealed acts
Section 1 of the act repealed 7 enactments, listed in that section, taking effect on the commencement of the act.[6] Section 1 of the act also repealed "all and every provision in any other act contained for regulating the importation from foreign parts, of wheat, rye, barley, peas, beans, oats, beer or bigg, Indian corn or maise, whether ground or unground, and of malt, bread, or biscuit, made of any of the said sorts of corn, and for the payment of the duty thereon, and also all and every provision in any other act contained, for regulating the exportation of any of the said sorts of corn or other articles as aforesaid, and for payment of the bounty thereon, except so far as the malt for exportation, or to the exportation thereof".[6]
Section 2 of the act also repealed so much of the "as prohibits the buying of corn to sell again, and the laying it up in granaries, when the several sorts of corn are above certain prices therein mentioned".[6]
An act, passed in the first year of the reign of their late majesties King William and Queen Mary, intituled, An act for the encouraging the exportation of corn.
An act, passed in the fifth year of the reign of his late majesty King George the Second, intituled, An act for amending and making more effectual an act, made in the first year of the reign of King James the Second, intituled, "An additional act for the improvement of tillage.
An act, passed in the tenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, An act for registering the prices at which corn is fold in the several counties of Great Britain, and the quantity exported and imported.
An act, passed in the twenty-first year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, An act for further regulating and ascertaining the importation and exportation of corn and grain, within several ports and places therein mentioned.
An act, passed in the twenty-ninth year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, An act for better regulating and ascertaining the importation and exportation of corn and grain; and also for better regulating the exportation of starch, and the importation of rape seed.
^A 'quarter' was a unit of volume rather than of weight but a 'quarter of wheat' weighed about 224 kg (494 lb). (The density of wheat is 0.770,[3] and a quarter by volume (64 gallons) equates to 291 litres, multiplied by 0.770 gives 224 kg).
^Stevenson, John (1987). Fletcher, Anthony (ed.). Order and disorder in early modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 230–231. ISBN9780521349321.
