Chapter Eleven

• Author: Richard D. Schneider
• Pages: 99-108

 

Cae Eevn

 -  League was formed in  by members of the

industrial classes to ght the government’s enormously unpopular

Corn Laws, rst introduced in , which were put in place to pro-

tect the prots of the wealthy land-owning farmers by setting inated,

rather than market-driven, prices on corn. e eect of the laws was

to keep the price of wheat and therefore bread unconscionably high.

is legislation was particularly hated by the people living in the large

fast-growing urban centres who were oended by having to pay these

exorbitant prices.

Enormous pressure was put upon the government of Sir Robert

Peel who eventually was won over and repealed the laws in  – three

years after Drummond’s murder. Some elements of the Anti-Corn

Law League were not averse to violent displays of their dissatisfaction.

At the time of Mr. Drummond’s murder in , Sir Robert Peel and

his government were enduring constant pressure to repeal the laws.

e anti-government attitude of the league and the suspicion that they

were behind various nefarious events, caused some commentators to

speculate that it may have been the proselytizing of the league that

incited M’Naughten to attempt the murder of Sir Robert Peel.

In response to such speculation, e Times wrote in its issue of

January  on the subject of Drummond’s murder:

is brings us to the consideration of a point, which we would handle

with great delicacy; and we must begin by saying that we do not think

even the least scrupulous of our political opponents so destitute of

Christian and manly feeling as to promote or countenance assassina-

tion or any other act at all approaching it in the scale of criminality.

e Anti-Corn Law League for instance, we have never ceased to