From the Corn Laws to Free Trade. Interests, Ideas, and Institutions in Historical Perspective
研究了19世纪中期英国废除保护主义谷物法、转向自由贸易的原因，分析了工业化和人口增长如何使工人和工业家支持廉价谷物进口，以及反谷物法同盟的政治运动如何导致保守党分裂和法案通过。
Britain's shift to free trade in the mid-19th century was an important part of the British experience, being the first country to industrialise. A growing part of the population became dependent on imported food, at the same time as Britain's share of the world manufacturing output rose steeply. The workers and also the industrialists developed an interest in cheap imported grain, and this led to a repeal of the protectionist Corn Laws. The focal question for Schonhardt-Bailey is why this happened. The course of events is well known. In the late 1830s, a movement against the Corn Laws started in England: the Anti-Corn Law Association (later, the Anti-Corn Law League). The League organised a nation-wide and far-reaching propaganda campaign. The Conservatives had won the election in 1841, but in the following years the free trade supporters tried—successfully—to register as many electors as possible, and at the same time to challenge protectionist electors. However, before the next election (to be held in 1848), the Conservatives split, and a large group followed Prime Minister Robert Peel, and voted against the Corn Laws in early 1846. The ‘Peelites’ were not a majority among the Conservatives, but they changed the balance of power.