Describe any five facts to abolish the corn laws in Britain.
WITH the growth of population and expansion of urban sector and industrial demand for agricultural products went up, pushing up prices of foodgrains. Under pressure from landed groups, the government also restricted the import of corn. The laws allowing the government to do this were commonly known as corn law. Unhappy with high prices of food the industrialists and urban dwellers forced the government to abolish the corn law.
Its effects: Abolition of corn laws allowed the merchants in England to import food grains from abroad at lower cost.
The major effects seen as under :
- It led to widespread unemployment in the agriculture sector but prosperity in the industrial sector.
- It also resulted in the rise of prosperous capitalist class in the urban areas.
- Unemployment in the rural sector forced the movements of the labour from agriculture to industrial sector.
- Migration of agricultural sector labourer to industrial sector led to the growth of population in the urban areas.