Designed to protect English landholders by encouraging the export and limiting the import of corn when prices fell below a fixed point.
The Corn Laws kept the cost of food high
Depressed the domestic market for manufactured goods because people spent the bulk of their earnings on food rather than commodities
Caused great distress among the working classes in the towns
Working Class unable to grow their own food and had to pay the high prices
Vast majority of voters and members of Parliament were landowners and so the government was unwilling to reconsider new legislation to help the economy because it effected their pockets
Abolished in the face of militant agitation by the Anti Corn law League formed in Manchester in 1839
Anti Corn Law League maintained that the laws which amounted to a subsidy increased industrial costs