Effects of repeal of corn laws=> protectionism 1885 England

The price of corn in the two decades after 1850 averaged 52 shillings.[20] Due to the development of cheaper shipping (both sail and steam), faster and thus cheaper transport by rail and steamboat, and the modernisation of agricultural machinery, the prairie farms of North America were able to export vast quantities of cheap corn, as were peasant farms in the Russian Empire with simpler methods but cheaper labour. Every corn-growing country decided to increase tariffs in reaction to this, except Britain and Belgium.[21] In 1877 the price of British-grown corn averaged 56 shillings, 9 pence a quarter and for the rest of the nineteenth century it never reached within 10 shillings of that figure. In 1878 the price fell to 46 shillings, 5 pence. By 1885 corn-growing land declined by a million acres (4,000 km²) (28½%) and in 1886 the corn price fell to 31 shillings a quarter. Britain's dependence on imported grain in the 1830s was 2%; in the 1860s it was 24%; in the 1880s it was 45%, for corn it was 65%.[22] The 1881 census showed a decline of 92,250 in agricultural labourers since 1871, with a 53,496 increase of urban labourers. Many of these had previously been farm workers who later migrated to the cities to find employment,[23] despite, and perhaps leading to, agricultural labourers' wages being the highest in Europe.[23]

Although highly proficient farmers on good lands did well, farmers with mediocre skills or marginal lands were at a disadvantage. Many moved to the cities, and unprecedented numbers emigrated. Many emigrants were small, undercapitalized grain farmers who were squeezed out by low prices and inability to increase production or adapt to the more complex challenge of raising livestock.[24] Similar patterns developed in Ireland, where cereal production was labor intensive. The reduction in grain prices reduced the demand for agricultural labor in Ireland, and reduced the output of barley, oats, and wheat. These changes occurred at the same time that emigration was reducing the labor supply and pushing wage rates upward to levels too high for arable farmers to sustain.[25]