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In 1815 the government introduced a massive tax on all grain imported into the country. The reason for this was that when the Napoleonic Wars ended, cheap grain had come in and the British farmers were losing money. The laws succeeded in raising prices and farmers and landowners were happy. Ordinary people, who had to pay these high prices, were not so happy.
There was considerable opposition against the law and, eventually, public opinion won. The laws had originally been supported by the conservative party, many of whom were landowners, but it was a conservative Prime Minster, Sir Robert Peel, who got the laws abolished in 1846. This was a period when the people who used to be the rulers of the country, the landowners, came up against the new class of factory owners and industrialists. The landowners wanted to keep the price high to increase their profits, the factory owners wanted the prices reduced so food cost less and they could pay their workers less.
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