No sooner had the price of wheat fallen than a Corn Law Bill was introduced into Parliament, in the interests of the landed gentry, to raise it again. The Bill was brought in on the 1st March (1815), and rapidly passed the Commons, in spite of protests from the Common Council, as well as the livery of London, who objected to the landowner, who had benefited by the war, being made richer at the expense of the tradesman and merchant, whose burdens the war had so much increased.[723] On the 21st the Bill passed the Lords, and only awaited the Regent's assent to become law. Determined to make one more effort the Common Council presented an address to his royal highness begging him to withhold his assent.[724] They complained of the "precipitancy" with which the Bill had been passed, and of the utter disregard of public feeling and opinion which both Houses--composed as they were of landed proprietors, to whom the war had been a source of emolument--had throughout displayed. The Bill had been passed (they repeated) in the interest of landowners, who already enjoyed sufficient immunities, whereas the manufacturer and the merchant, who had done so much to make England what she was, had to suffer from foreign competition and the recent introduction of machinery. The Bill, if passed, would keep up the price of food, and so drive the manufacturer and artisan to foreign parts, and transfer the skill, industry and capital of the kingdom to other nations. They prayed his highness, therefore, to exercise his prerogative of refusing his assent to the Bill. This he refused, however, to do, and the Bill became law. As to the merits or demerits of free-trade, opinions are still divided; but for thirty years after the passing of the first Corn Law the City never lost an opportunity of declaring its opposition to the principle involved,[725] and never rested until in 1846 the first steps were taken for the abolition of all corn duties. However much others have benefited by their repeal, one cannot shut one's eyes to the fact that to the agricultural class the result has been little short of disastrous. [Sidenote: A year of general depression, 1816.] Unfortunately the depression was not confined to agriculture, as the Common Council took an early opportunity of pointing out to Parliament in their petition against the renewal of the income tax (8 Feb.): "Your petitioners are deeply sensible"--they told the House of Commons--"of the depressed state of the agricultural interests and of the ruinous effect of such a burthen thereon, they nevertheless beg to state that the manufacturing and trading interests are equally depressed and equally borne down with the weight of taxation."[726] [Sidenote: Address of the livery to Regent, 21 Aug., 1816.]