How Britain Turned to Free Trade

Abstract

British free trade has been variously attributed to the importuning of business interests, to the advanced state of manufacturing, to politicians acting on improper or unworthy motives, or to imperialism. Professor Grampp examines a critical event in the history of free trade: Parliament's declaration in 1820 that future commercial policy should be guided by that principle. By 1850, all major restrictions had been abolished. The decision of 1820, according to Thomas Tooke, a principal in the event, was made by the Tory Government with the concurrence of the Whig Opposition, both of which had come to believe free trade would increase per capita real income: that is, both acted in what they and others since have understood to be the public interest.