Free Trade and Liberal England, 1846-1946

The argument about the limits of Free Trade or Protectionism rages throughout the world to this day. Free trade was one of the most distinctive defining features of the British state, and of British economic, social, and political life in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This is the first book to explain why free trade was so important, and to examine the reasons for its longevity. Anthony Howe covers a crucial century in free trade history, from the Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, through the turbulent years of the Tariff Reform debate, to the end of the Second World War.