Samuel Sidney, a Victorian expert on Australian matters, explained how cutting tax and regulation on Britain’s global trade made everyone better off.
Writing for ‘Household Words,’ Samuel Sidney, a rising authority on Australia, was full of praise for William Huskisson MP and his then-unfashionable free trade policies. Sidney believed that by adding new trade partners far beyond Europe, British business had raised living standards, cut prices and created jobs for millions worldwide.
The closure of slave plantations following the Abolition of Slavery Act in 1833 had a curious side-effect.
One might imagine that slave labour keeps prices down, but the break-up of the slave trade by the British Empire following the Abolition of Slavery Act in 1833 demonstrated just how mistaken that supposition is. Low prices come when free people do business together: more freedom, more business, lower prices.