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It is not politicians and their policies that create wealth, but the hard work and ingenuity of ordinary people.
Richard Cobden MP led the fight in the House of Commons to repeal the Corn Laws, which taxed imports of grain in order to shore up Britain’s agriculture industry. The laws caused the price of bread to rise, making the poor poorer; after the laws were repealed, Britain became the manufacturing centre of the world.
The politicians of Georgian England went to surprising lengths to shield domestic businesses from overseas competition.
A feature of the eighteenth century was the Government’s ongoing, desperate and self-defeating attempt to support English industry by slapping taxes, tariffs and regulations on overseas competitors. Here, historian William Lecky looks at a few of the more egregious examples, from banning foreigners’ products to denying them technology.
Benjamin Disraeli revealed the secret behind holding one’s place at the top of Parisian society.
In February 1860 the new Cobden-Chevalier treaty was announced, a breakthrough free-trade deal with France, and a new era in Anglo-French relations. An especially vocal opponent of it was MP and novelist Benjamin Disraeli; so when John Bright rose in the Commons and read aloud this passage from Disraeli’s Coningsby (1844), he drew a good deal of laughter.
Flemish merchants hoping to prosper in Russia’s commercial capital received a nasty shock.
In 1553, Richard Chancellor led an expedition to see whether the Northeast passage might be used to reach Russia, bypassing the jealous states of the Hanseatic League along the Baltic shore. The gamble paid off, and before long the English were rewarded by the chance to visit Great Novgorod, the founding city of Russia and the country’s commercial capital.
Ivan the Terrible offered free trade to English merchants throughout his dominions.
In 1553, Edward VI gave letters into the hand of Richard Chancellor, to present to the ruler of Moscow should the Englishman’s dangerous voyage of exploration through the icy waters of the northeast passage succeed. Despite grave hardships the English won through, and following year Tsar Ivan IV (‘the Terrible’) wrote a reply — unaware that Edward was dead, and Queen Mary would be reading it.
Rowland Hill calculated that a lower, flatter rate of postage would not only make the public better off and better read, but increase the Revenue.
On May 1st, 1840, the Post Office introduced a new flat rate on letter postage, after years of high and complicated pricing. The idea for the Uniform Penny Post came to Rowland Hill, a former schoolmaster, from talking to his father about free-market economics. Both had noticed how the national tax revenue had jumped just when the Government had cut taxes and regulations on foreign trade.
Economist Adam Smith warned that when Western commercial interests get involved in policy-making abroad, war and want are sure to follow.
In 1757, a Government-backed trade agency called the British East India Company achieved such commercial and military superiority in India that its board members appointed princes, conquered territories, and dictated social and economic policy. Twenty controversial years later, Scottish economist Adam Smith warned that a company set up to make profits for European clients should not and could not run India for the Indians.