Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vvkck Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T15:43:03.542Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Rise of Free Trade in Western Europe, 1820–1875

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

C. P. Kindleberger
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Extract

The textbook theory of tariffs, and their converse, the movement to freer trade, has more elements than we need for the nineteenth century, but also lacks some. In the usual comparative statics, a tariff may be said to have ten effects: on price, trade, production (the protective effect), consumption, revenue, terms of trade, internal income distribution, monopoly, employment and the balance of payments.

Type
Papers Presented at the Thirty-fourth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See Pincus, Jonathan, “A Positive Theory of Tariff Formation Applied to Nineteenth-Century United States,” Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1972Google Scholar. For the theory of collective goods, see Olsonm, M. Jr., The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965; rev. ed., 1971)Google Scholar; Breton, Albert, The Economic Theory of Representative Democracy (Chicago: Aldine, 1974)Google Scholar; and, introducing leadership, Frohlich, N., Oppenheimer, J. A. and Young, O. R., Political Leadership and Collective Goods (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971)Google Scholar. Frohlich, Oppenheimer and Young view leaders as political entrepreneurs, interested in maximizing their “surplus” or profit in providing collective goods against taxes, extortions, donations or purchases.

2 Cited by Gerschenkron, Alexander, Bread and Democracy in Germany (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1943), p. 65Google Scholar.

3 Helleiner, Karl F., Free Trade and Frustration, Anglo-Austrian Negotiations, 1860–70 (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1973), p. 63Google Scholar.

4 Johnson, Harry G., “Economic Theory of Protectionism, Tariff Bargaining and the Formation of Customs Unions,” Journal of Political Economy, LXXIII (1965), 256–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Stuart, James Montgomery, The History of Free Trade in Tuscany (London: Cassell, Potter & Galpin, 1876), p. 24Google Scholar.

6 Fischer, Wolfram, Der Staat und die Anfänge der Industrialisierung in Baden, 1800–1850 (Berlin: Duncker u. Humblot, 1962)Google Scholar.

7 Bulferetti, Luigi and Costantini, Claudio, Industria e Commercio in Liguria nell' età del Risorgimento (1700–1861) (Milan: Banca Commerciale Italiana, 1966), pp. 495501Google Scholar.

8 Wright, H. R. C., Free Trade and Protection in the Netherlands, 1816–30: A Study of the First Benelux (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955), pp. 5859Google Scholar.

9 Ibid., p. 112.

10 Ibid., p. 139.

11 Ibid., p. 113.

12 Porter, G. R., The Progress of the Nation (New ed., London: John Murray, 1847), chapter 16Google Scholar.

13 Bläsing, Joachim F. E., Das goldene Delta und sein eisernes Hinterland, 1815–1841, von niederländisch-preuschischen zu deutschniederländischen Wirtschaftsbeziehungen (Leiden: H. E. Stenfert Kroese, 1973), p. 85Google Scholar.

14 MacGregor, John, Germany, Her Resources, Government, Union of Customs and Power under Frederick William IV (London: Whittaker and Co., 1948), p. 246Google Scholar.

15 Luigi Bulferetti and Claudio Costanti, Industria e Commercio in Liguria, Chapter 2.

16 Bowring, John, “Report on the Prussian Commercial Union, 1840,” Parliamentary Papers, 1840, Volume XXI, pp. 38Google Scholar.

17 H. R. C. Wright, Free Trade and Protection, p. 124.

18 Böhme, Helmut, Frankfurt und Hamburg: Des Deutsches Reiches Silber und Gold-loch und die Allerenglishte Stadt des Kontinents (Frankfurt-am-Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1968), Chapter 1Google Scholar.

19 Checkland, S. G., The Gladstones, A Family Biography, 1764–1851 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), pp. 139, 333Google Scholar.

20 Crouzet, Francois, “Western Europe and Great Britain: ‘Catching Up’ in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century,” in Youngson, A. J., ed., Economic Development in the Long Run (London: Allen & Unwin, 1972), p. 120Google Scholar.

21 Joachim F. E. Bläsing, Das goldene Delta, p. 83.

22 Heaton, Herbert, Economic History of Europe (New York: Harper & Bros., 1936), pp. 398–99Google Scholar.

23 Semmel, Bernard, The Rise of Free Trade Imperialism: Classical Political Economy, The Empire of Free Trade and Imperialism, 1750–1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 181 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Brebner, J. Bartlett, “Laissez-Faire and State Intervention in Nineteenth Century Britain,” in Carus-Wilson, E. M., ed., Essays in Economic History, Vol. 3 (London: Edward Arnold, 1962), pp. 254256Google Scholar.

25 Huskisson, William, (The Speeches of the Right Honorable) (London: John Murray, 1832), II, p. 328Google Scholar.

26 Ibid., pp. 503–05.

27 Labracherie, Pierre, Michel Chevalier et ses idées économiques (Paris: Picart, 1929), p. 131Google Scholar.

28 White, A. J., Early Life and Letters of Cavour, 1810–1848 (London: Oxford University Press, 1925), p. 131 (sic)Google Scholar.

29 Report of the Select Committee on the Laws Relating to the Export of Tools and Machinery, 30 June 1825, in Parliamentary Papers, Reports of Committee, (1825), Vol. V, p. 12Google Scholar.

30 H. R. C. Wright, Free Trade and Protection, p. 130.

31 Report of the Select Committee, p. 44.

32 Babbage, Charles, The Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (London: Charles Knight, 4th ed., 1835), p. 363Google Scholar.

33 Polanyi, Karl, The Great Transformation (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1944), p. 136Google Scholar.

34 Second Report of the Select Committee on Exportation of Michinery, 1841, in Parliamentary Papers, (1841), Vol. VII, p. xxGoogle Scholar.

35 Ibid., p. xiv.

36 Charles Babbage, The Economy of Machinery, p. 364.

37 Musson, A. E., “The ‘Manchester School’ and Exportation of Machinery,” Business History, XIV (January 1972), 49Google Scholar.

38 Chambers, J. D., The Workshop of the World British Economic History, 1820–1880 (London: Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 1968)Google Scholar, Chapter I.

39 Gallagher, J. and Robinson, R., “The Imperialism of Free Trade,” Economic History Review, 2nd sen, VI (1953), 115CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, pp. 133–37.

41 Moore, D. C., “The Corn Laws and High Farming,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., XVIII (December 1965)Google Scholar.

42 Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, p. 152–53.

43 Cobden, Richard, Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Bright, John and Rogers, James E. Thorold, ed, Vol. I (London: Macmillan, 1870), pp. 4Google Scholar, 18.

44 Ibid., p. 57.

45 The Corn Laws “inflict the greatest amount of evil on the manufacturing and commercial community…” (Ibid., p. 57). “Silversmiths and jewellers get orders not from the Duke of Buckingham but from Manchester, from Glasgow or Liverpool or some other emporium of manufactures,” (Ibid., p. 90).

46 Ibid., p. 106.

47 J. D. Chambers, The Workshop, p. 71.

48 Richard Cobden, Speeches, p. 70.

49 Ibid., p. 100.

50 Ibid., p. 103.

51 Sir Caird, James, High Farming… The Best Substitute for Protection, pamphlet, 1848, in Ernle, Lord, English Farming Past and Present (London: Longmans Green, 4th ed., 1937), p. 374Google Scholar.

52 D. C. Moore, “The Corn Laws and High Farming.”

53 John Bowring, Report on the Prussian Commercial Union, p. 55.

54 Brown, Lucy, The Board of Trade and the Free-Trade Movement, 1830–1842 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), pp. 135, 171 ffGoogle Scholar.

55 Testimony of Thomas Ashton, in First Report of the Select Committee, para. 235.

56 John MacGregor, Germany, Her Resources, p. 68.

57 John Bowring, Report on the Prussian Commercial Union, p. 287.

58 Minutes Evidence, p. 59, para. 782.

59 Bernard Semmel, The Rise of Free Trade Imperialism, p. 149.

60 Platt, D. C. M., Finance, Trade and Politics in British Foreign Policy, 1815–1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), p. 87Google Scholar.

61 J. H. Clapham, “The Last Years of the Navigation Acts,” in E. M. Carus-Wilson, ed., Essays in Economic History, p. 161.

62 Woodham-Smith, Cecil, The Great Hunger: Ireland, 1845–1849 (New York: Harper & Row, 1962)Google Scholar.

63 Mill, cited by Bernard Semmel, The Rise of Free Trade Imperialism, p. 207.

64 List, cited by Fielden, Kenneth, “The Rise and Fall of Free Trade,” in Bartlett, C. J., ed., Britain Pre-eminent: Studies in British World Influence in the Nineteenth Century (London: Macmillan, 1969), p. 85Google Scholar.

65 Ibid, p. 78.

66 Gouraud, Charles, Histoire de la politique commerciale de la France et son influence sur le progrès de la richesse publique depuis le moyen age jusqu'd nos jours, I, II (Paris: Auguste Durand, 1854), p. 198Google Scholar.

67 Ibid., p. 208.

68 Amé, Léon, Etudes sur les tariffs de douanes et sur les traités de commerce, I, II (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1876), pp. 170–74Google Scholar.

69 Lévy-Leboyer, Maurice, Histoire économique et sociale de la France depuis 1848 (Paris: Cours de Droit, Institut d'études politiques, 19511952), p. 96Google Scholar.

70 Augé-Laribé, Michel, La politique agricole de la France de 1880 à 1940 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1950), p. 66Google Scholar.

71 Maurice Lévy-Leboyer, Histoire économique et sociale, p. 92.

72 Lutfalla, Michel, “Aux engines du libéralisme économique de la France,” Revue d'histoire économique et sociale, L (1972), 500, 515, 517Google Scholar.

73 Maurice Levy-Leboyer, Histoire economique et sociale, p. 95.

74 Chevalier, Michel, Cours d'economie politique, Fait au Collège de France, I, II, III (2nd ed., Paris: no publisher stated, 1855), p. 538Google Scholar.

75 Pierre Labracherie, Michel Chevalier, pp. 130–31.

76 Pollard, S. and Holmes, C., Documents of European Economic History. Vol. I: The Process of Industrialization, 1750–1870 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1968), pp. 384–86Google Scholar.

77 Michel Chevalier, Cours d'economie politique, p. 521.

78 Illasu, A. A., “The Cobden Chevalier Commercial Treaty of 1860,” The Historical Journal, XIV (March 1971), 80Google Scholar.

79 Rist, Marcel, “Une experience française de liberation des échanges au dixneuvième siècle: le traité de 1860,” Revue d'Economie Politique, 66 annèe (novembredecembre 1956), p. 937Google Scholar.

80 Dunham, Arthur L., The Anglo-French Treaty of Commerce of 1850 and the Progress of the Industrial Revolution in France (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1930), p. 179Google Scholar.

81 Rosenberg, Hans, Die Weltwirtschaftskrise von 1857–1859 (Stuttgart-Berlin: Verlag von W. Kohlhammer, 1934), pp. 2426Google Scholar.

82 Most lists are given separately by country. For an overview, see Pollard, Sidney, European Economic Integration, 1815–1870 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich, Inc., 1974), p. 117Google Scholar. The impact of repeal of the timber duties and the Navigation Acts in stimulating export-led growth in Scandinavia is treated by Norman, Victor D., “Trade Liberalization and Industrial Growth: The Impact of British Trade Liberalization in the 1840s on Industrialization in the Scandinavian Countries,”(MIT, unpublished, December 1970), p. 82Google Scholar. The stimulus to shipping in Norway and to timber exports in Sweden led via linkages to industrialization which the free trade imperialists were seeking to avoid.

83 Arthur L. Durham, The Anglo-French Treaty of Commerce, p. 333.

84 Apart from consumers of imported materials and machinery. But see the view of Lhomme that the State adopted free trade because it loved the grande bourgeoisie and knew their interests better than they did; that the grande bourgeoisie recognized this fact and agreed with the tariff reductions except for a few intransigent protectionists like Pouyer-Quartier. See Lhomme, Jean, La Grande Bourgeoisie au Pouvoir, 183–1880 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1960), p. 179Google Scholar. It is, however, impossible to accept this rationalization.

85 S. Pollard, European Economic Integration, p. 112; William Huskisson, The Speeches of —, III, p. 131.

86 Jacob, William, A View of the Agriculture, Manufactures, Statistics and Society in the State of Germany and Parts of Holland and France (London: John Murray, 1820), pp. 201–02Google Scholar.

87 Wolfram Fischer, Der Staat und die Anfänge der Industrialisierung, p. 128, 134.

88 S. Pollard and C. Holmes, Documents of Economic History, I, p. 374.

89 John MacGregor, Germany, Her Resources, p. 6.

90 Olson, Mancur Jr and Zeckhauser, Richard, “An Economic Theory of Alliances,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XLVIII (August 1966)Google Scholar. For a view emphasizing the revenue aspects of the Zollverein, and especially saving in the costs of collection and the reduction in smuggling, see Rolf H. Dumke, “The Political Economy of Economic Integration, The Case of the Zollverein of 1834,” (Queen's University Discussion Paper, 153, presented to the Canadian Economics Association, June 5, 1974). Revenues available from the Zollverein permitted the petty princes to maintain their rule without democratic concessions to bourgeois interests.

91 European Economic Integration, p. 112.

92 Delbrück, Rudolph von, Lebenserinnerungen, I (Leipsig: Duncker u. Humblot, 1905), pp. 142–44Google Scholar.

93 Wolfram Fischer, Der Staat und die Anfänge der Industrialisierung, p. 136.

94 Dawson, William H., Protection in Germany: A History of German Fiscal Policy during the Nineteenth Century (London: P. S. King and Son, 1904), p. 20Google Scholar.

95 Lucy Brown, The Board of Trade, p. 113.

96 John Bowring, Report on the Prussian Commercial Union, p. 287.

97 Rudolph von Delbrück, Lebenserinnerungen, p. 147.

98 Hans Rosenberg, Die Weltwirtschaftskrise, p. 207.

99 Henderson, W. O., “Prince Smith and Free Trade in Germany,” chapter 7 in Henderson, W. O., Britain and Industrial Europe, 1750–1870: Studies in British Influence on the Industrial Revolution in Western Europe (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1954), p. 171Google Scholar.

100 Rudolph von Delbrück, Lebenserinnerungen, pp. 162–64.

101 Ibid, p. 200.

102 William H. Dawson, Protection in Germany, p. 21.

103 Lambi, Ivo Nikolai, Free Trade and Protection in Germany, 1868–1879 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1963), p. 5Google Scholar.

104 Zorn, Wolfgang, “Wirtschafts- und socialgeschichtliche Zusammenhänge der deutschen Reichsgründungszeit, 1859–1879,” in Böhme, Helmut, ed., Probleme der Reichsgrundungszeit, 1848–1879 (Cologne-Berlin: Kipenheur & Witsch, 1968), p. 296Google Scholar.

105 Barkin, Kenneth D., The Controversy over German Industrialization, 1890–1902 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 33Google Scholar.

106 Ibid.

107 Ivo Nikolai Lambi, Free Trade and Protection, pp. 83, 113.

108 Hans Rosenberg, Die Weltwirtschaftskrise, p. 195.

109 Ivo Nikolai Lambi, Free Trade and Protection, p. 57.

110 Ibid, p. 191.

111 Williams, Judith Blow, British Commercial Policy and Trade Expansion, 1750–1850 (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 199Google Scholar.

112 Thiedig, Werner, Englands Uebergang zum Freihandel und die deutsche Handelspolitik, 1840–1856 (Giessen: no publisher stated, 1927Google Scholar; 40-page summary of a thesis), pp. 1–32.

113 Greenfield, Kent Roberts, Economics and Liberalism in the Risorgimento, A Study of Nationalism in Lombardy, 1814–1848 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, rev ed., 1965), p. 113Google Scholar.

114 Clough, Shepherd B., The Economic History of Modem Italy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), p. 27Google Scholar.

115 Whyte, A. J., The Political Life and Letters of Cavour, 1848–1861 (London: Oxford University Press, 1930), p. 73Google Scholar.

116 Thayer, William Roscoe, The Life and Times of Cavour (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1921), p. 133Google Scholar.

117 Pedone, Antonino, “La Politica del Commercio Estere,” in Fua, Giorgio, ed., Le Sviluppo Economico in Italia, Vol. II, Gli Aspetti generali (Milan: Franco Agnelli Editore, 1969), p. 242Google Scholar.

118 Castronovo, Valerio, Economia e societa in Piemonte dell' unità al 1914, (Milan: Banca Commerciale Italians, 1969), p. 16Google Scholar.

119 Mori, quoted by Luzzato, Gino, L'economia italiana dal 181 al 1914, Vol. I (1861–1894), (Milan: Banca Commerciale Italiana; 1963), p. 28nGoogle Scholar.

120 Prodi, Romano, “Il protezionismo nella politica e nell' industria italiana dall' unificazione al 1886,” Nuova Rivista Storica, L fasc. I–II, 1966, pp. 110Google Scholar.

121 Shepherd B. Clough, The Economic History of Modem Italy, p. 114.

122 Sachs, Isidore, L'ltalie, ses finances et son développement économique depuis l'unification du royaume, 1859–1884, d'après des documents officiels (Paris: Librairie Guillaumin, 1885), p. 748Google Scholar.

123 Norsa, Paolo and Pozzo, Mario, Imposte e tasse in Piemonte durante il periodo cavouriano (Turin: Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento, 1961), pp. 16, 17Google Scholar.

124 Parravicina, Giannino, La politico fiscale e le entrate effective del Regno d'ltalia (Archivo Economico dell'Unificazione Italiana, Turin: ILTE, 1958), p. 326Google Scholar.

125 Gino Luzzato, L'economia italiana, p. 28.

126 Coppa, Frank J., “The Italian Tariff and the Conflict Between Agriculture and Industry: The Commercial Policy of Liberal Italy, 1860–1922,” The Journal of Economic History, XXX (December 1970), 742–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

127 Kindleberger, C.P., “Group Behavior and International Trade,” Journal of Political Economy, LIX (February 1951), 3047CrossRefGoogle Scholar.