Peter Mathias

European trade policy, 1815–1914

The analysis of European trade policy in the nineteenth century is of particular interest. The nineteenth century saw both the flourishing of liberalism in theories of international trade, and the development of modern protectionism. This chapter centres on the movement towards free trade in the United Kingdom, and therefore covers the period from 1815 to 1846, a period which saw the establishment of British economic supremacy. The liberalism of British commercial policy continued during the years 1846-60. The two small, highly industrialized countries (Belgium and Switzerland) gradually achieved something close to a total free trade system. The chapter concerns the development of institutions for the promotion of foreign trade, and also discusses European colonial trade policies. It considers the position of the socialist and labour parties with regard to trade policy. The chapter finally deals with the trade policies of independent and semi-independent countries outside Europe.

Labour in Great Britain

The Industrial Revolution: Economic Models of the Labour Market In Britain, the hundred years or so between c . 1750 and c . 1850 saw the competition of what is conventionally called the industrial revolution, and with it the corresponding transformation of the labour force from its traditional structure into a modern industrial working class. These changes constituted a stage in an irreversible social evolution, the creation of modern industrial capitalism. The new character given to society included the emergence of new classes and of new relationships between classes. The period as a whole has a certain unity and is marked off without much difficulty as the transitional link between relatively more stable economic relations that preceded it and a re-stabilized, but different, framework that followed. Economic theorists who lived through it, beginning with the ‘classics’ of Political Economy, as well as more recent writers on economic development, have been inclined to treat it as a particular and indeed unique phase with certain laws and characteristics of its own. As far as the market for labour in this period is concerned, there has been a remarkable and indeed striking unanimity among them and among all observers. The general axiom is that in this period as a whole the market operated against labour, and that wages tended therefore to be at or near subsistence levels. The mercantilist writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had looked upon labour as merely a factor of production, which, in a competitive world in which most industry was highly labour-intensive, should be obtained at the lowest possible cost.

Capital Investment and Economic Growth in France, 1820–1930

The General Argument Until quite recently, studies of capital formation in France were few in number and relatively cursory. This lacuna was of little importance: it seemed that the findings to be expected of such research were already well known. It was thought that the level of economic growth and of investment had remained below the level which technical advance made it possible to reach – or so it seemed from a comparison with the relevant figures for other countries or even with those for France during the earlier part of the nineteenth century. For of all the countries that underwent industrialization France was one of the few to experience an early and lasting break in development. Francois Perroux was the first to identify the problem. ‘About 1860’, he writes, ‘there appeared the first signs of a slowing-down of the economy; from 1880, this became a pronounced trend.’ The rate of growth fell, and this falling-off had long-lasting effects on the economy, for during its early stages – the period 1892–1914 – the second phase of industrialization was ‘much less vigorous than the first’. Various arguments have been put forward to explain this deceleration. Two of them, related to the state of the economy, have gained general acceptance in the past. Underinvestment, runs the argument, was connected, in the first place, to the shortness of the periods during which long-term planning was possible. At the very beginning of the nineteenth century, France already laboured under this disadvantage: the stagnation of agricultural productivity and the decline in international trade had paralysed industry throughout the thirty years of insecurity and of war which lasted until 1820.

Economic policy and economic development in Austria–Hungary, 1867–1913

Introduction The Emperor of Austria, Franz Joseph I of the House of Habsburg-Lothringen, had every right to be pleased as he stood in the Hungarian capital city of Buda, atop a mound of earth gathered from every part of the country, to be crowned I. Ferencz Jozsef, King of Hungary, on 8 June 1867. Ten days earlier, the Hungarian parliament had passed the acts constituting the Compromise of 1867 which, with their counterpart laws in Austria, formally established the Austro-Hungarian monarchy as of I January 1868. Very largely the personal work of the Kaiser himself, the Compromise regulated the political relations between the two constituent parts of his Empire, at one and the same time stabilizing both the internal conditions and the international position of the Habsburg lands. Franz Joseph had rightly seen that the position of Hungary was the key both to the internal cohesion of the Empire and to the arrest and reversal of the decline of Austria as a major power, which defeat in the war with Prussia in 1866 had exposed so clearly. Under the Compromise, Hungary regained full internal autonomy and most of the status of an independent country, but remained united with Austria in the person of the common monarch and in the conduct of foreign affairs. The Compromise established two classes of relations between the partners in the new Austria–Hungary: ‘Common affairs’ embraced the army and navy, and all aspects of international relations including the diplomatic service; a common ministry was set up to handle the financial side of these matters.

The transformation of England : essays in the economic and social history of England in the eighteenth century

Acknowledgements Preface Part I: Themes 1. British industrialization: unique or not? 2. Skills and the diffusion of innovations from Britain in the eighteenth century 3. Who unbound Prometheus? Science and technical change, 1600-1800 4. Science and technology during the Industrial Revolution: some general problems 5. Capital, credit and enterprise in the Industrial Revolution 6. Taxation and industrialization in Britain, 1700-1870 7. Adams burden: historical diagnoses of poverty 8. Leisure and wages in theory and practice Part II: Topics 9. The social structure in the eighteenth century: a calculation by Joseph Massie 10. The peoples money in the eighteenth century: the Royal Mint, trade tokens and the economy

The First industrial revolutions

The industrial revolution - concept or reality, P.Mathias the new economic history, N.F.R.Crafts industrialization in Britain and Europe before 1850: new perspective and old problems, J.A.Davis financing the industrial revolution, P.Mathias transport the survival of the old besides the new, T.C.Barker agricultural and industrialization, P.Mathias population and economic change in the 18th and 19th centuries, R.Woods the transformation of work in European industrialization.

I. The Brewing Industry, Temperance and Politics

THE development of any major industry has, either more or less directly, important political repercussions. Its history therefore has a political aspect. The brewing industrys changing relationships with Parliament provide an apposite, even if an atypical, story to illustrate how one segment of the business world of the eighteenth century, with its appropriate set of political alignments, gave way to very different orientations in the nineteenth century. This article seeks to plot developments over a long period of time in a field which has received less detailed attention from political and economic historians than others which are more obviously the preserve of each. Width of survey of necessity limits the depth of evidence: the consequences of the changes which took place between 1830 and 1870 have here been explored in much less detail and in less personal terms than the parliamentary representation of the industry in the previous century.

Economic Growth and Robinson Crusoe

There is very much more to Daniel Defoes inspired piece of ‘faction’ about Robinson Crusoe than seeing it just as a boys adventure story. Its influence was widespread, judging by the great scale of new editions and reprintings, both internationally and through many translations. It can be read as a sophisticated myth of the ascent of man, of economic growth by dint of the work ethic, of the imperative of ‘improvement’ and the determination to master nature. It has implications for natural rights theory, the Lockeian justification of private property and the role of the ‘civilised’ European facing a hostile, alien habitat.

International trade and British economic growth : from the eighteenth century to the present day

Introduction. 1. Atlantic Trade and British Economic Growth in the Eighteenth Century: Kenneth Morgan (Brunel University College). 2. British Trade and European Economic Development 1750--1850: Sidney Pollard (University of Sheffield and Bielefeld). 3. Nineteenth Century Ocean Trade and Transport: Peter Davies (University of Liverpool). 4. Exports and British Economic Growth (1850--1914): Charles Fainstein (All Souls College, Oxford). 5. Trade Policy and Growth: Some European Experiences (1850--1940): Forrest Capie (City University Business School). 6. British Trade with Latin America (1870--1950): Rory Miller (University of Liverpool). 7. Imperial Power and Foreign Trade: Britain and India (1900--1970): B. R. Tomlinson (University of Strathclyde). Notes and Bibliographies. Index. List of Contributors.

The First Industrial Nation: An Economic History of Britain, 1700-1914.

1. Prologue: The Industrial Revolution - Identity and Beginning Part 1: The Industrial Economy is Born: 1700 to the Early Nineteenth Century 2. Gregory Kings England 3. The State, Rural Society and the Land 4. Economic Policy, Trade and Transport 5. Industrial Growth and Finance 6. The Human Dimension 7. Economic Fluctuations Part 2: The Evolving Industrial Economy: To 1914 8. The Century Ahead - Changing Structure of the British Economy 9. Occupational Structure and Industrial Organization in the Mid-Nineteenth Century 10. Railways 11. The Free Trade System and Capital Exports 12. Agriculture, 1815-1914 13. The Evolution of Banking and the Money Market, 1825-1914 14. The Organization of Labour and Standards of Living 15. Industrial Maturity and Deceleration 16. Epilogue: The Inter-War Years