Here is an outline of part of my lecture. I presented “free trade” (NB: it wasn’t totally free), the classical gold standard, and some modicum of free immigration (not everywhere) as three successful and mostly stable pillars of 19th century classical liberal achievement. Of course that was for limited parts of Western Europe and North America only, and with major exceptions for women, blacks, and more. Nonetheless, something in that formula worked, at least when it was actually appplied. Here is the outline:
Extreme trade protectionism after Napoleonic Wars
Later sliding scale for tariffs, maybe 50% rate of effective protection?
Complete free trade for Corn [wheat] during the 1840s, Cobden and Bright and Anti-Corn Law League
Terms of trade arguments: Robert Torrens, J.S. Mill
Protectionism does best when inelastic demand for your exports, elastic demand for your imports (two-country model)
The tariff in essence helps your buyers collude as one
That can outweigh the efficiency losses from the tariff
Removing labor from the corn sector also can boost British manufactures
What were terms of trade for GB then?
Jeffrey Williamson paper 1990 – Repeal helped the working class, hurt the landlords
Doug Irwin (EJ, 2021) – Efficiency-neutral but broadly egalitarian
American farmers were big winners
Greatest liberal triumph of the 19th century?
The other great triumph – the classical gold standard – dating from 1815-1914
Price-specie flow mechanism
Overvalued exchange rate – 1815, 1920s for Britain
Nassau Senior, Four Lectures on the Transmission of Precious Metals, 1827
Henry Thornton, An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain, 1802 – prices, interest rates, exchange rates
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