The Great Tariff Battle

Summary

Summary of "The Great Tariff Battle" – Dan Snow's History Hit

Podcast Title: Dan Snow's History Hit
Episode: The Great Tariff Battle
Release Date: April 8, 2025
Host: History Hit (Dan Snow)
Guest: Duncan Brack, Expert Analyst and Policy Advisor

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Introduction: The Rise and Fall of British Free Trade

In the episode titled "The Great Tariff Battle," historian Dan Snow explores a pivotal moment in British economic history—when the nation's unwavering commitment to free trade began to falter at the end of the 19th century. This shift was driven by emerging global competitors offering cheaper goods, leading to industrial decline and workforce layoffs in Britain. Amidst these challenges, the Conservative Party grappled with the idea of implementing tariffs to raise revenue for social programs, ultimately resulting in a significant electoral defeat in 1906.

The Corn Laws and the Foundations of Free Trade

Dan Snow sets the stage by discussing Britain's dominance as an economic power and its reliance on free trade. He introduces Duncan Brack, who delves into the historical context:

Duncan Brack [04:16]: "Adam Smith came forward with the theory of free markets, promoting specialization of labor so people could concentrate on what they were really good at and that would promote economic growth, both domestic and international."

Brack explains that the Corn Laws—import duties on cereal grains—were instituted in 1815 to maintain high domestic grain prices, benefiting landowners but inflating bread prices for consumers. Over time, industrialists and the middle class, represented by groups like the Anti-Corn Law League, pressured for the repeal of these laws, culminating in their abolition by Prime Minister Robert Peel in 1846. This move split the Conservative Party and paved the way for the emergence of the Liberal Party, which championed free trade as a cornerstone of its platform.

The Liberal Party and the Free Trade Ethos

The Liberal Party's commitment to free trade became integral to its identity. Dan Snow highlights:

Dan Snow [08:21]: "In its DNA at birth, the Liberal Party was sold on this idea of lowering tariffs so that food could be cheap even though it was grown abroad."

Duncan Brack adds that successive Liberal governments, particularly under William Gladstone, significantly reduced tariff restrictions and expanded free trade treaties, fostering an environment where Britain thrived as the world's leading industrial nation. Free trade was not merely an economic policy but a "national obsession" embedded in Britain's self-image.

The Challenge of Rising Powers and the Call for Tariff Reform

As other nations like Germany, France, Russia, and the United States began to industrialize and implement their own tariffs, Britain's economic supremacy was threatened. Duncan Brack explains:

Duncan Brack [10:10]: "Britain couldn't remain the main manufacturing nation in the world forever. Other countries were developing their economies... Applying tariffs themselves... created pressure for the UK to follow suit."

Enter Joseph Chamberlain, a prominent political figure advocating for imperial preference—a system of tariffs favoring imports from British colonies. Chamberlain envisioned a united imperial economy that could compete with rising global powers. However, his proposals faced resistance within the Conservative Party, leading to internal conflicts.

The Tariff Reform League and the Road to the 1906 Election

Chamberlain's push for tariff reform led to the formation of the Tariff Reform League in 1903, which rapidly gained traction with 250 branches by 1905. The Conservative Party became increasingly divided between free traders and protectionists. Duncan Brack notes:

Duncan Brack [22:10]: "Chamberlain was then unleashed to begin campaigning within the party... encouraging them to adopt his views."

The division weakened the Conservative Party, setting the stage for a dramatic outcome in the 1906 general election. The Liberals capitalized on public discontent with potential food price increases and the threat to Britain's free trade principles.

The 1906 General Election: A Historic Liberal Landslide

The election resulted in one of the most significant shifts in British political history. Dan Snow summarizes:

Dan Snow [28:45]: "They then got utterly smashed in the 1907 general election. One of the great progressive landslides in British history."

The Liberals won a landslide victory, securing 400 seats against the Conservatives' 150, marking the Greatest Liberal Landslide ever. The campaign effectively portrayed tariff reform as detrimental to consumers and the broader economy, emphasizing the importance of maintaining free trade for the national interest.

Duncan Brack [31:50]: "A candidate had only to be a free trader to get in. Whether he was known or unknown... he had only to be a protectionist to lose all chance of getting in."

Legacy and Lessons for Modern Trade Policies

Reflecting on the historical debate, Duncan Brack draws parallels to contemporary trade issues:

Duncan Brack [32:59]: "Free trade is better than tariffs. It's always going to be better if you put barriers in the way to trade in products and services..."

However, he also acknowledges the challenges:

Duncan Brack [35:00]: "You have to be prepared to adjust to that. I think the argument against globalization has got stronger..."

The episode underscores the necessity of supporting communities adversely affected by free trade through active government interventions like training and education, lessons that remain relevant in today's globalized economy.

Conclusion: Free Trade's Enduring Impact on British Identity

Dan Snow concludes by highlighting the cyclical nature of history:

Dan Snow [36:54]: "I remember reading all this when you read 39 Steps as a kid... but here we are. That's how history works."

The episode "The Great Tariff Battle" provides a comprehensive look at a defining moment in British history, illustrating how economic policies can reshape political landscapes and national identities. It serves as a reminder of the complexities surrounding free trade and protectionism—issues that continue to resonate in today's global economic discussions.

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Notable Quotes:

• Duncan Brack [04:16]: "Adam Smith came forward with the theory of free markets, promoting specialization of labor so people could concentrate on what they were really good at and that would promote economic growth, both domestic and international."

• Duncan Brack [22:10]: "Chamberlain was then unleashed to begin campaigning within the party... encouraging them to adopt his views."

• Duncan Brack [31:50]: "A candidate had only to be a free trader to get in. Whether he was known or unknown... he had only to be a protectionist to lose all chance of getting in."

• Duncan Brack [35:00]: "You have to be prepared to adjust to that. I think the argument against globalization has got stronger..."

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Final Thoughts:

"The Great Tariff Battle" masterfully weaves historical analysis with contemporary relevance, offering listeners valuable insights into how economic policies shape societal structures and political outcomes. By examining the rise and fall of Britain's free trade ideology, the episode provides a nuanced understanding of the enduring debates surrounding globalization and protectionism.

Transcript

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[Holly Fry]

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[Dan Snow]

Hi everybody. Welcome to Dan Snow's HistoryIt. This is the story of a globally dominant economic power. It's a story of how, after decades of enormous growth of wealth creation, that nation's hitherto unshakable commitment to free trade began to crack. Other nations were emerging as competitors. They were selling goods cheaper, industries were suffering, their workforces laid off. And against that backdrop, that great nation turned to the question of tariffs. I'm talking obviously about Britain at the end of the 19th century, a great economic power that was now facing new challenges, was facing threats from rising powers and was looking for opportunities to raise revenue to pay for social programs. The Conservative Party, in particular the Conservative Party that was in power at the end of the 19th century, largely turned to tariffs, although in doing so they tore themselves apart. And with the Conservative Party in the state of, frankly, in civil war in the 1906 general election, the British public inflicted one of the greatest defeats in electoral history upon that Conservative Party. The British public sort of comprehensively rejected tariffs. They rejected the prospect of more expensive food. But beyond that, they also rejected the idea that tariffs represented of turning inwards, of giving up on a dream of a world in which the great nations could get along with each other at peace, collaborating with low barriers to trade, to exchange and cooperation. This is a podcast all about tariffs, how the British right flirted with them just over a century ago and paid a Terrible price thrown out of power for over a generation to come. And tell me that story in this fateful week when the global economies are reeling from the impact of Trump's tariffs. I've got Duncan Brack. He's an expert analyst and policy advisor focusing on the interaction between trade and environmental issues. He's editor of the Journal of Liberal History and published a couple of articles on this exact subject. Liberals and free trade at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. This, friends, is a deep history of tariffs. Fascinating and important at this time. That is a sentence I never thought I would say out loud. Enjoy.

[Duncan Brack]

T minus 10 atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king. No black white unity till there is first some black unity. Never to go to war with one another again.

[Holly Fry]

And liftoff.

[Duncan Brack]

And the shuttle has cleared the tower.

[Dan Snow]

Duncan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

[Duncan Brack]

It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

[Dan Snow]

If we're talking tariffs, given that we're Brits, we probably need to go back and just get those old corn laws mentioned without wanting to traumatize everyone Memories of 19th century's history @ school. Just what are the corn laws? Why are they tariffs and why do they matter in British politics?

[Duncan Brack]

Yeah, so I want to go back, just to start with, to the end of the 18th century when by and large most people were mercantilists. They thought that total volume of trade, world trade, was fixed and that it was in countries interest to try and control as much proportion of that as possible, which they would do by controlling colonies, controlling trade routes, things like that. But Adam Smith and David Ricardo began to undermine that the end of the 18th, beginning of the 19th century. So Adam Smith came forward with the theory of free markets, promoting specialization of labor so people could concentrate on what they were really good at and that would promote economic growth, both domestic and international. And David Ricardo adopted that to the the comparative advantage. The idea that nations could specialise in production that they were good at, perhaps that might be agriculture, in which case they should produce food and export it. And perhaps other countries like Britain might be good at manufactures, so they should concentrate on manufactured goods and export those, but import other things that they were less able to produce, like food or less able to produce cost effectively. So basically the idea was that the countries would benefit from trading with each other to realize the benefits of their comparative advantage. So that meant that you wanted to get rid of impediments to trade, you wanted to get rid of tariffs, import duties, export duties and have open trade as much as possible. And of course, at this stage, Britain was the biggest manufacturing power in the world, so open markets would benefit it most, of course. So that was. The theory wasn't accepted for several decades. So then we come on to the debate over the Corn Laws. Now, in this context, corn means all cereal grains, wheat, oats, barley, rye, et cetera, basically the raw materials for bread. Napoleonic wars, the beginning of the 19th century, pretty much the last time Britain was self sufficient in food. The price of bread and the price of all the grains rose during the wars and then began to fall as the wars came to an end in 1815. So the government at the time put in place the Corn Laws, or to be accurate, the importation act of 1815. And this was passed to maintain high corn prices from domestic production, from production in the UK by taxing imports. And that led to high bread prices. And there were some food riots and problems like that. But you had the Tory government in power, which wasn't too worried about that. As the economy began to take off again after the war, there was pressure to relax these. But what they found was that the landowners, particularly Tory landowners, liked the high prices. It meant they got better returns on their investment in agriculture from their estate. So that then led in time, over the decades, to pressure from the middle classes and particularly the industrialists, the growing manufacturing base, particularly things like the cotton industry based in Manchester. The pressure there was to relax those because they saw problems with the costs of importing their raw materials, raw cotton from the States, perhaps, and also barriers to exporting their manufactured goods, their cotton clothes. And also because food prices were quite high, they had to pay their workers higher wages than otherwise to make sure they could defy the food. So we saw the growing pressure to relax the Corn Laws particularly focused around the Anti Corn Law League, which was founded in 1839. One of the most effective pressure groups, probably before the modern age, used lectures, public meetings, pamphlets, electoral pressure, all of those kind of things. And in the end, it led to Robert Peel as Prime Minister, deciding to abolish the corn laws in 1846. He split his own party. He was the Tory Prime Minister. The Tories split over it, kind of similar to their splits over Europe, but more fundamental. Perhaps a third of the Conservative Party followed him out of the Tory Party. The remainder of it remained controlled by the protectionists or landowners who wanted to maintain the Corn Laws. And you saw a group, a parliamentary group form called the Peelites, who gradually then gravitated towards the Liberal Party. And the combination of the three parliamentary factions, Radicals, Whigs and Peelites in 1859 is usually held to mark the birth of the Liberal Party.

[Dan Snow]

And in its DNA at birth, the Liberal Party was sold on this idea of lowering tariffs so that food could be cheap even though it was grown abroad. That was okay. It was good for the working man and woman. And it also meant the industrialists who are part of that coalition. That's great because then by lowering tariffs then you encourage other nations to lower their tariffs. Does it make it easier to export your. Well, they bring in raw materials and then push out manufactured finished products.

[Duncan Brack]

Yes, that's absolutely right. And what we saw was successive budgets by particularly William Gladstone, who was actually originally a Tory, then followed Peel out of the Conservative Party into the Liberal Party as part of the Peelites, and of course became the great Liberal prime minister of the second half of the 19th century. In his budget budget of 1860, he reduced the number of articles in the British tariff, the number of products on which tariffs were charged. Import duties were charged. There were over a thousand in 1852. He reduced it to 40 after 1860. So a tremendous expansion of free trade and the network of free trade treaties grew, particularly in Europe, following the Cobden chevalier treaty of 1860. In the sense, this is the beginning of what we saw, a kind of European free trade area that sort of prefigured the European Economic Community, the Common market of like 100 years later. And this became so embedded in the kind of national image, self image of Britain. Free trade basically became a national obsession. The times commented in 1859, like parliamentary representation or ministerial responsibility, not so much a prevalent opinion as an article of.

[Dan Snow]

National faith and underpinned by the fact that Britain was the most effective industrial power in the world. So it's what's not to like about free trade. It benefits you, it means imports are cheaper and you can export everywhere in the world. But then what happens at the end of the 19th century? Does this trading superpower get a little bit nervous?

[Duncan Brack]

Yeah. So I mean, this underpinned really the kind of long mid Victorian economic boom and also the success of the Liberal Party because they were able to attract the industrialists and the middle classes who were steadily enfranchised through successive parliamentary reforms, electoral reforms, but actually just before we got onto when they started to break down. It's important to understand this was always much more than just an economic argument. It wasn't about prices and wages though, that was important. But for the Liberals it was part of the process of tearing down the remnants of the Feudal order. It was putting an end to the special treatment enjoyed by the landowners or any kind of vested interest. The idea was that commercial success should be the outcome of hard work and natural talent alone, not the protection of vested interests. So it was kind of the economic twin of democracy. Right.

[Dan Snow]

And it's interesting, that. Interesting, because presumably in the past it had been all about lobbying. If you grabbed a Stuart King or a Plantagenet, you said, listen, I've got a nice little factory over here, which we're getting some trouble from the old. The men of Antwerp, can you slap a tariff on them? Presumably it's a system that is prone to that sort of insiderism, corruption and nepotism.

[Duncan Brack]

That's absolutely right. In fact, that was one of the arguments deployed later. I mean, Churchill used it actually as a Liberal mp. He didn't want to see government become the area where vested interests campaigned or bought influence for their own interests, which you would see with a system of tariffs which could apply differently to different industries. And also for the Liberals as well as that, it was also important on the international scene. Free trade was seen as something kind of agency for peace, building links between nations rather than fostering conflict. So the Liberal leader of the Anti Cornwall League and later Liberal MP Minister John Bright put it, for the disbanding of great armies and the promotion of peace, I rely on the abolition of tariffs on the brotherhood of the nations resulting from free trade in the products of industry. So it's kind of important to understand free trade almost. I think the nearest I can think of sort of comparison today is more like it was what it meant to be British, maybe like the NHS or the BBC or something like that. It was part of the national image, part of the national consciousness. Until, as you say, that began to come under assault towards the end of the 19th century.

[Dan Snow]

And we should say that period of free trade in the middle of the 19th century, lots of colonial wars going on, don't get me wrong, but limited great power wars. Given what had come in the 18th century, there were endless, endless giant struggles between the great powers. So it looked as though perhaps free trade, huge advance in prosperity, great scientific and industrial breakthroughs. It looked like this was all one happy package that was leading humanity to the sunlit uplands.

[Duncan Brack]

Yes, it was until the kind of end of the mid Victorian economic boom.

[Dan Snow]

Yes. So what happens? Why did the Victorians lose their faith in free trade?

[Duncan Brack]

So obviously, Britain couldn't remain the main manufacturing nation in the world forever. Other countries were developing their economies Germany, France, Russia, the United States of America, particularly the usa, with kind of seemingly endless access to natural resources and land and steady inflow of cheap labor in terms of immigrants from Europe. And what was happening was that all these countries were applying tariffs themselves. They were applying import duties against imports from other countries like Britain. So the kind of pressure began for the UK to follow suit, particularly, as you could see, British industries steadily undercut by cheaper products coming in from the outside. But their own industries, American industries or German industries, were protected from competition with British goods by their own import duties levied by their own governments. And this appealed in particular to Joseph Chamberlain, who was kind of interesting character, one of the main political characters of the 19th, end of the 19th century and early 20th century. Originally a radical liberal, kind of pioneer of what was known as municipal socialism. So social reform led by local government. He was mayor of Birmingham from 1873-76. He purchased gas and water companies on behalf of the town corporation, cleared slums, introduced city parks, established the office of Medical Officer of Health and so on. Got elected to Parliament. Was a radical Liberal trying to push Gladstone's government into being more ambitious and social reform. But. But then Gladstone's other obsession was with Home rule for Ireland. And you had one of the big debates of the 1870s, 1880s, was over whether Ireland should be given more self government. Chamberlain was completely against that. He was an imperialist. He wanted Ireland to remain very firmly with the rest of Britain as the kind of heart of the empire. So he broke with the Liberal Party over the Home rule bill in 1886 and led about 100 MPs, I think, to defeat Gladstone's attempt to introduce Home rule for Ireland. That group, then separated from the Liberal Party, became known as the Liberal Unionists and joined with the Conservatives. So he was in coalition with the conservatives in the 1880s and 90s and the beginning of the 20th century. And he chose to become Secretary of State for the colonies from 1895 to 1903 because his kind of developed. He kind of moved on slightly from social reform. His obsession was the way to keep Britain safe and powerful in the world. Britain as an island nation was too small to be able to compete by itself with the great empires, Russia, Germany, United States, but with the empire, with the colonies, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, the empire could be stronger and could compete with them. So he became kind of obsessed with the idea of imperial unity.

[Dan Snow]

Yes. And there are many thinkers and historians and philosophers at the time saying the same thing, is that Britain's future lies in just as the USA and Russia turning these imperial entities into sort of modern nation states. Just a slightly odd looking one with lots of ocean in between its various bits of it.

[Duncan Brack]

Yes, yeah, that's right. So he launched his campaign for imperial preference in 1903 and the background to this was he was frustrated as he still had kind of aims of social reform, but he was in coalition with Conservatives, particularly with the Conservatives under Lord Salisbury, prime minister in 1902, who was basically a total reactionary, tried to avoid any kind of social legislation, any kind of progressive reform also kept Britain free of entangling alliances. But he stepped down in 1902. So Chamberlain saw his opportunity with the new Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour. So his idea was imperial preference. You would put protection against the rest of the world, against imports from the rest of the world. So you'd apply import duties, tariffs as we usually call them, but you would give a lower rate of duty, or perhaps no import duty at all, to imports coming in from the colonies. So you would tie the British colonies more closely to the uk so that's known as imperial preference.

[Dan Snow]

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[Holly Fry]

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[Dan Snow]

What's driving this? Is this his politics? His dream of forging a British imperial state? Or is it about I'm getting very annoyed that we're falling behind in this industrial competition of the world. Other nations are overtaking us, their economies are growing, they're selling stuff cheaper than we can, our factories are turning derelict. What's uppermost in his mind? Mind?

[Duncan Brack]

Yeah, I think it was both of those things. And also he still wanted to pursue his aims of social reform. He was arguing for old age pensions, for example, in the Liberal Party in the 1880s and 90s, but the Conservatives would never do that. He needed to raise revenue for pensions and other social reforms, so he saw tariffs as a way of doing that. He also, as I said, wanted to create a strong empire. He thought Britain and the colonies together would be able to compete against the rising empires in Europe and America and Russia. And Britain by itself could not do that. It needed to be more closely lit to the empire. Ideally, he wanted a kind of imperial federation, whether it be an imperial parliament sitting in London with representatives from all the colonies. The colonies didn't want that themselves. That was too great a loss of political autonomy. And of course in the days before air travel, that would be quite difficult to handle anyway. And then he moved on to perhaps, well, fiscal combination, a customs union like the German states had, like the EU does now. But again, that was too much a loss of fiscal autonomy for the colonies to bear. But they were interested in discussing preferential rates of import duty and indeed the colonial conference in 1902. The colonies actually came out in favor of that. Chamberlain's problem was at the time The UK was recovering from the costs of the Boer War, which finished in 1902, so government fiscal policy was under strain. They weren't raising enough money. So, in fact, corn duty was brought back again in 1902 purely as a revenue raising matter to help meet the costs of the war. So Chamberlain saw that as an opportunity rather than get rid of it. When the fiscal situation recovered, he argued to keep it in place but have preferential rates for the colonies. The problem he had there. Well, two problems. The Chancellor didn't agree. Charles Ritchie, Conservative Chancellor, was a committed free trader. So he disagreed with the Cabinet's agreement in principle to do this at the end of 1902, and indeed by the beginning of 1903, the fiscal position was much stronger. So he wanted to reduce income tax. But at the time, income tax was paid only by the quite rich, so it wasn't nearly as broadly applied as it is today. So he also wanted to do something for the bulk of the population and the best thing to do was abolish corn duty. And indeed, he then threatened to resign if he was prevented from doing that. So going completely against what Chamberlain wanted.

[Dan Snow]

That's worth pointing out, that point. People have been hearing about this the last few days, because income tax is a progressive taxation. It's paid by those with the broader shoulders. The corn duty is paid by anyone who buys food, buys bread, so it hits poorest members of society relatively harder because rich people can afford a few pennies on a sandwich on a loaf of bread, but the poor can't.

[Duncan Brack]

Yes, that's right. At the time, income tax had a much lower proportion of total tax revenue than it does now, and most of Government revenue was from indirect taxes, so excise taxes on things like alcohol and food and customs duties. So Chamberlain was then frustrated. The Government didn't go for that. Balfour, the Prime Minister, could possibly have called Ritchie's bluff, because actually, Chamberlain was a much more important figure in the government than Ricci. He was very popular in the country, he had a very high profile, he had a lot of following. He was the leader of the Liberal Unionist Party, which is in coalition of the Conservatives. But Balfour was always trying to kind of avoid taking a firm position and just wanted to try and hold his party and his coalition together. He was always worried about the precedent that Robert Peel had set in the 1840s, when he abolished the Corn Laws but split his party. Balfour didn't want to do that, so he was trying to find the kind of middle way through. So in May 1903, Chamberlain called for an inquiry into the fiscal system which kind of sounds not too dangerous but actually he meant basically laying the groundwork for introducing import duties. He wanted to see an empire that was self sustaining and self sufficient. There were quite a lot of problems with his proposal. For a start, only about a quarter of UK imports of food at the time actually came from the colonies. So he didn't explain how the empire was supposed to feed itself if it wasn't importing food from anywhere else. He also kind of assumed that the colonies would be happy to remain static as providers of raw materials to British manufacturers. The whole aim of imperial preference was to support the British industries and it wasn't clear that colonies really wanted to do that. And as I said he wanted to raise money for social reforms. But of course tariffs and this is what Trump is going to find tariffs reduce the volume of trade so you're going to get less revenue so you can't both keep out imports and raise money. So that kind of forced him really into arguing for protection just for its own sake make and here I think he had a kind of point that the critics of globalization do make today. That is a kind of fair point that it may be if you expose your industries to competition it means some industries are going to go under because they're going to be undercut by other countries industries who are more efficient at producing whatever it is you're interested in now that might be better for the country as a whole. It means that you can release resources to go to more profitable activities. So like Britain has moved steadily out of manufacturing into services which we are quite good at. On the other hand it's not are good for people who are working in those industries that then go under. So it's destabilising to workers and it's not much help to say they can buy cheap food if they're out of a job. So Chamberlain increasingly started to argue about protection as a way of maintaining employment or security of employment, protecting industry against the foreigner. The trouble of course is that actually tariffs are anyone reliant on imports or exports. So unless you have a completely self sustaining, self sufficient economy, tariffs are going to be quite bad. So Balfour was kind of sympathetic actually to chambers argument, but as I said desperate to avoid the legacy appeal, desperate to see his party splitting and around about a tenth, perhaps 40 or 50 MPs in the Unionist coalition at the time were actually fairly convinced free traders. And Balfour was also aware of the electoral dangers of putting tax on food, which is pretty self evident making your bread more Expensive is not going to be an attractive electoral slogan. So he tried to find the middle way and basically he failed. So he talked a bit about retaliation. So this is what Trump's kind of main line is saying, we will put tariffs on countries who are applying tariffs against us. It was never very clear if he meant a sort of general tariff against everyone with negotiated reductions against particular countries, like Trump sometimes hints at, or just specific tariffs against particular countries. But he also talked about imperial preference. And of course, if you're going to give preference to the colonies, it means you have to have tariffs against everybody else. Otherwise there is no advantage to the colonies, there is no imperial preference. So when you start sort of going down this argument, you end up pretty much always having to argue for a full general tariff, applying probably to all products, including food. Balfour tried to avoid making this decision and sort of keep his party together, caricatured by a great verse written by the Liberal MP Sir Wilfrid Lawson, which began, I'm not for free trade and I'm not for protection. I approve of them both and to both have objections in going through life, I continually find it's a terrible business to make up one's mind. So what he did was basically forced the free trading ministers in his cabinet out at the end of 1903, thought it was impossible to maintain compromise. When he had three free trade ministers, including Ritchie, the Chancellor, determined to stick to free trade. They resigned, effectively forced out in September of 1903. And then he didn't mind that, but it was followed by the Duke of Devonshire in October. Now, Duke of Devonshire was a major political figure. He was the original Liberal Unionist leader alongside Chamberlain back in the 1880s, and he stayed true to his Liberal free trade inheritance. Obviously he split with Gladstone over Ireland and that was a major loss, kind of helped to undermine the government. And then Chamberlain resigned in term because he had no commitment to food taxes. So that meant that Chamberlain was unleashed. So Balfour was kind of relieved at these resignations to start with. The trouble is, Chamberlain was then unleashed to begin campaigning within the party. And one thing that Chamberlain had always been very good at was political organization. So he formed the Tariff Reform league, which by 1905 had 250 branches. In June of 1903, his Unionist opponent set up the Unionist Free Food League. But they were sort of more like a campaign with generals and no leaders. They were just a number of MPs, no real support in the Unionist parties. And basically Chamberlain steadily took over both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Unionist Party. Encouraging them to adopt his views. And that meant that increasingly free trade supporting union SDPs were deselected and no less than 12 of them crossed the floor in 1904 and 1905 to join the Liberal Party, including of course, Winston Churchill, who became a major asset to the Liberal Party. And legislation just ground to a halt completely as the Unionists repeatedly split over fiscal debates in Parliament. And basically the last two years of Balfour's government machine, very little indeed.

[Dan Snow]

And they then got utterly smashed in the 1907 general election. One of the great progressive landslides in British history. Up there with 1945, 1997 and 2024.

[Duncan Brack]

That's absolutely right. So the 1906 election won the greatest Liberal landslide ever. 400 MPs elected Conservatives down to just over 150. They lost two thirds of their seats. It was the biggest election defeat for the Conservatives until last year. And free trade was. It wasn't the only issue in the campaign, but it was the major one, the core of the Liberal campaign. And they focus, course, as you would expect, on the consumer interest in cheap food. So I'll just quote from one Liberal leaflet which is actually directed mainly at women. Of course, women didn't have the vote then, but they had influence on their husbands and sons. So the leaflet said, you know how difficult it is to provide for your families. If Mr. Chamberlain succeeds, you will find it more difficult to pay for the food for your families and the clothes that they wear. If you want to stave off hard times, in capital letters, have nothing to do with Mr. Chamberlain or protection, but urge your husbands and sons to vote for Liberals and free trade traders or another leaflet. Half a million copies of another leaflet put it, if you want your loaf, you must shut up, Joe. And coming back to what I was talking about before, it wasn't just about cheap food. The Liberal campaign portrayed tariff reform as an attempt to turn the clock back to a narrow, harmful protective system which might help a few specialist companies, a few best interests, but would hit consumers and damage the economy as a whole. It was kind of against the broad interest of most of the people. So Unionist free traders were said basically driven out of the party. There were only about 15 or 20 candidates allowed to stand in 1906, 96 election, and most of them were opposed by unionist tariff reformers. Kind of party discipline was a bit looser in those days. You had actually unionists fighting unionists. One of the problems, of course, that most of them, they weren't stupid. They could see the electoral dangers of taxing food. So a lot of Unionist general election manifestos. There wasn't so much a central manifesto then, but the candidates all published their own election statement and most of them were convinced tariff reformers. But about half of the candidates election addresses, when they're analysed, were notably evasive on the extent of the tariffs they advocated. And very few explicitly argued for a general tariff and taxes on food. And you can kind of see why the Tariff Reform League issued lots of leaflets and booklets issued during the campaign. They were full of statistics attempting to prove that prices overall would not rise. But they also promised tax reductions to offset increase in prices of food. They were trying to have it both ways and it really didn't work. And there is a great quote from the Manchester Guardian when the results were known and they were talking particularly about the election results in Lancashire. A candidate had only to be a free trader to get in. Whether he was known or unknown, semi unionist or thorough home ruler, Protestant or Roman Catholic, entertaining or dull, he had only to be a protectionist to lose all chance of getting in. Though he spoke with the tongues of men and angels, though he was good employer to many or had led the House of Commons or fought in the Crimea.

[Dan Snow]

Wow. Gosh. Okay. So on the back of tariffs, the Liberals enter government and make many sweeping changes that change the character of British politics and government and life.

[Duncan Brack]

That's right. As I said before, this wasn't just an argument about taxes and cheap food and stuff like that. That was important, but it was a threat to what was seen as the British character. Britain stood for free trade and fair competition and an open society, and it wasn't in favor of vested interests. So that was why free trade was such a hold on the national imagination. I think it wasn't just an economic argument that we would see it in today. So that's quite different from what it was then. There was enormous support for free trade. I said there were campaigns, there were leaflets, there were booklets, there were mass meetings. The Free Trade Union organized thousands of meetings. And the run up to the 1906 campaign, the nearest I can think of in my lifetime is probably the campaign of Brexit, the way in which it mobilized so much passion on both sides. But in this case, obviously the progressive side won in their free trade, as.

[Dan Snow]

We now look across the world, are potentially entering a new era of tariffs. What do you think the lessons from this particular period are?

[Duncan Brack]

So, I think, I mean, free trade is better than tariffs. It's always going to be better if you Put barriers in the way to trade in products and services. You can make them more expensive. The basis of Ricardian comparative advantage is right. Some countries are better able to produce some products or services than others. And the maximum increase in general welfare is gained by allowing them to trade freely with each other. But you have to be aware of the downsides. And I think this is where free traders were a bit weak. And the kind of trade liberalization supporters now need to pay more attention to the impacts of free trade, or as we would call it now, globalization on communities and industries, because it does mean that some companies, some sectors, some industries will suffer and be replaced by others. So I think to be able to support free trade, you have to have governments that are very active in providing support to employers who have lost their jobs because they work in uncompetitive industries. They need to be very interventionist about providing training and education and support while they look for other jobs. And certainly the British, successive British governments have not always been very good at that. Some European governments, I think, have handled it better. But it often seemed, I think, in the sort of 80s and 90s, the kind of heyday of neoliberalism and opening of markets, that trade liberalization was being pursued for its own sake. And you also have to remember, I think, what the outcome of it is, and there are negative outcomes as well, and you have to be prepared to adjust to that. And I think the argument against globalization has got stronger and has fueled support for people like the Reform Party or various right wing parties in Europe, because that government's not been very good at coping with the negative impacts of trade and liberalization. Of course, this wasn't such an issue right back at the beginning of the 19th century, because government simply didn't have the capacity to do that kind of thing. Though, of course, the Liberal government elected in 1906 did institute, basically laid the foundations of the welfare state, brought in a whole raft of social reforms which would become the beginning of that necessary supportive framework.

[Dan Snow]

Yes. Was that supportive framework linked to that? Did they make that link themselves? Look, we are hugely committed to free trade. We understand that the world has changed and the Germans are better than us at making these funny new things called automobiles. And as a result, we are going to use the wealth that we generate in this global environment, this free trade environment, but we're going to use it to try and ameliorate some of the worst effects of it. I mean, was that link made at the time?

[Duncan Brack]

Yeah, some Liberal candidates did make the case explicitly that they were not content to remain simply passive free traders. You needed to see government taking a position of providing a kind of safety net for people into raise standards of living and housing, to invest in education, to provide pensions, labour exchanges, all the kind of things like that. I don't think it was so strongly linked to trade because that was just the state of the country. At the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century, industrialization had led to increasing wealth in aggregate and for quite a lot of people. But there were also many people who lived in poverty or held back by illness or disability and so on. So it wasn't so explicitly linked to free trade. I think it was just the kind of general state of the country. Things like the fact that something like 50% of volunteers for the Boer War had to be rejected because they were unfit for military service really drove home to people just what the problems were with industrial economy, which wasn't providing for its poorer section. And said some liberal candidates made the link explicit with free trade. But in general, I think it wasn't. It was a kind of broader issue than that.

[Dan Snow]

Duncan, thank you so much. Come in. Talking all about this. It's so funny because I remember reading all this when you read 39 Steps as a kid and so much that literature, Edwardian literature, there's this free trade and tariffs is all in there. And as a kid in the 90s, the noughties, you're thinking, what is all this stuff? But here we are. That's how history works. It's back again. So thank you for coming on the podcast.

[Duncan Brack]

Oh, it's a pleasure. It's good to talk to you.

[Holly Fry]

Our Skin Tells a Story. Join me, Holly Fry, and a slate of incredible guests as we are all inspired by their journeys with psoriasis. Along with these uplifting and candid personal histories, we take a step back into the bizarre and occasionally poisonous history of our skin and how we take care of it. Whether you're looking for inspiration on your own skincare journey or are curious curious about the sometimes strange history of how we treat our skin, you'll find genuine, empathetic, transformative conversations here on our skin. Listen to our skin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.