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VI. The End of Laissez Faire and the Politics of Cotton

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

P. F. Clarke
P. F. Clarke
Affiliation:
University College, London
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Extract

There are grounds for arguing that the dynamic thrust of English Liberalism in the early twentieth century was in the direction of social democracy; and that this was a necessary condition of the survival of the Liberal party as a party of government. By 1910, according to this view, the party represented workingclass interests rather than those of any other class. But what about business Liberalism? We are likely to discover an upper limit of its strength among businessmen involved in the cotton trade (cotton bosses). As the party of Free Trade, the Liberals were well placed here. There was no sectional reason why the Conservative programme of Tariff Reform should attract these industrialists. Having no need of protection in home or Empire markets, the cotton industry had almost nothing to gain from an artificial restriction of competition, whereas it had much to lose if a system of tariffs increased production costs.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , September 1972 , pp. 493 - 512
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

1 See my book, Lancashire and the New Liberalism (Cambridge, 1971) for a fuller treatment of all the broader political questions touched on here.Google Scholar

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