those who could not act for themselves, such as children, or women (and was also an early advocate of women’s suffrage), ReportReport recognised the case for state support for education, was a strong supporter of local self-government, and by the s began to recognise an important role for trade ‘Exchange goods, not bombs’ unions. He was an opponent of colonial- ism and – rarely for his time – British Fringe meeting, March 2002, with Anthony Howe, rule in India, and argued for the compul- David Dutton and Duncan Brack sory arbitration of international disputes. Popular support for the Crimean Report by Martin Ryder War shook his belief in the ability of the people to follow a rational path of self-interest, and he criticised the press he Liberal Democrat History Manchester in the s, became a for hoodwinking the public through Group’s spring meeting, successful calico printer. His views, bogus war scares. Against this back- T ‘Exchange goods, not bombs: shaped by the political economy of the ground, he began to recognise a Free trade, Liberalism and the Man- Scottish Enlightenment, the Anglo- greater role for national governments chester School’, took place in Man- American democratic tradition, and in the promotion of peace, and in  chester, being hosted by the People’s the secular pacifism of the European negotiated a commercial treaty be- History Museum, in conjunction with Enlightenment., came to focus on tween Britain and France. This was to a its exhibition, ‘Reforming Manchester: what he saw as the misgovernment of certain extent a retreat from ‘no Liberals and the City’ – a particularly Britain by its aristocratic rulers, in foreign politics’, but it was a different appropriate setting for the discussion. particular through a foreign policy of kind of diplomacy; emulated in a Anthony Howe (LSE), David Dutton profligate military adventurism. ‘No succession of similar treaties, it can be (Liverpool University) and Duncan foreign politics’ was Cobden’s earliest seen as laying the early foundations of Brack (Royal Institute of International rallying cry: the free exchange of goods the European Common Market. Affairs) delivered a complementary set contained its own foreign policy in Although often criticised as a ‘little- of talks which, for the purposes of this leading to peace between nations Englander, peace-at-any-price’ politi- report, have been integrated into one. while at the same time maximising cian, he is more accurately seen as one The meeting was ably chaired by Patsy prosperity and reducing needless of the first serious practitioners of Calton MP. expenditure on armaments. internationalism; in one of his contem- As Duncan Brack argued, from the In the s Cobden extended his porary’s words, as a ‘Christian-love, campaign for the repeal of the Corn criticism of the state by beginning the exchange-of-cotton-goods’ interna- Laws in the s to the current great campaign for the repeal of the tionalist, in opposition to the alterna- debates around the reform of the Corn Laws, which he saw as another tive vision of Bismarck’s ‘exchange-of- World Trade Organisation (WTO), bastion of aristocratic self-interest, hard-knocks, blood-and-iron’ interna- political parties’ views of international distorting the natural order of eco- tional system. trade and, more broadly, Britain’s nomic development, raising the cost of On his death in , Cobden was relations with its neighbours overseas living, and reducing prosperity. Some widely recognised by continental have differed markedly, and have opponents attacked the campaign as Liberals as a model of a European helped to define their stance in the inimical to the interests of the workers, statesman. He inspired a generation of political spectrum. For a large part of as cheaper food would enable manufac- Liberal thinkers, including Gladstone its life, the fortunes of the Liberal Party turers to pay lower wages, but Cobden and Hobson in Britain and Bernstein in have been closely related to the always viewed repeal as improving the Germany, and shaped a domestic creed strength of popular feeling for the welfare of the working classes – a of political and economic reform. His liberalisation of international trade. successful connection which helped to views on foreign policy inspired further tie working class political support to the generations of idealists – as A. J. P. Taylor Liberal Party for decades. dubbed them, ‘trouble-makers’ – in ‘The school of Free trade, peace and reform re- their dissent from official foreign policy, Manchester’ mained Cobden’s watchwords through- a continuous strand in British radicalism This attachment had its origins in the out his career. At the heart of Manchester until the s. He was never simply a ‘Manchester School’ which, as Liberalism sat a drastic curtailment of Manchester manufacturer, but a free Anthony Howe argued, should be seen state power, primarily as a means of trader, an anti-imperialist a good as ‘the most authentic and British form curbing aristocratic misrule. But Cobden European, a lover of peace, and an early of Liberalism’. Its greatest exponent was never a pure advocate of laissez-faire prophet of globalisation. was Richard Cobden, who, arriving in – he accepted the need for legislation for Richard Cobden and his friend and

Journal of Liberal Democrat History 36 Autumn 2002 23 ally John Bright converted the Liberal twentieth century, constitutional issues The Liberal leadership reacted in Party and the country to the cause of such as Home Rule for Ireland of horror, partly because they feared loss free trade. In , even after the repeal reform of the House of Lords were of the public identification of the party of the Corn Laws, there were still more proving less successful. Free trade, with free trade, but the critics struck a than a thousand dutiable articles in the however, still provided a unifying chord within the parliamentary party. British tariff. After Gladstone’s budget factor, not least because of the Con- Sir John Simon, Lloyd George’s main of  (in what is generally recog- servative abandonment of this previ- critic, particularly over his closeness to nised as the first government of the ously shared commitment. Thus in the Labour Government, began to modern Liberal Party), only sixteen , Conservative Prime Minister question the ark of the Cobdenite remained. Free trade became a national Baldwin’s decision to call an election covenant, declaring, in , that he obsession; ‘like parliamentary represen- in search of a mandate for protection was not prepared to shut out from his tation or ministerial responsibility,’ achieved what Liberals themselves had mind the need for fiscal measures that commented The Times in , ‘not so failed to manage, in bringing together would not be required in more much a prevalent opinion as an article the warring Lloyd George and Asquith prosperous times, and arguing that the of national faith’. factions; the  Liberal result was the limits of direct taxation had been Free trade remained an article of best of any inter-war election. reached and new sources of revenue Liberal faith for decades, even after it Ironically, however, the same issue were needed. In June , Simon and became somewhat harder to justify, as lay at the heart of the disastrous Liberal his followers resigned the Liberal whip British economic power weakened split of –, arguably even more and founded the ‘Liberal National’ towards the end of the nineteenth important than that of  in explain- group. Although both the official party century. Their opponents in the ing the party’s eclipse. Although and the Simonites joined the National Conservative Party gradually became laissez-faire and free trade were often Government in the crisis of , the committed to ‘tariff reform’, a cause seen as virtually interchangeable, from Liberal Nationals steered a distinct taken up most strongly by the former at least the s onwards many course, in September signalling their radical leader Joseph Chamberlain; but Liberals were increasingly separating support for any measures the Govern- in the short term all this achieved was the two. Most notably, the New ment thought necessary to deal with one of the greatest electoral landslides Liberalism of the early twentieth the trade imbalance and staying in the of the century, in the Liberal victory of century recognised a strong case for cabinet when the Samuelite Liberals . Liberal candidates habitually the state to intervene in the workings resigned a year later over the Ottawa appeared on election platforms with of the economy. Indeed, Ramsay Muir Agreements establishing preferential two loaves of bread, contrasting the questioned whether Liberalism had tariffs for the Empire. Liberal ‘big loaf’ with the Tory ‘little ever been a laissez-faire philosophy, This split was of profound impor- loaf’ which would follow the imposi- arguing that state interventionism tance to the future of British Liberalism. tion of grain duties – and the Muse- began as early as the Liberal govern- David Dutton believed that the early um’s exhibition provided many other ment of , and most of the func- s saw an opportunity for the examples of the Liberal determination tions which the state assumed in the Liberals to turn the tide of electoral to identify with the cause of cheap economic field since had been due to decline, particularly in light of the food for the working classes. Liberal legislation. There were always a crushing Labour defeat in  – but to few Liberals who were bitterly critical do this they needed unity, which the of any enlargement of the functions of conflict over free trade deprived them Free trade in the 1930s the state, but they were a minority. of. The split proved to be permanent, David Dutton took up the story from In the s, however, and against a until the Liberal Nationals finally fused the s, as free trade was becoming background of stubbornly high with the Conservatives after the  almost the only cause with which an unemployment, some Liberals went election. The party’s division into two increasingly divided Liberal Party further and began to question the case factions sowed confusion in the minds could identify. (As Ramsay Muir put it for free trade. As Keynes argued in his of the electorate, and the Conservatives in , in frustration at Liberals’ address to the Liberal Summer School were able to use their Liberal National inability to cohere round a consistent in , ‘we have to invent new allies to proclaim their ‘liberal’ creden- set of principles, ‘It is at once the wisdom for the new age’, and by  tials to the public, helping to capture the strength and the weakness of the he had accepted the case for increased bulk of former Liberal voters in seats Liberal Party that it consists of Liberals tariffs. Similarly, E. D. Simon saw the where the Liberals had no candidate in – that is to say, of people who insist Manchester School doctrine as inap- the knife-edge  election. upon exercising their own freedom of propriate to the twentieth century, It was a matter of considerable irony judgement’.) when Britain was no longer the that the principle of free trade – almost, Liberal leaders – in particular workshop of the world, and at the  by then, a definition of what it meant to Gladstone – had always proved skilful Summer School suggested a % be a British Liberal – was responsible for in using single issues to unify a very revenue tax on most imports (includ- splitting the party a century after the broad political church. But by the early ing food, though not raw materials). same issue had torn the Conservatives

24 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 36 Autumn 2002 apart over the Corn Laws. That fission other parties as trade liberalisation liberalisation over every other aspect of paved the way to the era of Liberal once again became the accepted faith. public policy, such as environmental supremacy in the mid nineteenth Ironically, the Liberal Party itself protection or development; and the century; and in turn, the Liberal divisions suffered from divisions over trade as its extreme inequalities of wealth between of  ushered in a period of Conserva- parliamentary representation came to rich developed nations and the abject tive hegemony from which the Liberal rest increasingly in rural areas. After a poverty in much of the developing Party has still fully to recover.  assembly vote for a policy of world. To a certain extent, these are the gradual abandonment of guaranteed problems of success: the removal of the markets and fixed prices for agricul- barriers to trade for which Liberals New challenges ture, Jeremy Thorpe seized the micro- campaigned for almost two centuries Duncan Brack took up the story after phone and proclaimed that he and has proceeded so far that it has unbal- . In December , the statesmen other candidates for rural seats would anced the international system. The who met at Bretton Woods, in the US, disown such an electorally damaging WTO is a much more powerful to plan the post-war world were position. In  moves to delete the institution than other international determined to avoid a repeat of the word ‘unilateral’ from a motion on free organisations, such as those dealing with disastrous trade wars of the s. The trade ended in uproar. The  the environment, or development, and establishment of new international manifesto, however, still demanded the most governments afford a higher institutions – the United Nations, the dismantling of all protectionism within priority to trade liberalisation than to World Bank, the International Mon- one parliament. The moral argument other policy goals. The purpose of the etary Fund – brought with it the hope for trade was still powerful; the  debate within the party currently under of effective regulation of international manifesto ended with the slogan: way should be to suggest ways in which economics and an equitable interna- ‘exchange goods, not bombs’. In  the international system can be tional system to govern the relation- the Liberals became the first party to rebalanced, seeing trade liberalisation as ships of nations. argue for British participation in the just one part of a wider approach to the Although at this point the Liberal Common Market: the Cobdenite spread of growth and prosperity. Party itself was almost irrelevant, vision of trade building links between It is notable that in every major debate Liberal thinkers still helped to shape peoples was an important factor, over free trade over the last two centu- the future. John Maynard Keynes overriding concerns over potential ries, Liberals and Conservatives have (building on the ideas of James Meade) European protectionism against the ended up on different sides; Liberals have was largely responsible for the plans for rest of the world. The EC’s Common consistently supported the open, interna- the establishment of an International Agricultural Policy resolved the tional option. Yet, as Duncan Brack Trade Organisation alongside the argument within the party between argued, this was never a primarily World Bank and IMF. Although the trade and farming, until the CAP’s economic argument; Liberals never proposal was vetoed by the US, its own contradictions forced reform in fought for the reduction of tariffs as an ‘provisional’ substitute – the General the s. end in itself. As the record shows, the Agreement on Tariffs and Trade The conclusion of the Uruguay political justifications for the removal of (GATT), originally a small part of the Round, and the transformation of the trade barriers were what inspired the ITO – was able, over the following GATT into the WTO in  have campaign for free trade: the extension of forty years, to coordinate successive shifted the grounds of debate once opportunity to every individual, every rounds of tariff reductions, culminating again. The WTO has come to be seen as enterprise, and every country, no matter in the Uruguay Round, concluded in the prime agent of all of the negative how small; and the building of relation- , and its own transformation into aspects of ‘globalisation’: the spread of a ships between peoples and nations, the WTO. As on so many other issues, global culture and the stamping out of pulling communities together rather Liberal ideas came to be adopted by local diversity; the elevation of trade than driving them apart.

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Journal of Liberal Democrat History 36 Autumn 2002 25