The Anti-Imperialism of Free Trade

Abstract

n their article 'The Imperialism of Free Trade' 1 Mr Gallagher and Dr Robinson have argued that the British empire of the nineteenth century should be interpreted, not so much in terms of political or constitutional status, as in terms of 'overseas trade, investment, migration and culture', and especially of the first two. Where, and in so far as it was avoidable, Great Britain did not bring the areas which 'received' this expansion under direct rule. 'The usual summing up of the policy of the free empire as trade not should read trade with informal control if possible; with rule where necessary.' But whether or not Great Britain was forced to pass from indirect to direct rule was merely a matter of expedience. There was no difference in kind between 'formal' and 'informal' sway, only a difference of tactics. This economic aggression was the steadfast imperial policy of the nineteenth century, no matter what persons or parties were in office; and the whole process, so far as the middle decades of the nineteenth century at least are concerned, should be named 'The Imperialism of Free Trade'. Such is the argument in substance. All this is a most useful corrective to excessive formalism and constitutionality in imperial studies. But (the present paper argues) it carries us too far in the opposite direction. The assertion that the formal and informal empires constituted 'but variable political functions' and were 'to some extent interchangeable' 2 merely replaces the old conceptual difficulties with new.3 Again, the universality and depersonalization of the thesis is excessive. It did matter from time to time which parties and persons were in power in Britain.