Trading Policy of the British and De-Industrialisation.
The British p...
Question
The British policy of free trade was designed to _______the British industrialists.
A
promote
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B
fight
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C
remove
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D
none of these
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Solution
The correct option is A promote
British free trade came in the 1840s after a bitter political struggle to repeal the Corn Laws—a name given to a series of agricultural tariffs and quotas designed to keep farm prices high. This was quickly followed by rapid and dramatic reductions in duties on hundreds of imports.
By the 1850s, all but a handful of commodities were admitted to Britain free of all duties. Trade should mean just that: free trade, with all goods admitted without duties, quotas, or restrictions. That was not British policy. They removed most tariffs but mostly on items in which they had a comparative advantage. In other words, they mostly removed tariffs on items for which Britain had little to fear in terms of competition or which were of trivial importance in overall trade.