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Subject Area: Economics
Subject Area: War and Peace
Topic: Free Trade

PREFACE - Francis W. Hirst, Free Trade and Other Fundamental Doctrines of the Manchester School [1820]

Edition used:

Free Trade and Other Fundamental Doctrines of the Manchester School, set forth in Selections from the Speeches and Writings of its Founders and Followers, ed. with an Introduction by Francis W. Hirst (London: Harper and Brothers, 1903).

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PREFACE

The character, temper, and aims of the Manchester School are only too liable to misrepresentation at a time when its greatest achievement is being powerfully assailed. The strange fictions which are generated in the heat of an impartial inquiry can only be dispelled by reference to the facts for which they are substituted. In the first and larger half of this volume of selections will be found, not only vivid descriptions of the condition of the United Kingdom under the old system of preferential and protective duties, which preceded the repeal of the Corn Laws, but also an ample and authentic exposition, by Cobden, Bright, Fox, and others, of the arguments which ultimately won the country over to free trade. The course of imperial policy and expenditure during the last seven years has taught us once more that the importance which the Manchester School attached to a policy of peace and retrenchment was not exaggerated. National economy, in the best sense, is now again seen to be the indispensable buttress of free trade, and a standing condition of social and fiscal reforms.

July, 1903.