Food for Thought

Thursday, September 18

The title page of the first edition of the second volume of The Wealth of Nations (1776).

Today, we begin the unit on empire. When contemplating this period, historians and literary scholars have debated the impact of the British Empire on people living in Britain. This might be a question worth pursuing throughout the unit. To what extent did imperial problems or questions lead to important discussions concerning the principles underpinning, say, British identity, the British economy, or British social organization.

Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations (1776) is one of those classic works that everybody talks about but few have read. It is a major text of the Enlightenment era. The intellectuals who participated in the Enlightenment were inspired by Isaac Newton's coupling of reason with the scientific method to discover the natural laws that governed the physical world. To make a gross generalization, those inspired by the Enlightenment sough to use the same tools to discover the natural laws that governed the social world. If one remodeled society so that it acted in accordance with these natural laws, one could achieve moral and material progress, and people would become happier.

Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations partly to change Britain's policies toward domestic and foreign trade. Smith believed that a number of natural laws governed economics (e.g., supply and demand) and that if Britain would only reform its trading policies, it could produce greater prosperity for all. In many but not all cases, Smith advocated "free trade," that is, a policy whereby governments interfered with trade as little as possible. Smith's long-term influence was enormous and eventually brought about a radical reform of trading policies in the 1840s when the British government began to adopt free trade by lowering tariffs on imported goods. So although Smith's work falls well outside the time frame of this course, The Wealth of Nations served as the major intellectual justification for the trading policies of the 1850s and 1860s. And those trading policies had an enormous bearing on Britain's attitudes toward the empire and the rest of the world. The excerpts you will read are an excellent case in point.

In these excerpts, Smith takes aim at two targets. The first consists of the Navigation Acts that governed trade between the mother country and the colonies. These various acts greatly restricted trade by making the following stipulations: goods shipped between Britain and its colonies had to be carried by British or colonial-owned vessels; three-quarters of the the crews of these vessels had to consist of British subjects; foreign goods had to be brought to Britain before they could be shipped to British colonies; and a number of enumerated colonial goods had to be brought to Britain before they could be shipped elsewhere. The second target consists of the East India Company. The history of the "honourable company" was complex, but suffice it to say, by the time Smith wrote, the company had come to dominate the wealthiest and most densely populated parts of India. Not only did it enjoy a monopoly over Britain's trade with India, it also governed large swathes of Indian territory. Indeed, it literally possessed the powers of a government: it collected taxes, maintained a judicial system, made treaties, and supported a very large army. Smith found the company's monopoly as well as its combination of commerce and government intolerable.

1) What advantages did Britain derive from its exclusive trade with America?

2) At the same time, however, how did this exclusive trade with America harm or distort British trade overall? And why was the orientation of British trade, manufacturing and investment toward America not such a good thing?

3) What did Smith think the British ought to do with their colonies? Why?

4) Why did Smith find the East India Company's monopoly on trade noxious? And why did he find the company's combination of commerce and government so harmful for everyone concerned?

Other Questions for Smith

1) From what you have read of Smith in these excerpts, what do you think he thought about colonies in general? Under what terms or circumstances should Britain dominate other parts of the world?

Lord Palmerston (1784-1865)

Lord Palmerston presents another face of free trade. Palmerston shaped Britain's foreign policy during our period both as Foreign Secretary (1830-1834, 1835-1841, and 1846-1851) and Prime Minister (1855-1858 and 1859-1865). So far as domestic policy was concerned, Palmerston belonged to the conservative end of the liberal coalition that governed Britain for most of our period. Abroad, however, he aggressively promoted liberal ideas such as constitutional government and free trade. What does it mean to promote free trade "aggressively"? After all, Smith's vision of free trade appears to encourage peace, mutual understanding, and prosperity. Where is there room for aggressiveness, unless it be aggressive, yet peaceful, economic competition? The aggressiveness lies in using force, first, to compel other states to open their markets and, second, to maintain the rules that uphold free trade (e.g., laws that protect private property and persons). The "Opium War" (1839-1842) with China is an example of the former. The "Don Pacifico" affair is an example of the latter. The "Don Pacifico" affair? What's that?

In the years leading up to 1850, the British and Greek governments found themselves increasingly at odds over a variety of incidents involving British subjects as well as people from Malta, Gibraltar, and the Ionian islands—all controlled by Britain—all of whom enjoyed the protection of the British government.

This friction between Britain and Greece reached a climax in 1850 during the Don Pacifico Affair. Don Pacifico, a wealthy Jewish merchant, had been born in Gibraltar and lived in Portugal for a number of years before moving to Greece to engage in banking and commerce. An anti-Semitic mob looted his Athens home before burning it to the ground. Pacifico sought compensation from the Greek government but met without satisfaction before turning to Britain's Foreign Office. Lord Palmerston, then Foreign Secretary, gave Don Pacifico a sympathetic ear. Antagonized by what he saw as the Greek government's cavalier treatment of British subjects, Palmerston sent fifteen warships of the Royal Navy's Mediterranean fleet to blockade Piraieus, the main port that supplied Athens. Palmerston delivered the speech you will read today to defend himself from a motion originating in the House of Lords that criticized his actions. The Lords' motion essentially stated that British subjects living in foreign countries were entitled to nothing more than what the laws and judicial systems of those countries provided. Historians refer to Palmerston's response as the "Civis Romanus Sum" speech ("civis Romanus sum" translates into "I am a Roman citizen") and consider it one of Palmerston's best parliamentary performances. On the strength of Palmerston's speech, the Lords' motion failed in the House of Commons.

5) What principle or idea governed Palmerston's stance with regard to the Don Pacifico affair? In other words, when and why did he think British subjects ought to have recourse to the British government for injuries suffered at the hands of foreign powers?

6) Why did Palmerston recount the recent history of Great Power involvement in Greece, the Greek constitution, and Anglo-Greek relations? How did this relate to his main argument about British subjects seeking justice?

7) What was Palmerston saying in the first half of the last paragraph? How did it bear on the rest of the speech and the principles he expressed? What gave Britain the moral right to teach the Greeks a lesson?

Other Questions for Palmerston

1) Was Palmerston right? Should British subjects in Greece have had recourse to British justice? Under what circumstances?

2) To ask the question another way, is it desirable, expedient, or even possible to impose one set of rules on all nations so far as the protection of property and persons is involved?

3) To ask the question in yet another way, how could one make the argument that the Don Pacifico affair was a step in the direction of moral and material progress?

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Copyrighted by Hugh Dubrulle and Meg Cronin, 2006.