The repeal of the Corn Laws by Britain in 1846 was preceded by fierce debates on trade policy both within and outside Parliament. Among political economists, the controversy was sparked by Torrens’s plea for retaliatory duties against the countries that imposed restrictions on British goods. The suggestion aroused contempt among free trade advocates, such as Senior, who accused Torrens of reviving outdated mercantile ideas. Amid the fray, a broad version of Say’s Law, Hume’s price-specie-flow mechanism, as well as Adam Smith’s defence of the system of natural liberty, proved essential tools for the free traders’ arguments. Torrens’s vision of a British Zollverein, owing to the highly theoretical nature of his reasoning, gained little traction among British legislators, and eventually faded out after the 1846 repeal of the Corn Laws.
Arthmar et al. (Sun,) studied this question.
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