The Imperialism of Free Trade: Some Reservations.

The article focuses on imperialist trends of mid-Victorian governments in Great Britain. Fifteen years ago the Economic History Review published an article by J. Gallagher and R. Robinson on The Imperialism of Free Trade. It was an article attractive both for the novelty of its interpretation of mid-Victorian imperialism and for the skill with which this interpretation was presented--so attractive, indeed, that its main theme, controversial as it is, has remained unchallenged. Gallagher and Robinson turned their attention to the myth of mid-Victorian anti-imperialism, to the traditional belief that statesmen and officials distrusted expansionism and were indifferent even to the maintenance of the existing empire. Drawing examples from both the formal and the informal empires, they argued that the mid-Victorian decades were in fact the decisive stage in the history of British expansion overseas, and that British governments in this period--as in that of the New Imperialism--showed themselves willing at all times to establish and maintain British paramountcy by whatever means best suited the circumstances of their diverse regions of interest The error in the imperialism of free trade--by which alone the phrase can have any meaning--is in the assumption that the mid-Victorians anticipated and shared this enlarged view of government responsibilities.