British Protectionism and the International Economy
Overseas Commercial Policy in the 1930s

This 2003 book examines the forces behind the British abandonment of free trade in the 1930s.

Tim Rooth (Author)

9780521416085, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 4 March 1993

374 pages, 41 tables
23.4 x 15.7 x 2.6 cm, 0.671 kg

"...a most learned book, performing a task which had to be done at some time. Specialists will be most grateful for it, and others will gain some insight into the narrow world of the 1930's." Sidney Pollard, The International History Review

When, in the winter of 1931–2, Britain abandoned first the gold standard and then free trade, two potent symbols of her nineteenth-century international economic predominance had gone within the space of little more than six months. Tim Rooth's comprehensive 1993 study in the political economy of protectionism examines the forces behind the abandonment of free trade and the way that Britain then used protection to bargain for trade advantages in the markets of her chief suppliers of food and raw materials. Dr Rooth also examines Britain's economic relations with Germany and the USA in the deteriorating international political situation of the late 1930s. The retreat from multilateral trade policies, the growth of protection and the concomitant development of regional economic groupings have obvious parallels with current developments in the world economy.

1. Britain's international economic position in the 1920s
2. The political economy of protectionism
3. Imperial preference and the Ottawa conference
4. The Scandinavian negotiations: formulation of policy
5. Completion of the first phase of negotiations: Scandinavia, Germany and Argentina
6. The World Economic Conference, Finland and Japanese competition
7. The Baltic states and Poland
8. British agricultural policy and imports during the 1930s
9. British exports to the trade agreement countries
10. Appeasing Germany and the United States
11. Some general conclusions.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ]