Editing Tariff (section)

===Britain===
{{See also|Protectionism#In the United Kingdom}}
In the 14th century, [[Edward III of England|Edward III]] took interventionist measures, such as banning the import of woollen cloth in an attempt to develop local manufacturing. Beginning in 1489, [[Henry VII of England|Henry VII]] took actions such as increasing export duties on raw wool. The Tudor monarchs, especially [[Henry VIII]] and [[Elizabeth I]], used protectionism, subsidies, distribution of monopoly rights, government-sponsored industrial espionage and other means of government intervention to develop the wool industry, leading to England becoming the largest wool-producing nation in the world.<ref name=Chang />

A protectionist turning point in British economic policy came in 1721, when policies to promote manufacturing industries were introduced by [[Robert Walpole]]. These included, for example, increased tariffs on imported foreign manufactured goods, export subsidies, reduced tariffs on imported raw materials used for manufactured goods and the abolition of export duties on most manufactured goods. Thus, the UK was the first country to pursue a strategy of large-scale infant-industry development. These policies were similar to those used by countries such as [[Japan]], [[South Korea|Korea]] and [[Taiwan]] after the Second World War.<ref name="Chang" /> Outlining his policy, Walpole declared:<blockquote>Nothing contributes as much to the promotion of public welfare as the export of manufactured goods and the import of foreign raw materials.</blockquote>

Walpole's protectionist policies continued over the next century, helping British manufacturing catch up with and then leapfrog its continental counterparts. Britain remained a highly protectionist country until the mid-19th century. By 1820, the UK's average tariff rate on manufactured imports was 45-55%.<ref name=Chang /> Moreover, in its colonies, the UK imposed a total ban on advanced manufacturing activities that the country did not want to see developed. Walpole forced Americans to specialize in low-value-added products. The UK also banned exports from its colonies that competed with its own products at home and abroad. The country banned imports of cotton textiles from India, which at the time were superior to British products. It banned the export of woollen fabrics from its colonies to other countries (Wool Act). Finally, Britain wanted to ensure that the colonists stuck to the production of raw materials and never became a competitor to British manufacturers. Policies were established to encourage the production of raw materials in the colonies. Walpole granted export subsidies (on the American side) and abolished import taxes (on the British side) on raw materials produced in the American colonies. The colonies were thus forced to leave the most profitable industries in the hands of the United Kingdom.<ref name=Chang />

In 1800, Britain, with about 10% of Europe's population, supplied 29% of all [[pig iron]] produced in Europe, a proportion that had risen to 45% by 1830. Per capita industrial production was even higher: in 1830 it was 250% higher than in the rest of Europe, up from 110% in 1800.<ref name="Bairoch">{{cite book |last1=Bairoch |title=Economics and World History: Myths and Paradoxes |year=1993 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=9780226034621 |url=https://archive.org/details/economicsworldhi00bair |url-access=registration}}</ref>

Protectionist policies of industrial promotion continued until the mid-19th century. At the beginning of that century, the average tariff on British manufactured goods was about 50%, the highest of all major European countries. Despite its growing technological lead over other nations, the UK continued its policy of industrial promotion until the mid-19th century, maintaining very high tariffs on manufactured goods until the 1820s, two generations after the start of the [[Industrial Revolution]].

Free trade in Britain began in earnest with the [[repeal of the Corn Laws]] in 1846, which was equivalent to free trade in grain. The Corn Acts had been passed in 1815 to restrict wheat imports and to guarantee the incomes of British farmers; their repeal devastated Britain's old rural economy, but began to mitigate the effects of the [[Great Famine (Ireland)|Great Famine]] in Ireland. Tariffs on many manufactured goods were also abolished. But while free-trade was progressing in Britain, protectionism continued on the European mainland and in the United States.<ref name="Chang" />

Customs duties on many manufactured goods were also abolished. The Navigation Acts were abolished in 1849 when free traders won the public debate in the UK. But while free trade progressed in the UK, protectionism continued on the Continent. The UK practiced free trade unilaterally in the vain hope that other countries would follow, but the USA emerged from the Civil War even more explicitly protectionist than before, Germany under [[Otto von Bismarck|Bismarck]] rejected free trade, and the rest of Europe followed suit.<ref name="Chang" />

After the 1870s, the British economy continued to grow, but inexorably lagged behind the protectionist United States and Germany: from 1870 to 1913, industrial production grew at an average annual rate of 4.7% in the USA, 4.1% in Germany and only 2.1% in Great Britain. Thus, Britain was finally overtaken economically by the United States around 1880. British leadership in fields such as steel and textiles was eroded, and the country fell behind as new, more technologically advanced industries emerged after 1870 in other countries still practicing protectionism.<ref name=Bairoch />

On June 15, 1903, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, [[Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne]], made a speech in the House of Lords in which he defended fiscal retaliation against countries that applied high tariffs and whose governments subsidised products sold in Britain (known as "premium products", later called "[[Dumping (pricing policy)|dumping]]"). The retaliation was to take the form of threats to impose duties in response to goods from that country. [[Liberal Unionists|Liberal unionists]] had split from the [[Liberal Party (UK)|liberals]], who advocated free trade, and this speech marked a turning point in the group's slide toward [[protectionism]]. Lansdowne argued that the threat of retaliatory tariffs was similar to gaining respect in a room of gunmen by pointing a big gun (his exact words were "a gun a little bigger than everyone else's"). The "Big Revolver" became a slogan of the time, often used in speeches and cartoons.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Hugh Montgomery |author2=Philip George Cambray |title=A Dictionary of Political Phrases and Allusions : With a short bibliography |publisher=S. Sonnenschein |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.24174 |year=1906 |page=[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.24174/page/n41 33]}}</ref>

In response to the [[Great Depression]], Britain abandoned free trade in 1932, recognizing that it had lost production capacity to the United States and Germany, which remained protectionist. The country reintroduced large-scale tariffs, but it was too late to re-establish the nation's position as a dominant economic power. In 1932, the level of industrialization in the United States was 50% higher than in the United Kingdom.<ref name="Chang" />