ABSTRACT
The Great Reform Act still denied the working classes the right to vote, keeping them outside the formal political system. The Great Reform Act also had immediate political ramifications. Radicals, on the other hand, called for the immediate elimination of all political, religious and economic monopolies. One of the joint concerns of the Whigs and the Radicals was the East India Company's monopoly on trade with China. Accordingly, at the beginning of the 1800s the East India Company, because of its trade monopoly in the Far East, controlled British trade with China. The British government's primary commercial concern was a steady supply of high-quality tea from China. On 13 June 1833, hoping to ease the tensions caused by the Canton system, Charles Grant introduced the Whigs' resolution in Parliament abolishing the Company's monopoly and forbidding it to trade in China altogether. The change in government meant that the East India Company lost all direct trading interests in China.
