ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the assumptions underpinning the arguments of those who depicted the British economy in the late nineteenth century as in decline. The Imperial Federation League made a qualitative distinction between types of market, whereas for liberal political economy at market was just a market and was only to be analysed in quantitative terms. The chapter examines three movements which emerged as a direct result of the contemporary sense of crisis, the campaigns for imperial federation, fair trade and bimetallism. The starting point for the fair trade campaign was the contention that the British economy was facing severe difficulties. The Imperial Federation League, founded in 1884, represented the most important effort to draw commercial and general interest in the Empire into a coherent movement for imperial consolidation. The chapter also examines aspects of the contemporary response to the late nineteenth-century ‘fiscal crisis’ of the British State, and looks at contemporary views of ‘the condition of the people’.
