ABSTRACT
Cooper explains that British manufacturers were left with no incentive to trade because their home market was already open to foreign goods while foreign countries placed tariffs on British merchandise. Therefore, while Britain experienced a massive trade boom touted to be the result of free trade, British labourers still were unemployed. Unemployment, Cooper argues, should not be a surprise when Britons’ consumption and production rested on the use of imports. Cooper adopts both preference for colonial goods and taxes on foreign goods as part of his platform as ways to help the British labourer. Additionally, he argues, since Britons already paid high taxes for things like tea and sugar that could not be produced at home, Cooper mocks the idea that they had competition in a free market.
