ABSTRACT
The British Empire had become Janus-faced; its widest areas, the growing daughter states, were becoming partners; its densest populations were ruled by proconsuls. In this controlled half of the Empire, Free Trade was maintained until nationalism became all-powerful. In the free empire, colonial nationalism rose in revolt against the regime of Free Trade which the motherland had imposed upon it, on the lines on which Alexander Hamilton had advocated economic decolonization in the U.S.A. His main motive had been fear. A young independent country, without industries of its own, would be menaced by war, which would not only stop trade between belligerents but, under the rules of British naval warfare, with neutrals as well. The independence and security of a newly liberated country depended on the prosperity of manufactures. “Every nation with a view to those great objects, ought to endeavor to possess within itself all the essentials of national supply… The possession of these is necessary to the perfection of the body politic; to the safety as well as to the welfare of the society. The want of either is the want of an important organ of political life and motion; and in the various crises which await a state, it must severely feel the effects of any such deficiency.” 1 The protection of infant industries was to accomplish the system of complete national independence, which political separation had inaugurated.
