ABSTRACT
British businessmen could look back on decades of sustained economic expansion in 1870. The United Kingdom remained the most highly industrialized country in the world; still an example for others to emulate or envy. Free Trade had firmly established itself as the basis of British commercial policy and it could still be thought that other industrializing countries would adopt the same principle. But, despite the evidence of achievement, there was a developing awareness, which had a political dimension, that economic growth was more precarious than it had become customary to assume. The absence of comprehensive 'unemployment statistics' and the incompleteness of statistical information on production during these decades should engender caution. It is worth noting, too, that at the time economists and commentators were not unanimous in their interpretation of the data. However, the appointment of Royal Commissions to consider the agricultural depression and also trade and industry bears witness to contemporary disquiet about the state of the economy.
