ABSTRACT
The contents of McCulloch's writings on international trade are of some interest. Widely regarded by later generations as an extreme and uncompromising advocate of free trade, he certainly spoke powerfully in its favour in the Edinburgh Review. He was, too, forthright in praise of those politicians, such as Huskisson and Robinson who pursued measures of trade liberalization. But detailed examination reveals this to be only a part of the picture. He was, it emerges, far from being an extreme advocate of freedom of trade as a policy. At the same time his development of an underlying theory of the general need for freedom, a development which stemmed from Smith and followed a path largely different from that of Ricardo, led him directly to expound an important view of the transfer problem as an integral part of his analysis. Although, as will be noted below, his views on the transfer problem have already received some attention (and misinterpretation) it has not been recognized that these views were part of a fairly comprehensive theoretical structure. His ideas on policy will be examined later, but it is to the various parts of the theoretical foundations of his approach that attention will first be turned.
