The Greek “Society for the Freedoms of Trade” (1865–67): Rise, Activities, Decline

The 150th celebration of the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 was a major stimulus for new publications on the issue of free trade versus protection, a question that dominated economic policy agendas all over Europe in the nineteenth century. Original texts dating from that period were again made public (Kadish 1996, Schonhardt-Bailey 1997), the works of Richard Cobden became available (Cain 1995), and Douglas A. Irwin's book (1996) and Anthony Howe's treatise (1997) can be seen as the “cosmopolitan” answers to older (Semmel 1970) and contemporary (Magnusson 1994 and Wendler 1996) defenses of a “national” economic policy. This literature, however, as well as conferences on the reception of free trade (Marrison 1998), concentrated on the commercial policy of the most economically advanced nations, leaving completely out of scope discussions, debates and economic policy dilemmas related to international trade in other, less-developed countries.