Rise of The New Imperialism - Background: Before New Imperialism

Background: Before New Imperialism

After the 1815 Congress of Vienna which established the Concert of Europe continental order, the British established what was known as the Pax Britannica, which lasted until the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. In the UK, the 1846 repeal of the Corn Laws demonstrated the increasing appeal of Adam Smith's liberalist theories. Richard Cobden, and other disciples of Smith contended that the military and bureaucratic costs of occupation often exceeded the financial return to the taxpayer: formal empire afforded no reciprocal economic benefit when trade would continue in its absence, as instanced by the United Kingdom's lucrative commerce with the now independent United States. Official acceptance of the new doctrine was marked by the United Kingdom's adoption of free trade with the 1846 repeal of the Corn Laws and the subsequent granting of internal self-government to the white settler populations of the Canadian provinces and the Australasian colonies, and governments even considered the sale of some colonial outposts to lesser powers.