Which British laws introduced by the Importation Act of 1815 and repealed in 1846 are examples of British mercantilism, the abolition of which marked a significant step towards free trade?
Historiography of the British Empire that trade was a zero-sum game with one country's gain equivalent to a loss sustained by the trading partner. Whatever the theoretical weaknesses exposed by economists after Adam Smith, it was under mercantilist policies before the 1840s that Britain became the world's dominant trader, and the global hegemon. Mercantilism in Britain ended when Parliament repealed the Navigation Acts and Corn Laws by 1846. Scholars agree that Britain gradually dropped mercantilism after 1815. Free trade, with no tariffs and few restrictions, was the prevailing doctrine from the 1840s to the 1930s. John Darwin has explored the way historians have explained the
Emancipation of the British West Indies saw partial success. The importation of slaves from Africa to the British colonies was banned by the Slave Trade Act of 1807. After passage of the Act, these reformers continued to press for widespread abolition. The British empire formally abolished slavery in its colonies with passage of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. The legislation went into effect in August 1834 whereby all slaves in the British Empire were considered free under British law. After long and heated debates in Britain, the imperial government agreed to compensate planters for shifting from slave to free labor, allotting £20 million for this