The 1870s: Foreign Policy and Economic Slump

First Gladstone Administration 1868-1874

Second Disraeli Administration 1874-1880

Foreign Policy

• The Crimean War 1853-1856
• The Indian Mutiny 1857
• The Suez Canal 1869
• The German Empire 1871

Disraeli's Foreign Policy

• Purchase share of Suez Canal 1876
• Queen Empress of India 1876

"The Great Depression" 1870-1900

• Falling agricultural prices
• Foreign mfg. competition
• Slowing return on investment
• 1890s--unemployment/bankruptcies

The Workshop of the World, 1850-1870

Industrial Production

• Textiles
• Iron
• Coal

Transportation

Railways (i.e. railroads)

Invisible Exports

• shipping profits
• foreign investments
• financial services
  • City of London

   

Agriculture

"The Great Depression" 1873-1900

Agricultural Prices

• Railroads
• Ukraine
• Iowa

Who got hurt?

• Landowners in agriculture
• Church of England clergy
• Tenant farmers
• Agricultural laborers

Urban wage-earners

• Falling food prices
• Rising real wages

Conservative party response?

• Disraeli: no new corn laws

Second Industrial Revolution

• Electrical and Chemical Industries
• Mass Production/Consumer Goods
• Large Firms
• Consumer Marketing

Thomas Beecham

J. J. Sainsbury

1900

• United States
• Germany
• Great Britain

Britain's relative decline

Economics

• The advantages of backwardness
• Technical training

Social values

• Aristocratic attitudes
• Recruiting entrepreneurs

Nothing to explain?

• Wealthy vs. non-wealthy nations

Gladstone

• 1870 First Vatican Council
  • infallibility
• 1874 pamphlet
• 1876 The Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East

The Eastern Question

• 1877 Russo-Turkish War
• 1878 Congress of Berlin
  • Balance of power
  • Cyprus
  • "peace with honour"

General Election of 1880