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Its businessmen had been leaders in worldwide commerce and banking, commerce and transport. Briton’s globally dominant Royal Navy protected British industrial interests, shipping and international trade, while the British authorized system offered a system for resolving disputes comparatively inexpensively, and the city of London functioned as the economic capital and focus of the world economic system. After 1840, the financial policy of mercantilism was abandoned and changed by free trade, with fewer tariffs, quotas or restrictions, first outlined by British economist Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. Inflation had a unfavourable effect on the real wealth of most families. Mössbauer Effect Methodology: Volume 6 Proceedings of the Sixth Symposium on Mössbauer Effect Methodology New York City, January 25, 1970. Springer Science & Business Media. Its members' foremost enterprise was the export of cloth, especially white (undyed) woollen broadcloth. In 1950, British output per head was still 30 percent over that of the average of the six founder members of the EEC, but within 20 years it had been overtaken by the majority of western European economies. The developments brought by industrialization resulted in Britain becoming the premier European and world financial, political, and navy power for more than a century. |
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