For Free Trade

"The 1906 General Election was the first which Churchill fought as a Liberal. He campaigned on a single-issue platform: Free Trade. The Liberal Party were committed to Free Trade, unlike the Conservatives, who had split on the issue. In the constituency of Manchester North-West, the manufacturing heartland which Churchill intended to represent, protectionism was unpopular, giving Churchill and the Liberals an opportunity to target a Conservative stronghold. In Churchill's defense of Free Trade we see the influence of the nineteenth-century Anti-Corn Law movement and radical, Liberal thinkers such as Cobden and Bright, with whom the Churchill family had been allies. He argued that Free Trade encourages international relations, interdependence and peace. The validity of his argument may be questioned, but Churchill's mastery of rhetoric is undisputed."--Bloomsbury Publishing.