340	THE  BRITISH  APPROACH   TO   POLITICS
regarded the settlements in the New World as valuable markets
for English doth, and as sources of supply of raw materials.
'The same deske for trade led many European powers to establish
outposts along the African route to India, and in India itself;
.thence came also a supply of luxury goods. For more than two
hundred years. Imperial Powers tried to monopolise the markets
and supplies of their possessions, and the English "mercantile
system" was a mass of import and export restrictions, which
became increasingly complicated as now one, and now another
industry succeeded in influencing policy. But while certain sections
benefited, the fir>3l effect was to check enterprise, and the colonists
suffered because they could not buy and sell as they pleased;
indignation on this account was one cause of the loss of the
American Colonies. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations presented
a powerful case against trade restriction, and his arguments
gained all the more weight when Britain, having anticipated
other nations in the application of power to industry, found
herself anxious for wider markets;, in which she could meet
competition with ease.
In the nineteenth century, world-wide mechanisation of
industry stimulated the growth of Empires. Britain's competitive
advantage impelled other nations to bring territory under their
control, and reserve its markets for themselves. The development
of industry by those nations, made Britain doubtful of her Free
Trade policy. Meanwhile, the increase of production and of
large fortunes intensified the search for markets and supplies,
and for lands with undeveloped resources, where capital might
profitably be invested, India, Africa and Australia, only the fringes
of which had been touched in the eighteenth century, were
extensively developed; Germany and Italy which had only
recently become great Powers, and, beyond Europe, the United
States and Japan, joined in the search. Imperial rivalry threatened
the peace of the world, and each Power became more anxious to
have under its political control the materials necessary for war.
From these* facts arose the theory of Imperialism, The motive