I watched a TV program presented by Jeremy Paxman about the building of the British Empire back in the days of unrestricted free trade.
This free trade included the slave trade to work sugar plantations in the British West Indies. The free traders who did that were 'good Christians' who rationalised their brutal treatment of the slaves by classifying them as less than human. Many slaves did not survive the journey in filthy overcrowded conditions from Africa to the Caribbean. Those that did survive then had an expected lifetime of three years. The plantation owners grew exceedingly rich and lived in vast showy palaces.
The free trade also included the selling of opium to the Chinese to pay for the export of tea and other Chinese goods that were wanted back in Britain. The opium was produced in a vast industrialised manner back in India, which had been conquered and made part of the empire already.
The Chinese government were naturally unhappy that a large proportion of their population were being turned into drug addicts by the British. When the Chinese seized and destroyed some opium shipments, the British said this was a violation of free trade. The British then used their overwhelming military superiority (steam driven iron gunboats against Chinese junks) to destroy the Chinese navy. They captured Hong Kong and other Chinese territory to use as bases to handle the opium imports.
The main company that controlled the opium trade, Jardine Matheson, is still active now. Opium trading continued into the twentieth century. Today, Jardine House in Hong Kong is referred to by the locals as 'The House of a Thousand Arseholes' due to the shape of its windows.
