Back in Spain: The Free Trade Debate in Moderate Spain (1844–1853)

Mora eventually returned to Spain in 1843. Due to a confluence of multiple factors (liberal economic reforms, regular parliamentary activity, greater institutionalisation of the political economy and an increase in the number of supporters of free trade), it was in the 1840s that free trade shifted from the intellectual to the political sphere; the decade was marked by debates on the 1841 and 1849 tariff reforms and these eventually spread beyond academic discussion and entered the political arena, against a backdrop of growing social discord (Costas, “Industrialización y cuestión arancelaria en España. Reflexiones en torno al librecambismo de Laureano Figuerola”. In Economía y economistas españoles. Vol. IV. La economía clásica, edited by Enrique Fuentes, 459–81. Barcelona: Galaxia Gütenberg and Círculo de Lectores, 2000, 471). Given this scenario, it is unsurprising that anti-prohibitionist literature found a new lease, and Mora played an outstanding role in setting up this alternative. His untiring work as a journalist from 1843 to 1853, which has been thoroughly covered in this chapter, shows his leading role in spreading free trade ideology.