In reality free trade is often not all good news for individual interest groups. As the
balance of comparative advantage adjusts, there are winners and losers. For example,
the English landowners who resisted the repeal of the Corn Laws in the nineteenth century
were right in thinking that they would suffer from free trade. After the Corn Laws
were repealed in 1847, cheap foreign corn flooded into the country, depressing prices
and impoverishing the countryside. Workers were forced to migrate to the towns, helping
Britain to become even more successful as an exporter of manufactures. In the end
Britain as a whole was better off for free trade, but the process of change left some
individuals, particularly landowners, seriously worse off. There are parallels with the
competition between European heavy industry and Far East in the 1970s and 1980s.
European manufacturers were driven out of business by Far East competition. It is not
much compensation to a redundant shipyard worker that he has lost his job because the
country now has a comparative advantage in financial services, a business that has no
call for welders. This is important because these side effects can lead to protectionism.