If steel replaced textiles as Britain's pillar industry, then bank loans would inevitably favor them.
Georgiana studied herself in the mirror as her maids helped her dress, deep in thought.
The textile industry would not let this go. They would use their influence to lobby the banks against lending to steel companies seeking to expand production. That would leave those steel companies needing loans from foreign banks, such as those in France.
Swiss bankers had originally been an option as well, but Switzerland was now embroiled in independence troubles, and its young men were looking to France to stabilize the country.
Next came banks in Amsterdam, Spain, Portugal, and elsewhere.
She did not think that the new industrial factory owners were righteous simply because they advocated abolishing the checkpoints and tariffs between Britain and Ireland. She remembered Ireland's beautiful natural scenery. In a sense, that also represented industrial backwardness, while industry meant environmental pollution. Even with the same tariffs, advanced British industrial goods entering Ireland amounted to dumping. Ireland's backward industries, meanwhile, would suffer the impact of British industry.
That was also why France imposed high tariffs: to protect domestic industry. Ireland would actually be worse off without tariff protection, making the factory owners' lobbying of Parliament to revise the treaty in their own favor seem rather unnecessary.
How did that saying go? To those who have, more shall be given.
If some infrastructure had been built in Ireland from the beginning instead of starting from scratch, then using work relief to resolve the Great Famine might have worked.
She did not agree that distributing food freely to the poor was reasonable. Caesar had done the same before, giving grain from North Africa and elsewhere to Roman citizens for free, only to bankrupt Rome's farmers. The Corn Laws set a