plished will greatly accelerate the accomplishment of the other.' Tucker stood too much apart from all parties to receive much credit for his perspicuity; but he lived long enough to see one prediction verified and the other on the verge of verification. 19. An elaborate 'Enquiry concerning the Principles of Political Economy' (1766), by Sir James Steuart, requires a word of recognition, as probably the most elaborate attempt which had hitherto been made to give a systematic account of economical principles. Steuart is a candid, patient, and original thinker; on some topics, such as population, he anticipates later writers; and he is not wanting in logical ingenuity. On the other hand, his style is awkward and his method intricate. He becomes hopelessly confused by the complexity of his subject-matter; and argues himself into elaborate blunders in attempting to refute Hume's lucid and satisfactory account of money and the balance of trade. He is, therefore, amongst the most tiresome individuals of that most tiresome of all literary species the inferior political economists. He is interesting only as a product of the two chief schools of economical speculation. Having been more or less involved in the rebellion of 1745, he was forced to pass many years in France and elsewhere. He employed himself in studying social questions, and was obviously much impressed by the French writers. From them he learnt to take a wider view of the study than was common amongst the English rivals, and to go beyond questions of trade into more important questions of social welfare. On the other hand, instead of imitating their logical simplicity, or adopting their conception of a fixed social order, he exaggerates the ordinary complexity of the mercantile theories, and believes implicitly in the indefinite modifiability of mankind. The 'statesman,' according to him, is not only to direct hither and thither the flow of commerce according to very erroneous principles, but to mould the character and regulate the social organisation of his subjects. Thus, though he breaks ground upon many important questions, he rather perplexes than Tucker's Works, ii. 214. 2 E.g. Works, i. 24. 'Thus the generative faculty resembles a spring loaded with a weight, which always exerts itself in proportion to the diminution of resistance,' &c. See also i. 201, 208, &c. clears the subject; and we may pass, without further notice of his conclusions, to the school from which he, like Adam Smith, received a powerful impulse. III. THE FRENCH ECONOMISTS. 20. Writings, such as those which I have noticed, show that the simple principle of Free Trade lay but one degree removed from the sight of unprejudiced observers. Cosmopolitans, like Hume and Franklin, and shrewd reasoners, like the worthy Dean Tucker, could disperse many of the fallacies, though they could not quite shake off the inveterate prepossessions of the time. Political economy had become in their hands something more than a branch of statistics, though it was not yet more than a theory of commerce. No attempt had been made to solve some of the deeper problems of social organisation. Here and there the sound sense of men, like De Foe or Franklin, had called attention to such questions as the effect of poor-laws upon population. Their remarks, however, are rather specimens of good homely morality than of scientific reasoning. The advantages of frugality and independence, and the evil effects of paying people to be paupers, are fortunately perceptible without any deep scientific theory. The very notion of discussing, in a scientific spirit, such questions as the relation between labourers and capitalists, which are incomparably the most important topics with which economists can deal, had not yet dawned upon the economical speculators. Now it is impossible to frame a satisfactory theory of trade between nations without understanding the industrial organisation of the nations themselves. The disturbance produced in a nation by the opening or closing of a foreign trade can only be traced when we begin to appreciate the general conditions of the production of wealth. A discussion of the effects of protection naturally led, as we have seen, to an investigation of the perplexing question as to the real effect of different forms of expenditure. By what process and to what extent did Foreign Trade really enrich a nation? Was it an advantage to a people to get perishable materials in exchange for solid gold? Was it an advantage that many labourers should be employed in producing a commodity at home instead of a few in raising the materials which could be exchanged for the same amount abroad? Such questions inevitably suggested themselves; and most writers shrank from the difficult task of answering them satisfactorily. Hume glided over the subject with suspicious lightness, and able advocates of Free Trade, like Tucker, fell into gross errors in dealing with such knotty points. A school, however, was rising which endeavoured to supply an answer to such difficulties, and whose endeavours, though not supplying a satisfactory theory, for the first time led to the conception of political economy as a theory of social organisation instead of a mere generalisation of mercantile maxims. 21. The French school of economists struck out a doctrine remarkable for its ingenuity and simplicity, and for a logical symmetry which covered some radical confusion of ideas. It was expounded by a number of able writers, such as Quesnay, its inventor, the elder Mirabeau, and especially by Turgot, who tried to carry some of its teachings into practice. Turgot's treatise, Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth,' was called by Condorcet the germ of Smith's 'Wealth of Nations; and, though the justice of the name may be disputed, it is at least a compendious statement of principles by which Smith was materially influenced. The French economists illustrate the general tendency of their nation, and of the school of thought to which they belonged, to frame a coherent and over-rigid logical system. They aimed at the discovery of a few simple formulæ which should determine the industrial relations, as the dogmas about the rights of man determined the political relations, of mankind. The cumbrous system of restrictions by which statesmen of the Colbert school had sought to regulate industry were to be superseded by a few clear laws, framed on a rational basis, as the old political order was to give place to a symmetrical constitution based upon principles of abstract justice. In England, reformers found themselves in conflict with an apparatus of tariffs and navigation laws produced by commercial jealousy. In France, the new school had to attack a series of regulations by which the internal development of the country was hindered and trammelled. The French economists naturally inclined to a system which traced all national wealth to agriculture, as the English writers were inclined to assume that foreign commerce was the only mode by which a nation could acquire wealth. In England, speculation confined itself almost exclusively to the interests of the foreign merchant. The French economic theories were the work of men who had before them a highly centralised government, and whose aim it was to simplify the administrative system. They opposed cumbrous restrictions, but were generally of absolutist tendencies, for the central power was to be invoked in order to overpower the obstacles of local prejudice and corrupt interest. The direction of their enquiries towards an investigation of the primary sources of wealth rather than the mere ebb and flow of foreign trade, their intellectual tendencies and their position in a centralised governmet, encouraged them to treat the subject in a more systematic method, and to raise profounder questions than those which occupied their English contemporaries. We are in presence of men who are not merely treating upon some external conditions of commercial prosperity, but have their fingers upon the main arteries through which the life-blood of the country is propelled from the centre to the extremities. They are not asking whether the ports should be open to more or less silk and tobacco, but what is the nature and distribution of the wealth by which the whole nation is supported. 22. There is, such is their most fundamental and valuable proposition, a certain natural order of society, independent of all legislation, and the recognition of which is the essential condition of all sound legislation. The Natural and Essential Order of all Political Societies' is the title of a treatise published by Lemercier de la Rivière in 1767; and the same doctrine is assumed, though less pretentiously expressed, in all their writings. To explain this order we must determine what is the true nature of the various industrial functions of the social organism. For, as they saw, the complexity of modern society had, in fact, given rise to the most complete misconceptions of the real tendency of many operations. Political economy, as I have said, begins with the division of labour, and the consequent differentiation of classes; and Turgot, like Adam Smith, begins his treatise by pointing out the nature of this process. But so soon as the various functions are distributed amongst different classes, it becomes easy to misunderstand their true nature. Hasty observers had confounded operations productive of national and of merely personal wealth-between labour which adds to the total amount of valuable articles existing in the world, and labour which only enables a man to appropriate part of the wealth which would have existed without him. One form of this confusion, as we have seen, was the fallacy connected in England with the name of Mandeville. In France, the contrast between the luxurious or profligate expenditure of the government and the upper classes, and the poverty of the producers of wealth, had made the problem one of vital interest. Was the rich consumer really a benefit to the country? Who were to be rightfully regarded as mere parasites upon society, and who as contributors to its resources? If in some cases the line could be easily drawn, in others the question presented a real complexity. In an estimate of the national wealth, to count both the revenue of the master and that of the menial servant who depended upon him would obviously be to count the same portion twice over. To avoid such errors it was desirable to mark off the different classes of labour as unmistakably as possible. Practical consequences of immense importance would result from a clear theory. We may regard the national revenues as a reservoir which is being constantly filled and then flowing through innumerable channels to each of the numerous units of which society is composed. We have to distinguish between the perennial springs which fill the reservoir and the streams by which it is steadily drained. To solve this problem is to discover the natural order of society. The system of taxation had hitherto, so the economists taught, been grounded upon a false anatomy. The simplest and best plan would have been to draw the needed supplies directly from the head fountain. The actual practice was to collect them by driblets from the channels through which the wealth afterwards percolated. The plan involved not merely a cumbrous machinery, but an injurious system of vexatious restrictions. All manner of sluices and stops had to be provided to facilitate the collection of taxes; subsidiary interests were set up conflicting with the true |