The Fortnightly (Volume 16) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos or missing text. Not indexed. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1871. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... POLITICAL ECONOMY AND LAISSEZ-FAIRE.1 Great Britain, if not the birthplace of political economy, has at least been its early home, as well as the scene of the most signal triumphs of its manhood. Every great step in the progress of economic science (I do not think an important exception can be named) has been won by English thinkers; and while we have led the van in economic speculation, we have also been the first to apply with boldness our theories to practice. Our foreign trade, our colonial policy, our poor-laws, our fiscal system, each has in turn been reconstructed from the foundation upwards under the inspiration of economic ideas; and the population and commerce of the country, responding to the impulse given by the new principles operating through those changes, have within a century multiplied themselves manifold. This London, in the midst of which we find ourselves, what is it but a mighty monument of economic achievement?--the greatest practical illustration which the world has seen of the potent influence of those principles which it is the business of the political economist to expound? In view of such facts, one might expect that, if there was on the globe a spot where a keen interest would be felt in the study of political economy--where the science which unfolds the laws of industry and commerce would be held in honour--it would be London. Now I wish to call your attention to a singular fact, for singular it surely is. In this vast London, so energetic, so enterprising, so enlightened; in this great centre of the world's commerce; in this metropolis of the country which has produced Adam Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, Mill; which has produced, again, Pitt and Huskisson, Peel, Cobden, and Gladstone; in this focus of economic activity and power;--...