been more logical-no avowal more candid. Was this popular oracle somewhat too plain for the taste of the inner conclave of Olympus-the dii majorum gentium? There were other things in the same utterance that could hardly have been very digestible, but on them we should be ashamed to comment.

Since their return to their paradise they have become absolutely insignificant. They have lost every vestige of popularity; their adherents are heartily ashamed of them; the country is heartily sick of them; they have not strength to carry a single measure without the help of the men they have by their placehunting intrigues ejected from power; one Secretary is fast ridding us of our Colonies-another has already rid England of her high place and authority as the standing guardian of law and right among Foreign Nations;-and they drag out a despicable and, we believe, a wretched existence, only suffered to linger on in official life because the quarrel of the Conservatives among themselves prevents any one from now taking the Government, as no one will consent to take it, like the Whigs, upon the terms of having office without power.

ART. V.-1. Speech of Sir Robert Peel, Bart., delivered on Friday, July 6th, 1849, on the State of the Nation. London, 1849.

2. Two Letters to the Right Hon. H. Labouchere, M.P., on the Balance of Trade ascertained from the Market Value of all Articles Imported as compared with the Market Value of all Articles Exported during the last Four Years. By C. N. Newdegate, Esq., M.P. London, 1849.

3. Sophisms of Free Trade and Popular Political Economy Examined. By a Barrister. London, 1849.

4. Report of the Proceedings and Speeches at the Public Meeting of the National Association held at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, London, on Tuesday the 26th of June, 1849. London, 1849.

M.

THIERS has atoned for many of his literary and political transgressions by a recent essay, De la Propriété,' in the outset of which he pathetically laments that the spread of false science' should have rendered it necessary, for the security of the social fabric from the assaults of Communism, that even the most self-evident of moral truths should be vindicated by formal demonstration ;-a process which he designates as alike difficult and irksome. We have happily in this country not yet advanced

quite so far on the road to ruin. But if in France the ascendancy of a shallow philosophy has rendered it necessary that the rights of property should be vindicated against the pretensions of an anarchical democracy, it is scarcely less requisite that in England property itself should be vigorously defended against the insidious approaches of that same false science' which is gradually sapping the foundations of national prosperity. In this spirited performance M. Thiers relied for the success which we hope and trust he has achieved, on an appeal to the common sense of his countrymen from the theories of Communism. We too would appeal to the sober sense of our own less volatile countrymen, from the delusive theories advanced under the appellation of 'Free Trade.' And we must begin with saying that, though we shall use this phrase in the following pages, we take it simply as a conventional one, which it would be inconvenient to discard, but consider its employment in conjunction with our present system of commerce as in fact a philological petty larceny. It may serve a party purpose to play on popular ignorance by designating Free Imports as Free Trade,' but the system has no greater affinity to a comprehensive and liberal commercial policy, than have the doctrines of Ledru Rollin to a just and equitable distribution of national wealth.

It is as a branch of the science of political economy that Free Trade advances its claims; and it is on the conclusions deduced by legislators from the received dogmas of that science, that the important changes made of late years in our commercial system have been entirely founded. In examining, therefore, the policy of those changes, it is obviously necessary that we should first test the soundness of the assumed principles on which legislation has proceeded-in other words, that we should satisfy ourselves that political economy as propounded by modern authorities affords a safe standard for the guidance of the commercial statesman. If we should find those authorities concurrent on all leading points of the science they profess, great deference will be primâ facie due to their opinions. If the propositions they advance as axioms be, as all real axioms must be, self-evident, natural, incontrovertible, then will our task be restricted to ascertaining whether specific changes have or have not been made in accordance with these obvious truths. But if it should appear that not only are the most eminent professors of the science at issue on some of its elementary and most important propositions, but that on the same question the same writer may frequently be detected in opposite and irreconcileable conclusions-and if it should further appear that many of the dogmas put forward as axioms are merely arbitrary assumptions-then may we unhesitatingly reject

the

the claim for blind submission, and proceed to the investigation of the several measures which so deeply interest us, guided by the light of common sense alone, through the processes of a practical instead of an abstract research.

Although we avow our conviction that a large portion of the authority on which Free-traders have been accustomed to rely with undoubting faith is of this latter description, it must not be supposed that we agree with the able and accomplished author of the Sophisms,' who pronounces that Political Economy will be a science, but is not one yet.' Political economy in our judgment is already a science-though a very young one; it is a science, too, in which not only have many valuable truths been elicited and established, but much has been done to facilitate the future progress of philosophical inquiry. It is not, therefore, with the science, but with its modern professors, that we quarrel. It is of their arrogant spirit that we complain-of the insufferable presumption with which they advance their dogmas as incontrovertible truths; and, more than all, of the blind and reckless improvidence with which, when invested with the power of statesmen, they carry untried and empirical theories into practical application. It is observed by Mr. M'Culloch, one of the most distinguished of their own number, in reference to certain alleged inconsistencies and contradictions' which he assumes to have detected in the Wealth of Nations' itself, that 'these errors show in the strongest manner the absolute necessity of advancing with extreme caution, and of subjecting every theory, however plausible and ingenious it may appear when first stated, to a severe and patient examination.' How far this rule has been adhered to by the whole school of political economists and economical statesmen, it is now our task to inquire.

Although Political Economy had been incidentally treated by many writers of eminence, it was not till the appearance of Adam Smith's immortal work,' as Garnier terms the 'Wealth of Nations,' that it was presented to the world in a clear and systematic form. From the merit of that book, and the claims of Smith as the father of the science, it is neither our intention nor our wish to derogate. But as the best mode of reducing within just dimensions the authority of a science for which, though still in its infancy, its professors are accustomed to claim infallibility, it may be well to contrast some of the most important of Smith's propositions with the recorded opinions of many of his most influential successors, themselves his eulogists.

6

To begin with the elementary question of rent. Smith, affirming that Rent enters into the composition of the price of commodities,' treats it as a cause of price. M'Culloch, asserting

that

that Rent cannot affect the price of commodities,' regards it as an effect. On employment of capital in agriculture Smith remarks, Of all the ways in which capital can be employed, it is by far the most advantageous to the society.' McCulloch's comment on this opinion is as follows:- This is perhaps the most objectionable passage in the Wealth of Nations, and it is really astonishing how so acute and sagacious a reasoner as Dr. Smith could have maintained a doctrine so manifestly erroneous.' Again, Smith says the competition of capitals causes a sinking of profits.' M Culloch boldly replies that, although this theory was espoused by Say, Sismondi, Garnier, and, with some trifling modifications, by Malthus, it is easy to see that the principle of competition could never be productive of a fall in profits.' Smith's distinctions between the labour of different classes of society he designates as 'fallacies;' his reasonings as proceeding 'on a false hypothesis;' and on Smith's opinions as to the effect on a workman of constant occupation in a manufactory, with little of filial reverence it must be confessed, he declares that 'nothing can be more marvellously incorrect than these representations.' We could multiply to an extent almost indefinite instances of contradiction of Smith's authority not only by M'Culloch, but by Ricardo, Malthus, and other leading economists; but it is unnecessary. We must not, however, omit two of these instances, not only on account of their direct bearing on the subject of our immediate inquiry, but because, if the authority of the Father of Political Economy on these be admitted, sentence will be at once passed on the whole course of policy pursued of late by Parliament.

The great social question which at this moment agitates the public mind,-sets interests, individuals, masses, in antagonistic array, and is beyond all doubt fraught in its decision with consequences the most tremendous,-is the relative advantage to this community of domestic and foreign trade. To the solution of that question, the acute mind of Smith was naturally directed; and his opinion, reached by a chain of lucid reasoning, is clear, unequivocal, decisive. In his Second Book, chap. v., he says—

The capital which is employed in purchasing in one part of the country in order to sell in another the produce of the industry of that country, generally replaces by every such operation two distinct capitals. The capital which sends Scotch manufactures to London and brings back English corn and manufactures to Edinburgh, necessarily replaces by every such operation two British capitals, which had both been employed in the agriculture or manufactures of Great Britain. The capital which is employed in purchasing foreign goods for home

Principles of Political Economy.'

consumption,

consumption, when this purchase is made with the produce of domestic industry, replaces likewise, by every such operation, two distinct capitals; but one of them only is employed in supporting domestic industry. The capital which sends British goods to Portugal, and brings back Portuguese goods to Great Britain, replaces by every such operation only one British capital-the other is a Portuguese one. Though, therefore, the returns of the foreign trade should be as quick as those of the home trade, the capital employed in it will give but half the encouragement to the industry or productive labour of the country. But the returns of the foreign trade are very seldom so quick as those of the home trade. A capital employed in the home trade will sometimes make twelve operations, or be sent out and returned twelve times, before a capital employed in the foreign trade has made one. If the capitals are equal therefore, the one will give four-and-twenty times more encouragement and support to the industry of the country than the other.'

We shall recur by and bye to this remarkable text. At present we cite it only in maintenance of our position, that political economists are at issue on the fundamental doctrines of their science. They have not yet settled its principles. They have no right therefore to insist on its authority. This masterly exposition of the reasons for preferring domestic trade to foreign commerce is fatal to the theories of Free Trade economists. By all these it is therefore repudiated, though by none has it been refuted. Ricardo attempted a reply, but miserably failed. M'Culloch says that the question admits of no satisfactory solution. The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, in a work entitled Commerce,' after reiterating M.Culloch's declaration by saying that it is a question that does not perhaps admit of any very satisfactory reply,' attempts that reply by a reiteration of Ricardo's abortive reasoning, already condemned by anticipation. In short, by the whole school of theoretic economists and statesmen it is rejected. Sir Robert Peel himself has never grappled with it, for he knew he must fail; and failing, how could he have defended the repeal of the Corn Laws? Smith's doctrine on this question remains unshaken and triumphant; a standing reproach to arrogant and inconsistent theorists, and a lasting vindication of the cause of truth, and the principle of protection.

But the other instance to which we have now to refer is, if possible, even more conclusive. In his Fourth Book, chap. ii., after reasoning against all restraints on importation, Smith notes, as an exception to his general rule, that when some particular sort of industry is necessary for the defence of the country, it will be advantageous to lay some burden upon the foreign for the encouragement of domestic industry.' He thus proceeds:—

The defence of Great Britain, for example, depends very much

upon