capital. If the latter teaching be likely to lead some of the thoughtless into communism or socialism, is it not far more likely that the former will lead thither those of the thoughtful who are not able to think their way out of these doctrines?

And we are not left to conjecture here. Mr. Mill is certainly, after Adam Smith, the most distinguished writer of the Free Trade School; in his Autobiography he discloses the fact that his hearty acceptance of the doctrines of Malthus, Ricardo and his own father, had led him to such gloomy conclusions as to the results of the existing organization of society and its distribution of property, that he had come to the conclusion that it would be a change for the better were some modification of socialism to be substituted so as to put a limit to the great and growing inequality of wealth and extension of poverty that he saw around him. He also tells us, what is the fact, that Bastiat adopted in part the views of the Nationalist school in order the better to fight the Communists who attack landed property. What Schultze-Delitzsch and his opponent Lassalle have to say on this question has already been told (§ 114).

CHAPTER TWELFTH.

THE SCIENCE AND ECONOMY OF MANUFACTURES. THE

PRACTICE.

In other

In all the

not left de

§ 253. The theory and the practice of national economy, as already remarked, (§ 6), do not always go hand in hand. The theory in some cases is much better than the practice; men see and approve the better course and follow the worse. cases it is worse than the practice, or lags behind it. more necessary and practical affairs of life, men are pendent upon the possession of correct theories. stinctively the right thing, having no conscious reason, or only a bad one; and after their practice has been repeatedly subjected to the censures or the mockery of shallow theorists, it is at last vindicated by the riper judgment and clearer insight of wiser men.

They do in

It is, therefore, a mistake to suppose that the practice of national economy at a time when correct or current theories of the subject had not yet begun to be formed, is unworthy of our study. Men "builded wiser than they knew in many things; the great and wholesome instincts that grew out of the national life into which they were born, and from which their own life derived half its value, led them aright where they had no theory; and only shallow doctrinaires would depreciate the results as having no right to exist, because not attained logically.

§ 254. The ancient writers on political philosophy confined their attention chiefly to the jural state. But the actual rulers had a clear notion of economic policy. Boeckh has shown (as against Heeren) that Athens took measures to protect home industry, to develop its various forms, and to make the state independent of its rivals for the necessaries of life. The low conceptions of political morality that prevailed, allowed of the use of means to this end which are not capable of vindication. If an ally of Athens had corn to sell, it must be brought to the port of

Athens (the Piræos), and a certain proportion must be sold for use in the city itself, and at a fixed price, before any could be disposed of at competition prices to the merchants of other cities. The effect of these measures was limited by the nature of the political constitution of Greece. In this as in other matters every city legislated for itself; nothing was done to benefit Greece as a whole, and to bring her different divisions into the close and friendly relations of mutual helpfulness. Even the structure of the country forbade this; it was easier and cheaper to feed Athens with corn from the Chersonesus than to carry food over the mountain passes from Boeotia. That the country never became an industrial whole, is connected with the fact that it was never a political unit. It fell into subjection through the weakness of its social constitution.

Rome also adopted a Protectionist or Nationalist policy in earlier times, when she was still a people among the peoples. Already she was a great industrial city, competing with Carthage for the commercial preeminence of the Mediterranean. When she became an empire, the enemy and the destroyer of nationalities, she of course abandoned that policy.

§ 255. In the middle ages industry was in the hands of chartered guilds, and was a matter of privilege and prescription. The states that awoke to the importance of the industrial life of the community all took measures to protect and cherish local industries. In Italy the great prosperity of Venice was largely owing to the care with which she protected all the interests of her merchant princes, and the rival cities of the mainland followed hard in her footsteps.

Charles V., of Spain and Germany, studied the maxims and methods of Venetian policy, and adopted them in Spain. But when the industries of his kingdom sprang into life, he loaded them down with oppressive and vexatious burdens, in order to raise money for his wars. The alcavala imposed a tax upon every transaction, the intercourse between the provinces was put under a heavy tariff of duties, and the right to collect these was farmed to individuals who were often foreigners. Every

HENRY IV. AND COLBERT.

269

wise maxim was set at nought, and the country languished in ever-deepening poverty.

§ 256. In France, the leading statesmen had learnt the same lesson from the Italian cities, but to better purpose. Sully, indeed (anticipating the Economistes of the last century), wished to promote agriculture alone, and regarded manufactures as promoting luxury and waste. But France owes to the care and patronage of his wiser master, Henry IV., the transfer of the growth and manufacture of silk from Italy to her own soil.

Colbert, the greatest statesman of the reign of Louis XIV., was recommended to the confidence of that monarch by the Cardinal Mazarin as his last act. The King "might with truth and justice say that, in giving him Colbert, God had done much for the prosperity and glory of his reign. France might add that she owes to his wise counsels the wonderful development of her industry" (Thierry). His "spirit has apparently never ceased to influence the councils of his country" (Dr Travers Twiss, in 1847). He found the finances in a ruinous state, and that the industrial interests of the country had been sadly neglected during the period of confusion that had elapsed since the death of Henry IV. As Adam Smith says, he combined great integrity and great clearness of intellect, with the habits of a laborious man of business. His weakness was undoubtedly his too great faith in the virtues of legislative interference. He did not know when to stop. He found the frontiers of the provinces lined with custom-houses for the collection of unnatural duties upon domestic commerce, and these he wisely transferred to the frontiers of the nation. He developed the French marine by a system of bounties. He removed excessive burdens from the shoulders of the agricultural class, and then did them more than equal harm by prohibiting the export of wheat. In 1661 he had enacted his great tariff law, by which duties were taken off exports, and imposed upon man ufactured goods imported from other countries. That the effect was "the prodigious development of France under the encouragement which it afforded them" (Blanqui) is admitted even by

the Free Traders, who deplore the means he adopted. Those light and graceful fabrics, in whose production the skill and nice taste of this Celtic people find exercise, were naturalized in France by Colbert; without him, as Irish history shows, these national gifts might have lain idle. "France," says J. B. Say, "at present contains the most beautiful manufactures of silk and wool in the world, and is probably indebted for them to the wise encouragement of Colbert's administration." Some English writers urge, indeed, "that France showed signs of revived prosperity and augmented wealth under the administration of Colbert, was to be attributed to the re-establishment of order in the finances of the country, and the removal of various obstacles which impeded the operation of certain branches of industry" (Twiss). It is certain that France was a richer and more prosperous country than at any previous period, partly in spite of the meddlesome trifling of the regulations which Colbert imposed upon the industries he had called into existence. The man could put no restraint upon his wonderful gift for arranging details; he irritated the French merchants till they told him that what they chiefly asked of him was to "let them alone" (Laissez faire); and one of them declared that Colbert, after getting the coach out of the slough on one side, had tumbled it back again on the other.

France did not long reap the benefits that Colbert's system conferred. Louis XIV. had no sense of the importance of industry. He wrote to Charles II.: "If the English are satisfied to be the merchants of the world, and leave me to conquer it, the matter can easily be arranged. Of the commerce of the globe, three parts to England and one part to France." He, therefore, wasted the national wealth in unsuccessful wars, and generally bought peace by granting treaties which pledged him to remove duties from foreign manufactures. That of Nimeguen, in 1713, completed the work of destroying the protective system. Colbert died of a broken heart in 1683, amidst general distress; two years later a still more deadly blow was struck at French industry at home; the cdict of Nantes (1598),