VII.

POLITICAL ECONOMY AND

LAISSEZ-FAIRE.*

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 the 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 illus

* An Introductory Lecture delivered in University College, November 1870.

tration 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; the systematic study of economic science is almost without practical recognition.) I wish to be accurate, and I therefore say "almost," and I use the qualification "practical"; for in London there are, I believe, three chairs from which Political Economy, or matter connected with Political Economy, is taught two in King's College and one here. what is the number of students attracted from this great population to study Political Economy under those chairs? I have no exact statistics upon the point, and the subject is perhaps of too delicate a nature to warrant me in going into details. But I am certainly not overstating the case when I say, that the aggregate number of students attending all the public economic schools in London falls very much short of a hundred individuals-one hundred individuals, that is to say, out of a population of

But

three millions! I wish I could say that we in this college could claim one-half, or even a quarter, of this not very overwhelming grand total.

I do not know whether it is necessary to go into comparisons in order to point the significance of these figures; but I will venture to mention one other case, as it has come under my own personal observation. In the not very flourishing town of Galway, with which I have had till lately an official connection, there is a chair of Political Economy. The number of students who during my time attended the lectures from that chair varied ordinarily from six to ten persons. Now, if we compare the proportion which these numbers bear to the population from which they were drawn with the proportion which, let us say, the sixty or one hundred students attending London chairs bear to the population of this metropolis, and if we take this proportion as an indication of the interest felt in economic studies in the two places, we arrive at this rather surprising result-that in that remote, and I regret to say decaying: Irish town, the degree of interest taken in economic science many times, perhaps five or six times, greater than here-greater, that is to say, in the "ultima Thule" of Connaught than in this metropolis of modern industrial civilization.

is

Now it seems to me that this is a very remarkable fact, and one that deserves the attention of those who, in this country, have charged themselves with this branch of speculation. I have called attention to it, partly in the hope that those who have better opportunities of acquainting themselves with the opinions

of the London public than I have may take it into consideration, and partly with a view to bring under your notice such a partial explanation of the phenomenon as occurs to myself. Let me say here, in passing, that there is one explanation of the fact, which to many people will seem the sufficient and obvious one, which, nevertheless, I cannot allow to be either a satisfactory or a complete account of the matter. I shall possibly be told that the reason the people of London are not attracted to the lectures delivered from its economic chairs is simply that those lectures are not attractive; that, in short, the fault lies, not with the people of London, but with those who fail to set Political Economy before them in an interesting light. The facts may be as this explanation suggests, at least I have no desire to deny them, so far as my own particular share in the transaction is concerned but I submit that the allegation fails to meet the point. The professors of Political Economy in London are not the creators, but the creatures, not the cause, but the effect, of the requirements of the people of London with respect to this subject. I do not deny that there is a connection between the mode in which a subject is taught and the interest taken in it, that the public taste may be sensibly influenced by the quality of those who occupy the seats of learning in a country. But, conceding this, I still hold that the public cannot escape from its responsibilities towards science and learning by sheltering itself under an alleged incompetency on the part of those to whom it has intrusted their interests. If the teachers of Political Economy in London are not up to the mark, why does not

London supply itself with better? Why is London content to have Political Economy inadequately taught? And thus I am brought back to the fact which I have proposed for consideration: that, in this great centre of English commercial and political life, Political Economy, the one science which is pre-eminently an English product, which has been built up by English thinkers, and applied, with most striking effect, by English statesmen, is, as a branch of liberal education, all but practically ignored.

There are those who would probably explain this singular state of things by reference to a supposed distaste or inaptitude for abstract speculation characteristic of the average English mind: I will not undertake to say that there may not be some slender basis of truth in this view. Englishmen are apt to value themselves on being a practical people; and, as every excellence is said to have its compensating defect, it is conceivable that this English virtue may have a tendency to run to excess, and that it may have issued in a mental habit unfavourable to the cultivation of economic science, which, it must be admitted, shares the attributes common to all scientific knowledge. Certainly, the very slender attention bestowed in London on some other branches of philosophical speculation-I may instance mental philosophy and jurisprudence-affords some countenance to this view. Still, I cannot admit this to be a complete account of the matter. English distaste for abstract speculation, assuming it to exist, is, at all events, not so strong that it may not be overcome by the prospect of practical advantage. What do we see in the Universities?