EXPENDITURE OF THE WORKING CLASSES. 531 



they did themselves." These figures show, at any rate, the possibilities 

 of greatness in the economic progress which may result from attention 

 to the humblest details of domestic life. 



Economics, like other sciences, lies under a great debt of obligation 

 to French pioneers. The physiocrats, or economises, of the eighteenth 

 century, were the first school of writers to make it worthy of the name 

 of a science. In Cournot, France gave us a giant of originality in pure 

 theory. In Comte, we have a philosopher fruitful in suggestion to the 

 narrower economist. In Le Play, we have a writer as yet little known 

 in England, but to whom recognition and respect are gradually coming 

 for his early perception of the importance of ascertaining the facts of 

 consumption, and it is to Le Play's 'family budgets/ the receipts and 

 expenses of workmen's families, that I desire especially to call at- 

 tention. I have given elsewhere an account of his life and work.* 

 Broadly speaking, he sets himself by the comparative study of work- 

 men's families in different countries of Europe to arrive at the causes 

 of well-being and of misery among the laboring classes. The subject 

 was too large to lead him in many directions to very precise conclusions. 

 We are reminded in reading him of an incident at a dinner of the 

 Political Economy Club in 1876, when Mr. Kobert Lowe propounded 

 the question: "What are the more important results which have fol- 

 lowed from the publication of the 'Wealth of Nations' just one hun- 

 dred years ago?" Some of the most enthusiastic admirers of Adam 

 Smith were present, Mr. Gladstone and M. Leon Say among the num- 

 ber; and Mr. Lowe trenchantly declared that it all came to this: "The 

 causes of wealth are two, industry and thrift; the causes of poverty are 

 two, idleness and waste." It was left to Mr. W. E. Forster to make 

 the rugged remark: "You don't want to go to Adam Smith for that — 

 you can get that out of the Proverbs of Solomon." And Le Play's 

 conclusions frequently go still further back, to the Decalogue. There 

 are, however, many observations, suggestive and original, upon the 

 material facts, the economic life, of the families he brought under re- 

 view. And we are now concerned rather with his method than with 

 his conclusions. Given half a dozen Le Plays applying their minds 

 to the study of the consumption of wealth among the working classes 

 of England, we might expect soon to see a greater advance in comfort, 

 a greater rise in the standard of life, than improved arts of production 

 alone are likely to yield in a generation. Certain English writers had, 

 indeed, prepared family budgets before Le Play arose. But their 

 method was usually incomplete except for the specific purpose they had 

 before them. David Davies and Sir F. Eden were chiefly concerned 

 with the poor law, Arthur Young and Cobbett with agricultural poli- 



* Harvard Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. iv., 1890; Journal of Royal Statistical Society, 

 March, 1893; Palgrave's Dictionary of Political Economy, s. v. Le Play, 1896. 



