Annual Report of the Council. 181 



than counterbalanced the economy of a division of labour 

 on a wholesale scale on large farms cultivated by hired 

 labour. It was the same spirit which led him to exclaim, 

 " O coton ! je te maudis au nom de l'art et au nom de 

 l'hygiene ! " when commenting in his letters from Italy on 

 the replacement of the picturesque costumes of bygone 

 times by the monotonous uniformity of cheap machine-made 

 fabrics. But his scientific faculties were also strong and his 

 learning profound. He insisted on the importance of 

 historical inquiry. Facts could not lie. By the test of the 

 past in economics we ought to be able to detect the weak- 

 nesses of mere dogmas and increase our understanding 

 of theories. All this explains Laveleye's unwearying 

 advocacy of bimetallism for a quarter of a century. It 

 cannot be doubted that his earlier inclination towards 

 monometallism was a result of the Californian and Aus- 

 tralian gold discoveries, which suggested that the yellow 

 metal would become a sufficiently abundant, cheap, and 

 elastic currency. But as he himself has told us, he had 

 already fought under the banner of M. de Parieu, " the 

 apostle of that grand and fruitful idea of monetary union 

 which he had the good fortune to realize in 186s in creating 

 the Latin Union," and his loyalty to the ideal of a Universal 

 Monetary Union, with the teachings of Wolowski, finally 

 " cured " him of " unhealthy inclinations towards mono- 

 metallism." Like Sir Louis Mallet, he regarded bimetallism 

 as a necessary part of Free Trade. Before Prince Bismarck 

 brought in his famous Tariff Bill, Laveleye predicted that 

 unless England took measures to stop the demonetisation 

 of silver she would witness a revival of Protectionism in 

 Germany and throughout the world. It was from the dying 

 hand of his master, Wolowski, that he received the message, 

 " My strength is forsaking me, but do you continue to defend 

 our cause, which is the truth." If he sometimes despaired 

 of Free Trade, it was because what he regarded as the selfish 

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