xiv PREFACE. 



4 1 am sorry to say, some landowners are so jealous 

 of any profit accruing to the tenant, that they are 

 constantly enquiring into his profit, and without con- 

 sidering his losses, expenses, etc., by advancing his rent 

 on the least suspicion of advantage, he is driven to 

 the waste and destruction of his farm, for his own 

 present support/ 



The courage of Mr. Calvert is as creditable to him, 

 as the public spirit of Sir R. Button is in sending 

 the letter to Young for publication. But the evil was 

 not arrested, and our age has seen the consequences. 



I have increasing reason to believe, that researches 

 such as these are to a considerable extent modifying 

 those airy and unreal speculations which, under the 

 name of political economy, have been constantly seen 

 to be inaccurate and mischievous. Any examination of 

 the laws which regulate society from the important 

 aspect of how wealth is distributed or appropriated 

 or accumulated, after its production by labour and 

 capital, which takes no account of economical history, 

 is sure to lead to errors, which are grotesque when 

 merely speculative, but disastrous when adopted in 

 practice. When facts are weighed and their influences 

 estimated, the economist who is worthy of the name 

 may be able to exactly interpret results or as exactly 

 predict them. Some of the results which he discovers 

 and predicts as necessarily happening, or as inevitably 

 about to happen, may be in the highest degree 

 disastrous. They may be incapable of being rectified 

 by any individual or any combination of individuals. 



