PREFACE. 



xv 



Then the manipulation of the situation becomes the 

 province of the statesman, who, whatever self-interest 

 or pedantry may assert, is bound with the least possible 

 hesitation to save society from the mischief which 

 the economist predicts. The economist may say with 

 perfect truth, Such and such things will happen. The 

 statesman may have to answer, These things must 

 not happen, and law, which should arbitrate between 

 the weak and strong and be the outcome of intelligence 

 and practical wisdom, as the great philosopher said 1 , 

 shall interpose. 



The growth of textile manufactures in England is 

 not only made the subject of Parliamentary reports 

 and of repeated legislation, sometimes unjust in the 

 case of Ireland, but was traced to its true cause, as 

 is shown in this remarkable passage from Davenant's 

 Works, vol. ii. p. 235: 'The learned prelate (Burnet) 

 \\lio has obliged England with that noble work, his 

 ln>tory of the Keformation, discoursing once upon these 

 matters with the writer of this Essay, did urge a thing 

 of which the philosophy seemed very sound and right, 

 and upon which we have since reflected often ; he said, 

 tliiit nature had adapted different countries for different 

 manufactures, that cold and moister climates are fitter 

 for the working up of wool, because there the sun does 

 not exhaust its natural moisture, nor make it brittle, 

 which would render it ill to work and bad to wear.' 

 Davenant then proceeds to justify, on grounds of state 



v diro nvos 

 ov. Eth. Nic. X. 9. 12. 



