42 READJUSTMENT AFTER WAR 



the powers in promoting as they did the cause 

 of freedom of commerce was mainly a shrewd 

 calculation of immediate self-interest rather 

 than any devotion to an abstract ideal. Equally 

 beyond question is it that the ideals that per 

 vaded the intellectual atmosphere of the day 

 were wholly adverse to the old system. After 

 the Napoleonic storm had subsided, doctrines 

 that had played a large part in producing the 

 French Revolution, but had been driven to 

 cover by the course taken by that convulsion, 

 began to assume prominence in England. The 

 economic theories of Adam Smith and the legal 

 and political dogmas of Jeremy Bentham won 

 adherents if not yet respectability. These sys 

 tems, in all their implications, were hostile to 

 the existing institutions of Great Britain. Un 

 derlying both philosophies was the concep 

 tion of man as a free and intelligent being, 

 working out, each individual for himself, the 

 mode and content of his welfare. British com 

 merce and industry were based upon a complex 

 of regulations and restrictions designed to favor 

 particular kinds of business and special classes 

 of people; and the government which dis 

 tributed the favor was itself controlled by a 

 particular business and a special class of people. 



