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THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



LESSONS IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. I. 



BY J. E. THOROLD ROGERS, M.A., 



Professor of Political Economy in the University of Oxford 

 from 1862 to 1867. 



POLITICAL Economy is the latest of the sciences. It is also 

 one of the hardest. But it is certainly one of the most im- 

 portant, for there is none whose aims are more beneficent. In 

 so far as society understands and obeys its laws, it makes 

 progress in opulence and civilisation ; in so far as it neglects or 

 disobeys them, it stands still, or goes back. Furthermore, it 

 is what is called an inductive science. It is not like Geometry 

 or Arithmetic a series of long reasonings gathered from a few 

 simple axioms and definitions but it has to be carefully 

 collected from facts, and what it lays down as a principle has 

 to be measured by experience. In this first lesson I shall try 

 to show what I mean by all these statements. 



As soon as ever men began to reason about government, law, 

 morals, and other subjects in which civilised society is interested, 

 and by which it exists, they could not but take some note of 

 the circumstances on which the wealth and prosperity of a 

 nation depend. Thus, in the early days of ancient civilisation, 

 the philosophers of Greece and Rome wrote on government and 

 general politics, and sketched what in their minds was the ideal 

 of a perfect state. But though they propounded a variety of 

 ingenious theories, which are studied with advantage and in- 

 terest in our own day, they made but little progress in the 

 science whose aim it is to expound the manner in which wealth 

 is obtained and distributed among the several classes of which 

 society is composed of the means, in brief, by which the 

 largest number of persons can subsist in the greatest possible 

 affluence by the least possible labour. 



There is, I believe, a sufficient explanation of the fact that 

 this topic did not occupy the minds of those acute thinkers, in 

 the circumstance that every ancient community allowed or 

 encouraged slavery. The moral evils which ensue from such a 

 social state as that in which men hold their fellow-men in 

 bondage need not be referred to here ; they are so manifest 

 that the whole civilised world is agreed in condemning the 

 practice. But the peculiar economical mischief that ensues 

 from slavery is, that as slavery degrades labour, so it prevents 

 persons from seeing that labour is the cause of wealth, and 

 that as labour is economised, wealth progressively increases. 

 Besides, freedom is as essential to exchange as it is to morality. 

 From the point of view which an economist takes, men are 

 engaged in producing objects of desire or demand with as little 

 labour as they can, and with a view to exchanging them as 

 freely as possible. Now it is plain that when labour is enslaved 

 the motive to make labour as effectual as possible is annulled, 

 and that the full power of exchange is taken away. It cannot 

 be by accident that the first promulgation of a system of 

 political economy was made at the time in which slavery was 

 condemned in principle, and only permitted in practice under 

 protest. It must not indeed be supposed because freedom to 

 labour at one's own discretion is accorded to all members of a 

 civilised community, that perfect freedom of exchange is also 

 allowed. But this at least is admitted : that whenever personal 

 liberty is controlled by law or custom, the control is always on 

 its defence, is always liable to be challenged, and must be ap- 

 proved before it can be allowed or continued. In short, the 

 discretion of an individual is limited only on the plea that the 

 public good requires such a limitation. Supposing two com- 

 munities are at war with each other, it is plain that either may 

 and should prevent any one of its subjects from supplying the 

 hostile government with the means of continuing the war. 

 Similarly, it has been alleged, and is still alleged, that a 

 community is justified in forcing its members to deal with their 

 fellow-countrymen only in particular articles, in order that the 

 manufacture of such articles should be planted or established 

 at home. We shall hereafter examine the grounds on which 

 this plea is defended. It is sufficient to repeat here that any 

 interference with the freedom of exchange on the part of govern- 

 ment is, and hereafter will be, on its trial. 



It has been said above that Political Economy is one of the 

 hardest of the sciences. It is true that when any one of its 

 laws is substantiated it becomes as plain as any law of Nature ; 

 but the difficulty first lies in proving it, and next in inducing 



people to accept the proof, and act upon it. Mr. Mill has said, 

 with equal truth and clearness, that fallacies in which the 

 wisest of our forefathers believed are now so utterly exploded, 

 that the belief in such fallacies reminds one of those opinions 

 of children, which are corrected by a word from grown-up 

 persons. But he also observes that the acutest among us 

 should not think, had he lived in the age when such an error 

 was prevalent, that he would have escaped the delusion which 

 occupied men's minds. People do not like to be disabused of a 

 habit, especially of an habitual opinion with which they have 

 been made familiar, and to which they have accommodated 

 themselves. It is easy to illustrate this disposition by appealing 

 to a fact in the history of Political Economy. 



For many a century men believed that money i.e., pieces of 

 the precious metals coined and circulated was wealth ; that a 

 man was rich according to the number of these pieces which he 

 possessed ; and that similarly a state or government was rich 

 proportionately to the treasure which it had accumulated. All 

 the common phrases of language favoured this notion, as they 

 had been derived from it. Persons were said to be worth so 

 much money ; objects of value were said to be worth so many 

 pieces of such metals. A man with money in his pocket was 

 seen to be able to command the industry of others at his dis- 

 cretion ; poverty and riches, therefore, were identified with the 

 absence or presence of these bits of gold and silver. Philosophers 

 used the same language with ordinary people. Bacon saw 

 poverty in a diminished stock of the precious metals ; and Locke, 

 commenting on the perishable nature of most possessions, observes 

 that " money is a steady friend." 



Now it very seldom happens that any statement, mischievous 

 or erroneous though it be, is wholly destitute of truth. Mistakes, 

 fallacies, delusions, are generally facts exaggerated, distorted, 

 or misinterpreted. The popular notions about money rested on a 

 single truth. There can be no doubt that, under ordinary circum- 

 stances, there is nothing so saleable as money nothing which 

 can be so easily available for supplying one's wants. In order 

 that people may buy and sell, especially in small or retail trade, 

 they must have some article of value with which to measure 

 other objects, and which they will take when they sell ; because 

 they are under the impression that the possession of this 

 article will give them very much the same command over such 

 other objects at some future time, which it gives them at the 

 moment of their taking it. Certain qualities possessed by the 

 metals gold and silver have pointed out these objects as the 

 most convenient measure of value, have made all men willing 

 to take them, and have rendered them, from this point of view, 

 peculiarly saleable, and therefore peculiarly convenient to those 

 who wish to gain possession of whatever they may require or 

 wish for. 



Here, however, their utility, in the sense of wealth, stops. 

 They are very useful because they are very saleable, but only 

 because they are very saleable. Their possessor may anticipate 

 their future utility in this direction, and therefore store or 

 accumulate them. Circumstances may lead him to be very 

 eager in accumulating them, and very loth to part from them ; 

 but the eagerness with which he gathers and treasures them, 

 only shows how thoroughly he contemplates spending them, or 

 selling them. No reasonable person would hoard money without 

 the remotest purpose of using it. He knows that money is 

 power, and he may defer the exercise of the power. But he 

 never determines that he will not, under any circumstances, use 

 the power which he possesses. A man who will not use his 

 money is as ill off as a man who cannot use it. A man who 

 has buried a hoard in the earth, who has imparted the secret 

 of its place to no one, and who never uses nor will use what 

 he has hoarded, is no better off than if he had made no hoard at 

 all. For money to be of any use to its possessor, it must be 

 used or got rid of. 



What is true of an individual is ^till more clear in the case 

 of a community. Here money is plainly a mere article of 

 merchandise. In little acts of exchange those, namely, of retail 

 trade money is necessary in order to bring buyers and sellers 

 togother ; but in large transactions goods are really exchanged 

 against goods. Though, for manifest reasons, the value of goods 

 is expressed in money, little or no money actually passes between 

 dealers. The trade of this country is represented by many 

 millions of pounds in value ; but by far the largest part of 

 this trade is carried on without the intervention of a single 



