294 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



Canal by reporting against the practicability of its construction. 

 Two notable examples of human fallibility ! Two concrete cases 

 of how even great minds may err ! 



No man is disposed to belittle the genius of Adam Smith, 

 but few men would be prepared to admit that all his arguments 

 are sound, his doctrines infallible, and his teaching absolutely 

 indefective ; and yet he is quoted by many writers as though 

 his "The AVealth of Nations," and his "Theory of Moral 

 Sentiments." were written by Divine authority and tauglit to 

 the children of men by the angelic throng. 



Adam Smith, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Eicardo, and 

 others before and after them have done men a service by 

 breaking the bonds of that old system of mercantilism which 

 encouraged exports at the expense of imports, and threw around 

 commerce those monopolistic fetters which held men as with 

 bands of steel; but to accept their sayings as oracular, and 

 their doctrines as the ultima thule of economics, would be to 

 erect a monument to human folly. 



Tliat Adam Smith did more to break up this old spirit of 

 mercantilism which obstructed the free flow of international 

 commerce than any man before or after his time, is admitted, 

 but that he said the last word on the economics of foreign or 

 internal trade, the economics of agriculture, and the economical 

 needs of the British people, is denied by every man who is 

 prepared to consider the question from a purely economical 

 standpoint. 



Many men nowadays are inclined to look at such matters 

 from a non-party point of view, and every man wdio does so 

 prefers to see his fellow-countrymen profit by the recognition 

 and adoption of a rational, up-to-date system of economy, which 

 would enter into the domestic everyday requirements of the 

 people, rather than see them foolishly and blindly following a 

 creed which, although theoretically correct, is as unsuited to 

 the modern needs of the British people as this cold, foggy 

 climate of ours is to the life and growth of tropical orchids. 

 Both may, in a sense, be said to be exotic, and nothing of an 

 exotic nature will exist for long in uncongenial surroundings. 



What Adam Smith would have told us 



Adam Smith wrote his monumental work, " The Wealth of 

 Nations," at a time when profound ignorance of the science of 

 economics was a characteristic feature of the people, and when 

 the monopolies and anomalies of the mercantile system 

 demanded illumination and exposure, but if that great philo- 

 sopher — keen observer and reasoner that he was — were living 



