720 REPORT— 1894. 



transient, is even more instructive for our present purpose — viz., the declaration, 

 in Cardwell's Irish Land Act, that for the future tenancies should rest ' on 

 contract and not on tenure,' so that the relation between letters and hirers of land 

 was reduced to a purely commercial one subject to the law of the market, and 

 released, so far as legislation could secure that result, from all influence of senti- 

 ment or custom. 



In such a condition of apparent prosperity, it was hardly likely that any 

 apprehensions should be felt as to the future of economic study, and accordingly 

 no signs of misgiving are to be found in Senior's brief but emphatic statements. 

 His sole complaint is directed against the unfortunate tendency on the part of 

 ■contributors of papers to wander from the region of science into that of art or 

 practice, to the neglect of their proper subject, which afforded a sufficiently ample 

 ■field for fruitful inquiries. 



I need not say that this attitude of calm and assured confidence did not long 

 continue, and it is equally unnecessary to attempt any description of the series of 

 revolts against both the strict theoretical doctrines and some of the practical con- 

 clusions of the classical economy. Abundant information as to the leading phases 

 of the movement and the chief actors therein is supplied in works so well known 

 that any summary of their contents could be only the merest commonplace.' As 

 affording a starting-point for further discussion I may, however, remark that 

 three causes have most effectively operated in bringing about the changed position 

 of our science — viz. (1) The influence of foreign, and chiefly German, workors in 

 the same field ; (2) the profound though peaceful political revolution by which 

 power has been transferred to the working classes ; and (3) the growth of the 

 doctrine of evolution, which has been perhaps more potent in its effects on the 

 social than even on the biological sciences. 



As regards the first point, there is no room for doubt or question. With the 

 exception of Say and Bastiat — who were chiefly valued as popularisers of English 

 opinions — no foreign economist was at all known in England before the last thirty 

 years. The mere suggestion that we had anything to learn from Germany, 

 Holland, or Italy would have appeared ludicrous to Senior or McCulloch, or, 

 indeed, to the educated public.^ The true position of the foreigner was that of the 

 bumble disciple accepting gladly orthodox English teaching. This insularity of 

 tone undoubtedly retarded progress in all departments of economics, but its evil 

 effect was greatest in preventing any thorough consideration of the social and 

 political groundwork on which all systems of economy rest, and to which all 

 ■economic theories must, if they are to be enduring, pay adequate attention. The 

 'great and saving merit of German economic investigation lies in its unreserved 

 acceptance of this fundamental fact, and it was in this very point that our English 

 predecessors most signally failed. We should have escaped much narrowness and 

 onesidedne.ss of view if our writers had sought to understand and appreciate the 

 -Continental conception of the political sciences as an oriranLsed group of studies. 

 Nor is it quite clear that this just ground of complaint has been altogether 

 removed. Admirable efforts have been made by Leslie and others to diffuse a 

 general knowledge of the labours of the historical school, ard our principal text- 

 books no longer pass over in silence the weighty contributions of foreign writers to 

 special points of doctrine. Among professed students and teachers of economics 

 there is a considerable and growing acquaintance with the products of foreign 

 thought. Yet it seems as if the best lesson that they convt^y has not been 

 thoroughly laid to heart, and that most of our attention has benn directed to one 

 particular school which makes the nearest approach to English methods, and is 

 therefore least likely to help in correcting our peculiar failings. Is it not some- 

 what curious — might I not say discreditable — that the works of the eminent 

 Koscher, whose loss every student of economic and political scence must deplore, 



* Dr. Ingram's History of Political Economy (1888), pp. 221-".?.3.'5, and Professor 

 Eoxwell's letter on ' The Economic Movement in England,' Qnarterhj Journal of 

 Economics, October 1887 (vol. ii. pp. 84-103), may be particularly referred to. 



- ' Political economy,' said Professor Huxley in 1868, 'is an intensely Anglican 

 science.' — Lay Sermons, p. 48. 



