TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. * 729 



find it in the subtle changes in tlie general conceptions of a restless and singularly 

 receptive society. But these various impulses, important though no doubt 

 their influence has been, are very general in character, and seem hardly definite 

 enough to account for a change in thought so distinctive and so unrelieved 

 in its nature, while all of them are open to the pertinent criticism that they them- 

 selves may be due in part, and in large part, to modifications in economic circum- 

 stances. Were they, or any of them, the sole or even the principal cause, it is 

 hardly necessary to add that the alteration which has taken place has been in the way 

 of looking at things, and not in things which are looked at. Others, again, have 

 found their answer in the greater degree of certainty and assurance with regard to 

 economic elements which in earlier times constituted difficulties in the way of 

 progress and menaced considerable dangers, and it is true that much that may be 

 iirged in this direction is well founded. Capital which, at the beginning of the 

 present century, was in imminent demand and vastly insufficient for the develop- 

 ment of industry, has grown, not by any slow if certain increase, but by leaps and 

 bounds just as certain, and its accumulation under the most varying vicissitudes 

 has removed the constant apprehensions as to its supply which confront the reader 

 in early literature. The relation between population and its food supply, which 

 left an indelible mark on one period of economic thought, has temporarily, at 

 any rate, retreated into the background with the opening up of new countries, the 

 discovery of new natural forces, and the observed conditions of the more settled 

 nations. Again, so far as England is concerned, the adoption — and for the time, 

 at any rate, the successful adoption — of a Free Trade Policy, led to a lull in the 

 controversies which raged with regard to tariffs, the balance of trade, and protec- 

 tion. Less importance, too, has been attached to difficulties involved in the 

 ownership of the land and the conditions of its cultivation, partly through 

 measures of economic reform, partly, so far as the older and more settled countries 

 .are concerned, by reason of the subordination of agricultural interests to the grow- 

 ing and giant industries of manufacture and commerce. Indeed, the only questions 

 which remain conspicuous by reason either of agitation or intrinsic urgency relate 

 to currency, a matter which, however pressing, sufi'ers under the popular disad- 

 vantage that its discussion is seen to require actual knowledge, because of its use 

 of technical terms, and one which to all of us is of increasing interest, the 

 economic relations which should exist between the various portions of a widespread 

 «mpire, with its aspirations after greater cohesion and co-ordinated though distri- 

 buted strength. 



But the very fact that in these respects the various nations differ largely, 

 and that despite these differences the position of the manual labour classes 

 uniformly impresses itself, though perhaps in varying degree, upon the plastic 

 mind of the public, suggests the existence of some positive and active force as a 

 cause for this prominence ; and such we find in the alterations in the conditions 

 of labour, which have led naturally, positively and necessarily to a change in the 

 estimation in which it is held. 



Though the course of economic development during the past century and a half 

 has differed greatly in various countries, being largely affected both by the par- 

 ticular stage of progress to which they have attained and by the varying relative 

 importance of the two great branches of agriculture and manufacture, a change in 

 the method of employment is common to all. In England this feature is displayed 

 in stronger and more definite relief, less embarrassed than elsewhere by extraneous 

 influences ; and it is in England that its nature has been most attentively studied. 

 There the period has been one of undoubted change. The revolution in the 

 methods of industry, of which much has been said, had its counterpart in agricul- 

 ture, less noticed, perhaps, but hardly less important. While in the former the great 

 mechanical inventions, with the introduction of water and steam power, accelerated 

 the change already in progress from a system of small and local industries to a 

 system of great national industry, the agricultural classes were the witnesses of 

 alterations as vital to their interests, and which were to co-operate in producing a 

 remarkable alteration in the general conditions of employment. Owing partly to 

 improvements in agriculture itself, partly to the sweeping eflects of the inclosurea 



