176 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
from industry to industry within an old country, and overlooked the 
possibility of its transference to the same industry in another country. 
The migration of skilled labour to carry on its old occupation in a protected 
country does not take place on so large a scale as the migration of fresh 
manufacturing capital. But it has taken place repeatedly and is taking 
place now. And whether we in England or any other of the older countries 
view the phenomenon with complacency or concern, it presents a different 
picture to our eyes from that which was present either to Smith or to 
McCulloch. 
9. The last of the large ideas which characterised the period we are 
considering is the unique emphasis it laid upon cheapness to the consumer 
as the test of social policy. I shall not go beyond Adam Smith for this. 
I will only quote three well-known passages. In the first he says: ‘ In 
every country it always is and always must be the interest of the great 
body of the people to buy whatever they want of those who sell it cheapest. 
The proposition is so very manifest that it seems ridiculous to take any 
pains to prove it.’ ®° 
In the second, with the same crushing air of certitude: ‘ Consumption 
is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the 
producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for 
promoting that of the consumer. The maxim is so perfectly self-evident, 
that it would be absurd to attempt to prove it.’ * 
The third passage is a compact summary of the system he founded. 
It is that in which he speaks, as it were in passing, of ‘ the cheapness of 
consumption and the encouragement given to production’ as ‘ precisely 
the two objects which it is the great business of political economy to 
promote.’ ” 
I remember, when I was at Harvard, going, in the company of Francis 
Walker, to dine at the house of Edward Atkinson. None could know 
Atkinson without liking him ; and we had personal reasons that evening 
for being interested in ‘ the Atkinson Cooker.’ But all I remember of the 
economic discussion which followed the repast was Walker’s snort of 
speechless protest when Atkinson explained that to buy in the cheapest 
market and sell in the dearest was to carry out the Golden Rule. I 
thought it was only a playful extravagance on Atkinson’s part, but original. 
I had not read my Cobden then as I have since had occasion to do. I did 
not know that the identification which startled Walker out of his politeness 
forms the concluding paragraph of one of Cobden’s great speeches.*? I 
had forgotten, also, that moving passage in one of his pamphlets in which 
Cobden declared that, in place of many of the glittering mottoes of our 
forefathers, ‘ we must substitute the more homely and enduring maxim— 
cheapness, which will command commerce; and whatever else is needful 
wil follow in its train.’ 4 
Some of the criticisms one comes across of Cobden are, one must confess, 
a little hasty. As the organiser of the first Faculty of Commerce in a 
British University, I should be the last to deny the vast importance of 
$0 W. of N., Bk. IV., ch. iii. (IL, 68.) 
1 Bk. IV., ch. viii. (IL, 244.) 
® Bk. V., ch. i. (IL., 333.) 
3 Heb. 27, 1846. 
94 Russia (1836), in Political Writings, p. 125, 
