4 HALVDAN KOHT. [No. 3. 



We cannot, therefore, explain its conrse without asking primarily: 

 what kind of economic society prevailed in England and America 

 respectively? 



Until the end of the eighteenth Century, the government of 

 England was entirely in the hands of the landlords ; the interests 

 of this class were predominant in the politics of the country. 

 Under Queen Anne, there was carried a law making the pos- 

 session of a certain amount of landed property an essential 

 qualification for members of Parliament, and that law continued 

 unaltered till 1838. The nobihty formed the House of Lords; 

 it nominated the members of the House of Commons; the modem 

 cities were very inadequately represented in this latter assembly. 

 The sway of the ruling class was, in reality, very little affected 

 by the transfer of power from one party to another. The 

 Whigs who controlled the government during the whole period 

 from 1715 till 1760, were, according to Lecky, supposed to be 

 principally the representatives of the commercial interests and of 

 the middle classes; but Lecky himself at the same time admits 1 

 that they sought to check every reform that could arouse oppo- 

 sition and made it a great end of their policy to humour and 

 conciliate to the utmost the country gentry, thus maintaining a 

 government conservative in the true sense of the word. The lines 

 of party division were blurred and confused, people being ranked 

 as Whigs who, at other times, would have been enrolled among 

 the Tories, and it was indeed personal factions rather than 

 parties divided by principles that fought for power. 



The economic policy of a society governed in that way could 

 not fail to take its ideals from the age of Natural-Oekonomie. 

 This was the Mercantile System, which, actually, sought to 

 restrain rather than promote the exchange of merchandise. The 

 purpose and principle of government was to make each nation 

 as self-sustaining as possible; it was thought best for a nation 

 to buy nothing from foreigners, only seiling its own produce and 

 getting hard cash in return. 



1 A History of England in the 18. Century, I. 473; II. 464. 



