THREE SYSTEMS OP POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
695 
(in somewhat Hibernian language) that, like oil and water, they will be 
best combined by separating them out as far as possible, and by 
allotting to each its appropriate field ; that in the legislative and 
executive departments this separation may be, and ought to be, 
complete ; but that in the judicial department the same completeness 
is neither necessary nor desirable. In other words, the authority of 
the Crown, while retained in the Commonwealth, should be surrendered 
in the States — surrendered wholly with regard to legislature and 
executive, and partially at least with regard to the judicature. 
6. — THREE SYSTEMS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
By ANDREW G ARRAN, M.A. t LL.D. 
It has been remarked that theories and systems have been moulded 
unconsciously by contemporary conditions of society — that the great 
thinkers who have formulated these systems have absorbed and 
reproduced the spirit of their age without recognising the force that 
was making an impress on their minds, and that therefore to under- 
stand any system thoroughly, we should understand the age in 
which it originated, and the dominant and most obtrusive forces of 
that age. 
There is some justification for this doctrine, if we consider the 
different points of view from which the whole question of political 
economy has been viewed. We are now in a position where, looking 
back upon the past and out upon the present, we can mark off 
distinctly three different systems, based on three different class 
interests. Economically considered, our modern society may be 
regarded as divided into three classes. There is the land-owning 
class that lives mainly on rent, the trading class that lives on profit, 
and the hand or brain-working class that lives on wages or salary — 
that is, on the payment for work. These three classes, though distinct 
enough to be considered separately, shade off into one another in 
practice. The landed class sometimes farms its own land, and some- 
times engages in trade, either through the medium of companies or 
otherwise ; and both landed and trading classes have scions of their 
families who work for salaries. Economically considered, the Lord 
High Admiral is a wage-getter who works for his living and has had 
to go through his apprenticeship just as an ordinary artisan does. 
The wage-getting class, though it has not too much opportunity for it, 
likes to own land when it can, and through the agency of building 
societies and other helps has done a good deal towards securing free- 
hold homes. It is to be regretted that it has not done more. 
But though the three classes named run into each other, they are 
each well marked and have their special characteristics. The members 
of each look out upon the social system from their class point of 
view, and in their meditative hours and in their colloquies with their 
colleagues they instinctively shape their system of political economy 
to suit their own interests. 
In Europe the feudal system made the landed aristocracy socially 
and politically supreme ; and altogether apart from profit, to own land 
became an object of social ambition. In England at one time none 
