Comte somewhere speaks of the "transient predilection "for political economy which had shown itself generally in westernEurope.This phase of feeling was specially noticeable in England from the third to the fifth decade of the present century."Up to the year 1818,"said a writer in the Westminister Review ",the science was scarcely known or talked of beyond a smallcircle of philosophers;and legislation,so far from being in conformity with its principles,was daily receding from them moreand more."Mill has told us what a change took place within a few years."Political economy ",he says",had asserted itselfwith great vigour in public affairs by the petition of the merchants of London for free trade,drawn up in 1820by Mr.Tookeand presented by Mr.Alexander Baring,(53)and by the noble exertions of Ricardo during the few years of his parliamentarylife.His writings,following up the impulse given by the bullion controversy,and followed up in their turn by the expositionsand comments of my father and M'Culloch (whose writings in the Edinburgh Review during those years were mostvaluable),had drawn general attention to the subject,making at least partial converts in the Cabinet itself.and Huskisson,supported by Canning,had commenced that gradual demolition of the protective system which one of their colleagues "[Peel]"virtually completed in 1846,though the last vestiges were only swept away by Mr.Gladstone in 1860."Whilst thescience was thus attracting and fixing the attention of active minds,its unsettled condition was freely admitted.Thedifferences of opinion among its professors were a frequent subject of complaint.But it was confidently expected that thesediscrepancies would soon disappear,and Colonel Torrens predicted that in twenty years there would scarcely "exist a doubtrespecting any of its more fundamental principles.""The prosperity,"says Mr.Sidgwick,"that followed on the abolition ofthe corn laws gave practical men a most impressive and satisfying proof of the soundness of the abstract reasoning by whichthe expediency of free trade had been inferred,"and when,in 1848,"a masterly expositor of thought had published a skilfulstatement of the chief results of the controversies of the preceding generation,"with the due "explanations andqualifications "of the reigning opinions,it was for some years generally believed that political economy had "emerged fromthe state of polemical discussion,"at least on its leading doctrines,and that at length a sound construction had been erectedon permanent bases.
This expositor was John Stuart Mill (1806-73).He exercised,without doubt,a greater influence in the field of Englisheconomics than any other writer since Ricardo.His systematic treatise has been,either directly or through manuals foundedon it,especially that of Fawcett,the source from which most of our contemporaries in these countries have derived theirknowledge of the science.But there are other and deeper reasons,as we shall see,which make him,in this as in otherdepartments of knowledge,a specially interesting and significant figure.
In 1844he published five Essays on some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy ,which had been written as early as1829and 1830,but had,with the exception of the fifth,remained in manuscript.In these essays is contained any dogmaticcontribution which he can be regarded as having made to the science.The subject of the first is the laws of interchangebetween nations.He shows that,when two countries trade together in two commodities,the prices of the commoditiesexchanged on both sides (which,as Ricardo had proved,are not determined by cost of production)will adjust themselves,through the play of reciprocal demand,in such a way that the quantities required by each country of the article which itimports from its neighbour shall be exactly sufficient to pay for one another.This is the law which appears,with some addeddevelopments,in his systematic treatise under the name of the "equation of international demand."He then discusses thedivision of the gains.The most important practical conclusion (not,however,by any means an undisputed one)at which hearrives in this essay is,that the relaxation of duties on foreign commodities,not operating as protection but maintained solelyfor revenue should be made contingent on the adoption of some corresponding degree of freedom of trade with England bythe nation from which the commodities are imported.In the second essay,on the influence of consumption on production,the most interesting results arrived at are the propositions-(1)that absenteeism is a local,not a national,evil,and (2)that,whilst there cannot be permanent excess of production,there may be a temporary excess,not only of any one article,but ofcommodities generally,-this last,however,not arising from over-production,but from a want of commercial confidence.Thethird essay relates to the use of the words "productive"and "unproductive"as applied to labour,to consumption,and toexpenditure.The fourth deals with profits and interest,especially explaining and so justifying Ricardo's theorem that "profitsdepend on wages,rising as wages fall and falling as wages rise."What Ricardo meant was that profits depend on the cost ofwages estimated in labour.Hence improvements in the production of articles habitually consumed by the labourer mayincrease profits without diminishing the real remuneration of the labourer.The last essay is on the definition and method ofpolitical economy,a subject later and more maturely treated in the author's System of Logic .
