PREFACE.

THE first page of this volume, if it be read with the last, will sufficiently describe its object, as well as the spirit in which it has been written. It records the life of a remarkable man, whose days were devoted to the public service, and who was, to no inconsiderable extent, a benefactor to his country.

An endeavour to afford some insight into the life and labours of those who are engaged in the important, though subordinate official service of the State, has, and it is saying much at the present day, somewhat of novelty to recommend it. We have lives of the unavoidably more conspicuous portion of public men; and not too many even of these. It is a fate to be deprecated that any of the world's benefactors should pass from the world with their histories unrecorded. And yet this is not unfrequently the case. There is no popular life of Watt, and an adequate biography of Huskisson has yet to be accomplished. As far, however, as the last mentioned is concerned, there will be a time for such a work.

This volume will necessarily indicate, incidentally,

the changes which have gradually taken place of late years in our commercial policy. It will, the writer hopes, not very imperfectly mark the steps which led at last to the abandonment in principle, and to a very considerable degree in practice, of the long tried experiment of commercial restriction, for the annihilation of which the subject of these pages toiled with noontide energy for a period of fifty years.

Those who presuppose that the life of a political economist must necessarily, except to a very limited number of readers, be void of interest, will, it is believed in this instance, find themselves mistaken. The succeeding pages may haply also be the means of inducing some persons to look with more complacency than they have hitherto done upon the science of political economy -a science the practical end and object of which is to show how industry may be employed to the best advantage, or how, with the least labour, and the least waste of materials, the greatest amount of comfort and enjoyment may be created for mankind.

So far from this being a subject for the few, it is eminently a subject for the many; it is one which now is, and ought to be, taught in schools, and of which no one should be permitted to remain in ignorance. When it is borne in mind how greatly not only

The Committee of Council on Education have placed some very useful elementary books on Political Economy upon their list for the use of schools which are aided by Parliamentary grant.

the commercial prosperity, but the social and individual comforts of the community are affected by a well or ill-regulated tariff-that its effects for good or for evil are felt all the world over, it must be clear that the subject is essentially a popular one, and worth any amount of pains that may be bestowed upon it. "The doctrines of political economy may admit of exceptions, but never of refutation.” "The remarks of a well-known writer upon the subject are not much too strong where he says, "the proper business of every man, and every hour, is to know as much as he can of political economy. This is the education which must enable him to keep the benefit of his labours for himself. It has, indeed, been defined to be the science of preventing our betters from defrauding us, which is sufficient to account for its being eagerly pursued on the one hand, and vilified on the other."

Coleridge, while he admitted that the great principles of commerce require the interchange of commodities to be free, allowed himself to speak disparagingly of political economy as a science: and the language which he employed has, unfortunately, found imitators in influential quarters. To say that "the tendency of modern political economy is to denationalize," and that "it would dig up the charcoal foundations of the Temple of Ephesus to burn as fuel for a steam engine,Ӡ

*Lord John Russell.

+"Table Talk," vol. ii., p. 327.

is, undoubtedly, excellent as a caricature, and if ridicule were the test of truth, it might be deemed conclusive. Notwithstanding the dictum of a learned lawyer, who is an authority in his profession, surely a collection of truths ascertained by experiment, and upon which wellinformed men are generally agreed, must be considered as a science. It may not be a perfect science, for much probably "remains to be discovered by experience and observation." It has been confidently maintained that the study of it is the highest exercise of the human mind, and that the exact sciences require by no means so hard an effort. Let no one, however, on this account be discouraged in its pursuit. Notwithstanding the well-known lines of Pope, "a little knowledge," so far from being "dangerous," is a great deal better than none at all, upon this, as well as upon almost every other, subject.

And here the author cannot forbear expressing the obligation which he conceives the great mass of English readers lie under to Lord Brougham, for the admirable and interesting lives of David Hume and Adam Smith which he has given to the world. For inducements to read the "Political Discourses" of the first-mentioned writer, the earliest "refutation of the errors which had so long prevailed in commercial policy, and the first philosophical, as well as practical, exposition of those sound principles which ought to be the guide of states

men in their arrangements, as well as of philosophers in their speculations, upon this important subject," he must refer to the biography itself. With respect to Dr. Smith's "Wealth of Nations," he will at once secure the thanks of the reader, if he has not already met with the 66 Lives," by inserting here Lord Brougham's testimony to what he justly terms its prodigious merits.”

66

"The Wealth of Nations' combines both the sound and enlightened views which had distinguished the detached pieces of the French and Italian economists, and, above all, of David Hume, with the great merit of embracing the whole subject; thus bringing the general scope of the principles into view, illustrating all the parts of the inquiry by their combined relations, and confirming their soundness in each instance by their application to the others.

"It is a lesser, but a very important merit, that the style of the writing is truly admirable. There is not a book of better English to be anywhere found. The language is simple, clear, often homely, like the illustrations, not seldom idiomatic, always perfectly adapted to the subject handled. Besides its other perfections, it is one of the most entertaining of books. There is no laying it down after you begin to read. You are drawn on from page to page by the strong

current of the

arguments, the manly sense of the remarks, the ful