PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. WHOEVER contemplates, on the one hand, the enormous powers of production in the United Kingdom; and on the other the misery, which nevertheless grinds down masses of the population, will necessarily conclude, that the circumstances which ensure or promote the due distribution of wealth, are yet unknown or mistaken. He will see the science which assumes to teach these things, discredited, helpless, and utterly at fault. There must be something fearfully wrong, or essentially deficient in the prevailing system. There must necessarily be some error in theory. No adequate practical measures of relief can be devised, till it is discovered. The following sheets are not written to aid a party, but to assist, if possible, in reaching the truth on a very complex and difficult subject. Protectionists will find no defence of a high price of subsistence, and free-traders no acquiescence in their recommendation of unlimited and indiscriminate imports. If any who profess the doctrines of modern English Political Economy, should condescend to cast their eye on these pages, they will, no doubt, dissent from nearly all that is said on free-trade, population, pauperism, wages and currency. But, among Political Economists, as well as among their opponents, in England, France, Germany and America, are to be found those who cherish the true spirit of scientific inquiry. That spirit is a simple devotion to THE TRUTH, whatever it shall turn out to be, and an entire indifference to the results of inquiry, so that they be but TRUE.* Criticism and correction by such is not deprecated, it is respectfully and earnestly invited. The vulgar, however, on both sides, are incapable of independent judgment, take their opinions on trust, and mix up abstract and scientific truth with strong party feelings and predilections. They begin to read with a secret but irresistible wish before-hand; that a particular doctrine should prove true. The discovery of truth is not given to such a disposition. On complex and really disputable subjects, what a man earnestly wishes to be true, he will find true. Reading and inquiry only serve to entrench him in his notions. Whether those notions be truth or error, is the result, not of really free and unprejudiced inquiry, but of previous accident. "To be indifferent which of two opinions is true, is the right temper of the mind, that preserves it from being imposed on, and disposes it to examine. This is the only direct and safe way to TRUTH."-Locke. An apology is due from a lawyer who presumes to meddle with subjects out of his own profession. He is, it is said, a man of narrow mind, and necessarily limited information. It is not for him to say, (perhaps he could not say) that the imputation is unjust. But, by way of compensation, he has, on a subject of this nature, some advantages over others. That narrow and microscopic vision with which he is charged, does not altogether unfit him for the minute and steady examination of the abstract theories of Political Economy. He has no interest, except in the general welfare. And living, as a mere lawyer does, retired from the world and general politics, he has a chance of being in a measure, exempt from the prejudices of party, and from that fanaticism, which in politics and Political Economy, as well as in other things, sometimes, like an epidemic, seizes the people, high and low. is In France, Germany, Holland, and the United States, the general opinion of educated men on these subjects very different from that which yet reigns here. Indeed, until lately, no Englishman, who should have ventured to dispute the passionate persuasion of the public, could have hoped for a fair and candid hearing. It was necessary to wait. As a brilliant Frenchman once said of fanaticism of a different sort: "Il faut attendre que l'air soit purifié." No one is more conscious of the defects to be found in these pages, than the writer. He is sensible that a But more popular tone has been adopted, than is, perhaps, quite appropriate to the severity of such inquiries. it was necessary. A mere dry dissertation, in the better style of political economists, about yards of cloth, and quarters of corn, would never have had even a chance of being read. He trusts, however, that he has not been betrayed into any disrespectful or uncandid language towards those who think differently, and who are, perhaps, better informed. London, October 31, 1849. |