reason. We find protection, for instance, dominating the United States and Germany, two of the most "advanced" communities of the present day. To account for these inconsistencies is to hold that we are in an intermediate stage half-way between barefaced ignorance and full-fledged knowledge. It may be suggested, indeed, that political economy itself has not advanced far since the days of Aristotle. The claims of this Nineteenth Century rest on the wider dissemination rather than on the actual advance of knowledge. The Greek masses may have known nothing of economical truths. But then at best the modern English masses only know in part. Even in the House of Commons it has recently been asserted that "the consumers are not more probably than one-tenth of the human race." The epoch has yet to dawn when all men shall know in full. And it may well be doubted whether this intermediate stage is not worse than the first. It is certainly more liable to lead men dangerously astray. Thus, there needs more than ever a perpetual witness to the best knowledge of the day; or counterfeit knowledge will assert a sway to which pure ignorance never aspired. False ideas unfortunately blossom into policies * with no less frequency than true ideas. And it is the special mission of political economy to expose the economical fallacy of any ideas that are put forward from time to time as the bases of possible policies. By this means alone is statesmanship secured against the adoption, through ignorance or through this more specious semi-knowledge, courses that can only lead to economical disaster. of There is the essential difficulty for the political economist himself to come by true ideas. The first chapter of this book is devoted to the task of establishing an efficient method for this purpose. Many authorities on political economy tell us this science is served by induction, deduction, verification or observation, but that it lacks the important aid of experiment, the great ally of the physical investigator. But it may be advanced that the criticism of the contentions of other thinkers is to the political economist a very fair substitute for the material proper to the activity of experiment. As a critic he is enabled to dissect and experiment upon any body of opinions that has been consistently set up as a true explanation of facts. Thus, if in the following pages theorists find doubts implied in their theories, may these doubts act as the dull steel, and strike from their sharp flints sparks of greater enlightenment for us all. G. B. P. 8, ST. GEORGE'S PLACE, S.W. CONTENTS. CHAPTER II.-PROTECTION AS AN INSTRUMENT OF GOVERNMENT, § 1. The True Functions of Government § 2. Individual Energy and Unity of Contribution §3. The State Sovereignty-Division of Labour § 4. Governments Liable to Error $5. Governments enjoy Highest Knowledge § 6. Width of Treatment Necessary. § 2. Young Societies Differ greatly in Character and Ante- 63 § 1. The Manner of Appropriation and Use of the Soil Determines the Character of Production in a Com- munity; Specially is this True in Young Societies; Any Definite Land Policy then Becomes Protective 65 § 2. Free Grant and Low Price seek to Set up a Peasant Proprietor Class; and End by Establishing Large §3. High Prices seek to Introduce Agriculture of a CHAPTER V.-PROTECTION IN REGARD TO LABOUR. § 1. Labour as an Industry; Self-Regulating in Old § 2. Not Self-Regulating in New Societies; When it has 4. Labour in New Societies, being more Profitable, Labourers uselessly seek to keep out Competition. CHAPTER VI.-PROTECTION IN REGARD TO CAPITAL. § 1. Capital must be attracted; and used for the best: 68 77 87 [02 38 |