ECONOMIC EXPERTS 
739 
National interests seemed to be involved! in giving play to Ad, 176 
the captains of industry to manage their own affairs without 
let or hindrance. Those who regarded freedom for enterprise 
as an ideal, were inclined to insist that it was a natural right 
which had been preserved by constitutional safeguards? A 
Committee of the House of Commons gave a new reading 
of the rights of Englishmen. “The right of every man to Te vigour 
employ the Capital he inherits or has acquired according to they in- 
his own discretion without molestation or obstruction, so long ee 
as he does not infringe on the rights or property of others is Por 
one of those privileges which the free and happy Constitution 
of this Country has long accustomed every Briton to consider 
as his birth-right2” The body to whom these words were 
addressed had definitely adopted the standpoint of the 
economic experts of the day, and they in turn constituted 
themselves the apologists of the enterprising capitalists. In 
looking back we can see that, while it was necessary to sweep 
away the barriers to industrial progress, something might 
have been done to mitigate the evils by which the change was 
accompanied. But the House of Commons came to believe 
that all attempts at interference with the free play of enter- amd ~ 
prise were mischievous, and the language adopted by economic rraditional 
experts accentuated the differences and widened the breach oe 
between the various elements in the community. The prac- 
tical partisanship of such classical writers as Ricardo, Malthus, 
and Mill, together with the pronouncements of the Manchester 
School, comes out in the attitude they took towards those 
who laid stress on elements other than capital in national 
prosperity. In the early part of the nineteenth century, the as to the 
working classes continued to hold to the Elizabethan view of Ti the 
the duty of the State to foster a busy and prosperous work- “rer 
ing class; and economic experts denounced them for their 
ignorance, and solemnly warned as to the consequences of andithe 
their shortsighted folly. The landed interest, who adhered to spiny 
the traditional principle as to the necessity of protecting and Hos 
encouraging agriculture, in order to maintain the food supply Jo 
1 On the fact that the promotion of national economic interests must always 
favour the interests of certain classes to the disadvantage of others, see above, p. 16. 
% On the tradition of freedom in economic matters, see above, p. 286. 
Quoted by 8S. and B. Webb from Reports. 1806. mx. 12. 
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