The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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ADAM SMITH AND THE WEALTH OF NATIONS 593 economic. There was no positive political ideal which ap- AD is pealed to the various elements of the population alike and which they were anxious to realise. The simplest scheme for preventing the recurrence of economic mischiefs in Ireland, and in regard to its relations to England, seemed to be the absorption of both countries under the control of a single Parliament, in which both were represented and which should treat both alike. 240. The break-down of Parliamentary Colbertism, om through the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the plied a changed policy adopted towards Ireland in 1779, syn- ff ” chronised with the diffusion of certain new ideas of economic thischange; policy which were inconsistent with the reconstruction of the Mercantile System in any form. In 1776 Adam Smith published the Wealth of Nations, and the argument of that epoch-making book went to show that the principles, on which all systems of national economy had rested, were in themselves untenable. It is not necessary to follow out the interesting investigations which have recently taken place as to the obligations of Adam Smith to other writers, or as to the manner in which his opinions took shape in his own mind®; we are merely concerned to note their extra- ordinary practical importance in sapping the foundations of the economic policy which had been in vogue, in our own and other lands, for some centuries. Till his time the main object, which publicists who dealt by treating with economic topics had had before their minds, was the Wont power of the country; they set themselves to discuss the particular aspects of industry and commerce which would conduce to this end, according to the circumstances of different countries. The requirements of the State had been the first consideration of seventeenth century writers, and they had worked back to the funds in the possession of the people from which these requirements could be supplied. Adam Smith approached the subject from the other end. The first object of political economy, as he understood it, was “to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the 1 See the introduction to his edition of Adam Smith's Lectures on Justice, Revenue and Arms, by E. Cannan.

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