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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A.D. 1689 —1776. was not well fitted to exercise this respon nbility judi- crously. Trading Companies had re- course to corrupt means of pbtaining public supports 104 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM discriminating between the claims of different interests, and for determining how far any of them were compatible with, or inimical to, the public welfare. It has already been pointed out that all interference with industry, or commerce, on public grounds must be beneficial to some individuals. and deleterious to others, In all State intervention in economic affairs, there is a constant temptation to sub- ordinate the public good to some private gain. The reasons alleged for favouring particular interests were often ex- tremely plausible; and in any case, the House of Commons of that period was singularly unfitted for the discharge of the delicate duty of promoting the material prosperity of the realm. The men who had come to the front, after the Revolution, do not seem to have been of a better type, morally or socially, than the members of the Long Parlia- ment?. In all probability they were less incorruptible; and their temptations were greater, as the resources in the hands of the moneyed interest were much larger than they had ever been before. The East India Companies were the chief sinners in connection with the bribery which went on during the last decade of the seventeenth century. Sir Josiah Child had made large presents to obtain royal favour, and now he was equally lavish in securing Parlia- mentary support’. The promoters of the new Company struck out a line for themselves, and bribed the electors* as well as the members of the House. Constitutional changes had brought about a state of affairs in which their privileges rendered Members of Parliament free from the dread of royal displeasure, while there was little danger that their action would be criticised by their constituents’. However much William IIL and his advisers might regret the necessity, they felt themselves forced to follow the example of Clifford and the Cabal, and purchase support in the Commons. The practice was developed still farther by Walpole, and it was by means of this guilty alliance, between the Crown and a section of the Commons, that the 1 See above, p. 16. i: Davenant, The True Picture of a Modern Whig, in Works, Iv. 128. See p. 183 above. 8 Macaulay, History, Iv. (1855), 426, 551. 4 Bishop Burnet's History of his Own Time, Iv. 464; Ralph, History of England, 11. 926. 6 Macaulay, History, ur. 544.

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