740 
LAISSEZ FAIRE 
A.D. 1776 
—1850. 
of the country, were held up to scorn for their selfishness, 
The economic science of the day supplied admirable weapons 
for mutual recrimination, and helped to embitter the relations 
of class with class; but the general policy which it approved 
was that of letting things drift, and the House of Commons 
was nervously afraid of taking any step which, in the opinion 
of economic experts, might in any way injure the trade of our 
merchants and manufacturers. 
This indisposition to act was specially noticeable in re- 
gard to matters which affected the well-being of the working 
classes. The masters at the beginning of last century do not 
appear to have been unscrupulous advocates of their own 
interests; some of them were prepared to accept the legis- 
The eq \Btive interference which was demanded by the hands. The 
Economists thoroughgoing support of the capitalist position was under- 
taken by economic experts, and the doctrines they propounded 
led men to think that the sufferings of the poor were not 
only their misfortune but their fault, and that to try to aid 
them was foolish and mischievous. This was the impression 
produced on public opinion by the theory of the Wages Fund 
and the teaching of Malthus in regard to population. 
The Classical Economists were apparently unaware that in 
their studies of particular problems they were necessarily 
examining the phenomena in a form which was determined 
by the conditions and circumstances of their own time. 
Their analysis was acute and of permanent value; but in 
attempting to give the results they reached a scientific 
character, the economists were occasionally guilty of hasty 
pewsralised generalisation. Political Economy co-ordinates recent ex- 
from the . y x 
special con- Perience and lays down the ‘law!’ as to what will happen so 
titions of Jong as social and physical conditions remain unchanged; 
day but social and physical conditions are always changing, and 
throwing the formulae of the economist out of date. The 
positive doctrines of the classical economists were received 
with exaggerated deference in their own day as if they 
had enunciated maxims which hold good for all time; a re- 
action has since set in, and their teaching has been unduly 
increased 
class 
bitterness. 
1 On the confusion consequent on the use of this term in Economics, see 
Cunningham, 4 Plea for Pure Theory, in Economic Review, 11. 37, 41