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.