406 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM 
AD. 1659 or prejudicial’? There was a close affinity between this 
"economic position and the political aims of the party. The 
Rarnoniod Whigs were hostile to France, and bitterly jealous of French 
jealousy of influence politically; they were eager to attack the power 
France. 7 . : _ 
they dreaded, by protective legislation. French competition 
was the chief rival which English manufacturers had to 
fear; and they were able to furnish the Whigs, who were 
nervously suspicious of French influence, with an excuse for 
checking intercourse with that country, and for hindering 
the development of its trade. A similar line of economic 
policy was adopted by the Whigs in regard to the manu- 
factures imported from other regions. The English pro- 
ducers of textile fabrics alleged that their markets were 
spoiled by the importation of East Indian goods, and the 
Whigs were not averse to harass the trade of the great 
joint-stock Company, which had come under the rule of 
Tory magnates. There was a close connection between the 
political affinities of the Whig party and the economic 
scheme of protecting native industry. During the period 
of Whig ascendancy, the economic policy of the country 
became a thoroughgoing imitation of the principles of 
Louis XIV.’s great minister Colbert?, though they were pub 
into effect, not by royal mandates as in France, but by 
parliamentary legislation. 
ie da 210. The increasing power of the House of Commons 
House of is shown not only in the manner in which that assembly 
Commons a able to determine the general lines of economic policy, 
adminis: hut also in the new attitude which members assumed 
authority towards the administration. They were no longer content 
with criticising the blunders of the King’s servants, but 
attempted to get the control of certain departments into 
their own hands. Students of the English constitution long 
believed that it was framed so as to ensure a severance of 
the legislative and executive powers, and this view appears 
to have been held by William and his most faithful sup- 
porters; but the House of Commons was not prepared to 
submit to this opinion, and succeeded in getting it aside. 
1 Proposals made by his late Highness the Prince of Orange for redressing and 
amending the Trade of the Republic, 23. 
2 On Colbert's system, compare P. Clement, Colbert et son administration: 
also Sargent, The Economic Policy of Colbert.