ECONOMIC EXPERTS 737 
of the artisans is the prominent feature of the time. Nor A.D. 1776 
were their leaders inclined at first to take any part in 
legislative movements for improving any particular social 
conditions; their energies were entirely absorbed in the 
effort to obtain a share of political power?, in the hope that 
they could then remedy all their wrongs. Their keenest 
feeling was a sense of the injustice done them, and of the 
hopelessness of attaining real redress until they had an 
effective voice in the government of the country. 
265. While the working classes were waiting angrily for 
the power and opportunity of giving effect to their views, 
Parliament seemed to be singularly supine. At no previous 
time of widely diffused suffering throughout the country had 
the Legislature been content to remain so inert as it was in 
the period after the long wars. An impression began to be 
disseminated that the propertied classes were wholly in- 
different to the sufferings of the poor. But this was not the 
case ; the inaction of the House of Commons was due to the 
opinion, which had become more and more prevalent among 
educated men, that any interference on the part of the 
Government was injurious to the material prosperity of the i ablput 
community, and that no legislative remedy could be devised legislation 
which would really mitigate the miseries of the poor. It was 
not so much that Parliament failed to devise satisfactory 
remedies, during the first quarter of the nineteenth century, 
as that the Legislature regarded itself as excused from at- 
tempting to find either palliatives or a cure. 
The paralysis which affected State action during this 
period, was chiefly due to the influence of the economic 
experts of the day. Ricardo, Malthus, the elder Mill and as Bp 
other writers of the school of Adam Smith, were clear and fluence of 
vigorous thinkers, who were keenly interested in developing ceperts. 
the science which he had founded. They added immensely to 
the understanding of some aspects of social and economic 
progress; but as guides on practical matters they were most 
misleading. They were wholly unaware that the principles 
they enunciated were only true under certain limitations. 
The re- 
luctance of 
Parlia- 
ment 
Adolph Held, Zwei Biicher zur socialen geschschte Englands, p. 340. 
4 
ou