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 regard
 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 undertaken
 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 exfrom
 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throwing the formulae of the economist out of date.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 reaction
 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