Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/101

 Rh very greatly in value as compared both with corn and with the rates and wages.

Both of these works give evidence of exhaustive research and of intelligent criticism. In neither respect are they really rivalled by the extraordinary collection of information on all matters connected with English industry and commerce, which was originally published in 1764 by Mr. Anderson. The Annals of Commerce are a monument of painstaking industry, and there is no branch of the subject in regard to which they do not render invaluable service, but the work is primarily a work of reference; it is a collection of materials which seems to be almost inexhaustible, and later students cannot be sufficiently grateful for the painstaking industry of this careful historian; but since the work is arranged in the unpretentious form of annals, it does not pretend to be more than a storehouse of materials, and though there is some acute criticism, the book is less effective as a whole than might have been the case il there had been a serious attempt to string these disjointed fragments into a connected history.

The one man who united a profound knowledge of economic literature, as it had grown up in the two preceding centuries, with a keen interest in the practical economic difficulties of his time, was Joseph Massie. He had spared no expense in forming a collection which contained some fifteen hundred tracts and treatises; and the study of these had served to make him a discriminating critic. In particular he had felt that numbers of pamphleteers, who pretended to be arguing for the good of the public, were really actuated by some selfish and personal motive. Statements of fact in many cases required careful examination; and in not a few instances the writing was so specious, and the motive of private interest was so plain that it was necessary to discount much of the argument. To his mind the real need seemed to be a criterion which would enable us to distinguish the national from the personal interest. His scheme for attaining this desirable end was thorough and painstaking, as he believed it might be reached not by trusting to a single criterion, but by an exhaustive examination of the phenomena of industrial and commercial life so as to establish 'commercial knowledge upon fixed principles.' 'There is no other way,' he says, 'to acquire a satisfactory knowledge of the state, &c., of the manufactures and trade of this kingdom than by treating of each branch