Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/98

 78 be procured, either for agriculture, manufacture, or commerce; thirdly, the condition of the poor, as showing how far the labourers could maintain themselves and add by their work to the wealth of the country, or how far they were dependent on funds procured by others.

3. These were the main topics of discussion among the economists in the middle of the eighteenth century in so far as they dealt with anything larger than the technique of particular arts or of commercial transactions as a whole. There was plenty of writing on these special points, as there had been in the preceding century; but little of it is of first-rate importance with regard to the general progress of economic study. This was gradually penetrating more deeply, however; and the writers of the middle of the eighteenth century were able to neglect subjects which their predecessors at the time of the Revolution had put into the forefront. Since the expenses of government could be defrayed by borrowing, the policy of hoarding treasure was no longer of importance; it simply drops out of sight altogether. Though attention was still constantly directed to the Balance of Trade, the significance which was attached to it had entirely altered. In the seventeenth century, it was supposed to measure the possible accumulations of treasure; in the eighteenth it was treated as a criterion of the flourishing condition of our industry. If we parted with more goods than we received, it was clear that we were supplying ourselves successfully and had something over to sell; if we were buying more goods than we sent abroad, it seemed to show that we were unable to provide for our own subsistence. The accuracy of the information supplied by this index may certainly be questioned. In the present day the movements of capital and interest to and from foreign lands render it absolutely valueless; but it is clear that those who used it as an index were on a different plane of thought from the writers who had laid stress on the form in which the balance was defrayed and the accumulation of bullion to which a 'gaining' trade would lead.

There are other matters in regard to which we may detect a change of view, for we hear far less about the high rental of land as a matter of congratulation. This was perhaps partly due to a change of fiscal policy; the land-tax had been assessed