Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/99

 Rh, and there was less possibility of expansion in the revenue derived from this source. But it was also due to the fact that though the theory of rent was not generally understood, there was a clearer apprehension of the truth that the production from the soil was primarily dependent on the capital employed in improvements, and that if capital were plentiful, agriculture and all connected with it would be flourishing too. The time of rural improvement had begun, and capitalists under the inducement offered by the bounty on export were sinking their capital in land. There was no need for special anxiety about this source of taxation. Besides this, Walpole had reorganized another of these funds—the Customs; for he had effected a revolution in our tariff; he entirely reconstructed it with a view of promoting our industrial prosperity, and did not regard it merely as a source of revenue, but chiefly as an instrument for directing industry, or stimulating it. It thus came about that the three topics which had engrossed attention in the seventeenth century, the balance of trade, high rents, and the customs, entirely lost their old importance. Though the old subjects are discussed and many of the old phrases are retained, there is a marked advance in the thoroughness of economic studies in the middle of the eighteenth century, as compared even with those of the revolutionary period and certainly with the writers of still earlier times.

4. Indeed, while there was the same desire as of old to guide the industry and commerce of the country so as to promote its power, there are general indications that men were beginning to feel a difficulty in applying any of their tests rigidly, and deciding what would prove beneficial. Some were inclined to collect additional infomation, to fall back upon the history of some department of industry for a considerable number of years, to note its periods of prosperity or of failure and to try and assign the causes which had affected it in either case. The most remarkable and complete of such treatises is John Smith's Chronicon-Rusticum-Commerciale, or Memoirs of Wool, a book which gives an exceedingly detailed account, based on documentary evidence, of the growth of this staple trade. The policy which was pursued in one period is contrasted with the line that was taken at another time, and contemporary literature is drawn on in the fullest possible manner, with the view of indicating the bearings of the change.

These careful historical monographs had a very direct bearing on some of the practical questions of the time. It may be said that all the inconvenience then felt about the coinage was ultimately