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    agricultural , tyhefre some capitalist was enclosing waste land . He could not sit in an inn an hour , or walk the length of a street , without perceiving that our gentlemen know nothing , generally speaking , of political economy . The few who do understand it are gentlemen , we admit . It is but too evident that the middling and lower classes are ignorant of it yet ; but the few who are

    not , would form an almost indistinguishable portion of the nation , if their number were the measure of their importance . Their talents and philanthropy have brought notice and abuse upon them at home , and honour abroad ; their talents and philanthropy alone , for they have no adventitious help . They are not in our ministry ; they are not in our senate ; they are not , with two h

    or tree exceptions , in our universities or public schools . The press alone is open to them ; and that they have obtained for our nation such a reputation as the American Professor innocently assigns us , is a proof which it is exhilarating to receive of the greatness and stability of the power they have won in opposition to the blind prejudices of the people and the haughty irrationality of the aristocracy . Dr . Cooper refers to some of the principles

    of the administration of Lord Liverpool , Canning , and Huskisson , in proof of the advance of the science in this country . It is true that we owe a change for the better to these statesmen , but it would amuse any one who did not think the matter too serious for a laugh , to observe how obscure , and imperfect , and feeble , is the recognition of grand principles of policy among those who are looked upon as our most adventurous statesmen . They are all bit-by-bit reformers , when any departments of this science are

    in question . They all flounder among the details when the direct road to principles is open ; and let the question relate to what it may , —to Indian affairs , or poor-laws for Ireland , or the corn-laws , or colonial monopolies , or any other politico-economical point , the time of the house and the patience of clear-sighted men are invariably wasted by frivolous discussions on irrelevant

    subjects , or on difficulties which ought to have been laid to rest long ago . We cannot think that this would be the case in a debate on Macbeth , or Windsor Forest , though it possibly might on a question of the liberty of unlicensed printing . Many popular representatives prefer shooting and billiards to studying Ricardo , as much as Charles Fox preferred tending his geraniums to reading Adam Smith .

    We hold , however , that the blame does not chiefly rest with these gentlemen themselves . We wish they represented their constituents as faithfully in all things as in their ignorance of political economy . If they did , the cry for reform would be very gentle * and would come from a different quarter * It is true that the representatives of the people ought to be able to point out to their constituents the origin and nature of whatever evils they , know only in their effects . This is the only way of making repre-

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    On the Duty of Studying Political Economtf *\ 25

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1832, page 25, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1804/page/25/