In the year 1825, Henry Drummond, Esq. of Albury Park, Surrey, and
formerly of Christchurch, subjected his estate in Surrey with a yearly
rent-charge of 100_l._ for the endowment of a professorship in
Political Economy, under certain conditions. Mr. Senior, whose name is
not unknown to students of political economy, has been appointed first
professor, and in his first lecture gives the following illustration of
the advantages of the science:--
If we compare the present situation of the people of England with that
of their predecessors at the time of Cæsar's invasion; if we contrast
the warm and dry cottage of the present labourer, its chimney and glass
windows, (luxuries not enjoyed by Cæsar himself,) the linen and
woollen clothing of himself and his family, the steel, and glass, and
earthenware with which his table is furnished, the Asiatic and American
ingredients of his food, and above all, his safety from personal injury,
and his calm security that to-morrow will bring with it the comforts
that have been enjoyed to-day; if, I repeat, we contrast all these
sources of enjoyment with the dark and smoky burrows of the Brigantes or
the Cantii, their clothing of skins, their food confined to milk and
flesh, and their constant exposure to famine and to violence, we shall
be inclined to think those who are lowest in modern society richer than
the chiefs of their rude predecessors. And if we consider that the same
space of ground which afforded an uncertain subsistence to a hundred, or
probably fewer, savages, now supports with ease more than a thousand
labourers, and, perhaps, a hundred individuals beside, each consuming
more commodities than the labour of a whole tribe of Ancient Britons
could have produced or purchased, we may at first be led to doubt
whether our ancestors enjoyed the same natural advantages as ourselves;
whether their sun was as warm, their soil as fertile, or their bodies as
strong, as our own.
But let us substitute distance of space for distance of time; and,
instead of comparing situations of the same country at different
periods, compare different countries at the same period, and we shall
find a still more striking discrepancy. The inhabitant of South America
enjoys a soil and a climate, not superior merely to our own, but
combining all the advantages of every climate and soil possessed by the
remainder of the world. His valleys have all the exuberance of the
tropics, and his mountain-plains unite the temperature of Europe to a
fertility of which Europe offers no example. Nature collects for him,
within the space of a morning's walk, the fruits and vegetables which
she has elsewhere separated by thousands of miles. She has given him
inexhaustible forests, has covered his plains with wild cattle and
horses, filled his mountains with mineral treasures, and intersected all
the eastern face of his country with rivers, to which our Rhine and
Danube are merely brooks. But the possessor of these riches is poor and
miserable. With all the materials of clothing offered to him almost
spontaneously, he is ill-clad; with the most productive of soils, he is
ill-fed: though we are told that the labour of a week will there procure
subsistence for a year, famines are of frequent occurrence; the hut of
the Indian, and the residence of the landed proprietor, are alike
destitute of furniture and convenience; and South America, helpless and
indigent with all her natural advantages, seems to rely for support and
improvement on a very small portion of the surplus wealth of England.
It is impossible to consider these phenomena without feeling anxious to
account for them; to discover whether they are occasioned by
circumstances unsusceptible of investigation or regulation, or by causes
which can be ascertained, and may be within human control. To us, as
Englishmen, it is of still deeper interest to inquire whether the causes
of our superiority are still in operation, and whether their force is
capable of being increased or diminished; whether England has run her
full career of wealth and improvement, but stands safe where she is; or,
whether to remain stationary is impossible, and it depends on her
institutions and her habits, on her government, and on her people,
whether she shall recede or continue to advance.
The answer to all these questions must be sought in the science which
teaches in what wealth consists, by what agents it is produced, and
according to what laws it is distributed, and what are the institutions
and customs by which production may be facilitated, and distribution
regulated, so as to give the largest possible amount of wealth to each
individual. And this science is _Political Economy.--Senior's Lecture
on Political Economy._
* * * * *