674 POLITICAL ECONOMY quoted above, to the effect that the demand for labor can only increase in proportion to the increase of the "funds destined for the pay- ment of wages." Among the most prominent of English political economists at the present day is Prof. J. E. Cairnes, whose most elabo- rate production, " Some leading Principles of Political Economy newly Expounded," was published in 1874. While the author says that it is " an attempt to recast some considerable portion of political economy," he would " be sorry it were regarded as in any sense antag- onistic in its attitude toward the science built up by the labors of Adam Smith, Malthus, Ricardo, and Mill." " Nor do the final con- clusions which I have reached ditf er very wide- ly on any important points from those at which they have arrived. The points on which I have ventured to join issue with them are what, in Bacon's language, may be called the axiomata media of the science those interme- diate principles by means of which the de- tailed results are connected with the higher causes, which produce them. If I have not deceived myself, there is in this portion of political economy, as at present generally re- ceived, no small proportion of faulty mate- rial." Prof. W. Stanley Jevons, M. A., pub- lished in 1871 " The Theory of Political Econ- omy," in which he endeavors to construct a theory of the subject on a mathematical or quantitative basis, believing that many of the commonly received theories are perniciously erroneous. He treats political economy as the calculus of pleasure and pain, and he applies the differential calculus to wealth, utility, value, demand, supply, capital, interest, labor, &c. Prof. Henry Fawcett's " Manual of Political economy " (1863), which has passed through several editions, is very decided in its advo- cacy of Ricardo's theory of rent and Malthus's of population. The book, like almost all of its school, treats solely of a science of wealth. While the author is in the fullest sense of the word a believer in the doctrines of Locke, Mon- tesquieu, and Hume in regard to the effect of the volume of money on prices, he maintains that the use of the various forms of credit and of checks and clearing houses may increase prices in a. like manner with an increase in the vol- ume of money. He takes ground against the wisdom and expediency of Sir Robert Peel's bank-charter act. (See BANK.) Herbert Spen- cer has projected "Principles of Sociology," as a part of his system of philosophy, the publica- tion of which was begun in 1860. In 1873 he published "The Study of Sociology." " Several years since," says Prof. E. L. Youmans, "Mr. Spencer foresaw the difficulty that would arise in working out the principles of social science, from a lack of the data or facts necessary as a basis of reasoning upon the subject, and he saw that before the philosophy could be elabo- rated these facts must be systematically and exhaustively collected;" and he quotes Spen- cer as early as 1859 to show how clearly he then " perceived the nature, diversity, and ex- tent of the facts upon which a true social science must rest." Almost the entire existing school of English political economists advocate " free trade " as the rule of intercourse between nations. Exceptions may be named in the Rt. Hon. Sir John Barnard Byles, author of "So- phisms of Free Trade and Popular Political Economy" (London, 1849 ; 9th ed., 1870), and Sir Edward Sullivan, " Protection to Native Industry " (London and Philadelphia, 1870). Dr. Franklin is the earliest American politico- economic writer of whom we have any rec- ord; he published at Philadelphia in 1729 "A Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency," of which at a subse- quent period he said: "It was well received by the common people in general, but the rich men disliked it, for it increased and strength- ened the clamor for more money ; and as they happened to have no writers among them that were able to answer it, their opposition slack- ened, and the point was carried by a majority in the house." This was followed by " Obser- vations concerning the Increase of Mankind and the Peopling of Countries" (1751), other papers on paper money before and during the revolution, and various other productions. In some of these he maintained doctrines par- taking somewhat of those of the school of Quesnay ; in others he is shown to have pre- sented in advance of Adam Smith views such as were elaborated and brought into promi- nence by that author. " A Discourse concern- ing the Currencies of the British Plantations in America, especially with regard to their Paper Money," published in Boston in 1740 and reprinted in Lord Overstone's volume of " Scarce and Valuable Tracts on Paper Currency and Banking " (1857), is a valuable production, evincing much research. In a "Letter from a Gentleman in Philadelphia to his Friend in London," published in 1765, known to have been written by John Dickinson, afterward president of Pennsylvania, and a member of congress during the revolution, the current of trade with the mother country, the extent to which that trade had exhausted the colonies of coin, the importance of an emission of paper money properly secured, the policy of pro- moting manufactures among themselves, and other questions of this character, are exam- ined. In 1791 appeared in Philadelphia "Po- litical Essays on the Nature and Operations of Money, Public Finances, and other Subjects, published during the American War and con- tinued up to the Present Year," by Pelatiah Webster. These essays are full of facts, fig- ures, and vigorous reasoning. The author was a violent opponent of paper money, and espe- cially of its issue in the manner in which it had been done by the continental congress, almost without limit, and without the neces- sary taxation to withdraw it from circula- tion. On Jan. 14, 1790, Alexander Hamil- ton, the first secretary of the treasury un-
