A similar office was performed in England by Thomas Mun.In his two works,A Discourse of Trade from England unto theEast Indies ,2nd ed.,1621,and especially in England's Treasure by Foreign Trade ,1664(posthumous),we have for thefirst time a clear and systematic statement of the theory of the balance of trade,as well as of the means by which,accordingto the author's view,a favourable balance could be secured for England.The great object of the economic policy of a state,according to him,should be so to manage its export of manufactures,its direct and carrying trade,and its customs duties,asto attract to itself money from abroad.He was,however,opposed to the prohibition of the export of the precious metals inexchange for foreign wares,but on the ground,fully according with his general principles,that those wares might afterwardsbe re-exported and might then bring back more treasure than had been originally expended in their purchase;the first exportof money might be,as he said,the seed-time,of which the ultimate receipt of a larger amount would be the harvest.(10)Hesaw,too,that it is inexpedient to have too much money circulating in a country,as this enhances the prices of commodities,and so makes them less saleable to foreigners,but he is favourable to the formation and maintenance of a state treasure.(11)One of the most remarkable of the moderate mercantilists was Sir Josiah Child (Brief Observations concerning Trade andthe interest of Money ,1668,and A New Discourse of Trade ,1668and 1790).He was one of those who held up Holland asa model for the imitation of his fellow-countrymen.He is strongly impressed with the importance for national wealth andwell-being of a low rate of interest,which he says is to commerce and agriculture what the soul is to the body,and which heheld to be the "cauza causans of all the other causes of the riches of the Dutch people."Instead of regarding such low rateas dependent on determinate conditions,which should be allowed to evolve themselves spontaneously,he thinks it should becreated and maintained by public authority.Child,whilst adhering to the doctrine of the balance of trade,observes that apeople cannot always sell to foreigners without ever buying from them,and denies that the export of the precious metals isnecessarily detrimental.He has the ordinary mercantilist partiality for a numerous population.He advocates the reservationby the Mother Country of the sole right of trade with her colonies,and,under certain limitations,the formation of privilegedtrading companies.As to the Navigation Act,he takes up a position not unlike that afterwards occupied by Adam Smith,regarding that measure much more favourably from the political than from the economic point of view.It will be seen thathe is somewhat eclectic in his opinions;but he cannot properly be regarded,though some have attributed to him thatcharacter,as a precursor of the free-trade school of the eighteenth century.
Two other eclectics may be here mentioned,in whom just views are mingled with mercantilist prejudices --Sir WilliamTemple and Charles Davenant.The former in his Observations upon the United Province of the Netherlands ,1672,and his Essay on the Trade of Ireland ,1673,has many excellent remarks on fundamental economic principles,as on the functions oflabour and of saving in the production of national wealth;but he is infected with the errors of the theory of the balance oftrade.He follows the lead of Raleigh and Child in urging his fellow-countrymen to imitate the example of the Dutch in theireconomic policy --advice which in his case was founded on his observations during a lengthened residence in Holland asambassador to the States.Davenant in his Essay on the East India Trade ,1696-97,Essay on the Probable Ways of makingthe People Gainers in the Balance of Trade ,1699,etc.,also takes up an eclectic position,combining some correct views onwealth and money with mercantilist notions on trade,and recommending Governmental restrictions on colonial commerce asstrongly as he advocates freedom of exchange at home.
Whilst the mercantile system represented the prevalent form of economic thought in the seventeenth century,and was alonedominant in the region of practical statesmanship,there was growing up,side by side with it,a body of opinion,different andindeed hostile in character,which was destined ultimately to drive it from the field.The new ideas were first developed inEngland,though it was in France that in the following century they took hold of the public mind,and became a power inpolitics.That they should first show themselves here,and afterwards be extended,applied,and propagated throughoutEurope by French writers,belongs to the order of things according to which the general negative doctrine in morals andpolitics,undoubtedly of English origin,found its chief home in France,and was thence diffused in widening circles throughthe civilized world.In England this movement of economic thought took the shape mainly of individual criticism of theprevalent doctrines,founded on a truer analysis of facts and conceptions;in France it was penetrated with a powerful socialsentiment,furnished the creed of a party,and inspired a protest against existing institutions and an urgent demand forpractical reform.
