The house of Industry : a new estate of the realm

YOU CANNOT DODGE THE ECONOMIC 23

yield to his fanatical supporters and reject the overtures of the City of London. Then his power tapidly declined and faded away. Our greatest Englishman broken by an unholy combination of politics with economics.

In dealing with certain economic facts of this period, I have obviously had two purposes. To remind our political romantics of the stern dictates of national economy and to emphasise the even more important truth that sound economic growth is not to be found in unbridled Jaissez-faire and competition, but rather in fellowship, in co-operation, in wise, far-seeking and authoritative control. Our economic history after the death of Cromwell only enforces these truths. The two remaining Stuarts, who, like the Bourbons, learned nothing and forgot nothing, each in his own way paid penalty for disregarding the material welfare of their subjects. It was they who planted the seeds of our long war with France; it was they who made it possible for Colbert and Richelieu to found and develop the opposing economic power. Without arguing the matter further, is it not evident that while we must give free play to the economic organisation, providing it is really rightly organised, the intermixture of politics with economics is always exhausting and frequently tragic?

In reflecting upon our international dealings of the past two centuries, comes one melancholy thought. Granting the necessity of economic development, could not at least three great wars have been avoided had the European statesmen