13. Review of T.S. Ashton, An Economic History of England: The Eighteenth Century

13. Review of T.S. Ashton, An Economic History of England: The Eighteenth Century

May 31, 1959

Mr. Kenneth Templeton

Dear Ken:

Economic history is almost worthless unless the historian has a knowledge of sound economics as well as of his historical period, and until recently, such knowledge was rare indeed. T.S. Ashton’s, An Economic History of England: The Eighteenth Century³¹ becomes a doubly gratifying work because of its rarity, in addition to its own excellent intrinsic qualities.

Ashton’s book is a superb example of what can be done in an economic history volume: combining intimate knowledge of the latest historical research with sound economics enables Ashton to give a sound interpretation of the historical events. As a result, all the processes of the free market are soundly interpreted, as well as all the unfortunate consequences of government regulations and privileges. This fine work is eminently worthy of a National Book Foundation award, or anything else that would widen its scholarly distribution.

The following are some of the gems of insight provided by this work:

• The movement of workers over England as stimulated by wage differentials
• The absence of State and guild restrictions and regulations in the newer industrial areas, stimulating the movement and growth of industry
• The importance of graded inequalities of wealth in stimulating economic development and encouraging worker mobility
• The excellence of the network of private turnpikes, private canals, private river development, and private harbor development, in developing the British transport system in the eighteenth century after governmental bodies had made a botch of these fields
• The role of usury laws and government borrowing in greatly restricting economic progress and the development of capitalist industry
• The fact that war and inflation were generally a baleful rather than a beneficial influence on the English economy, refutation of the Hamilton-Keynes thesis that inflation and forced saving were responsible for the Industrial Revolution (On the contrary, there was little inflation in the eighteenth century—until the wars at the end, and then it was largely agricultural prices that rose.)

Ashton also settles the enclosure question at last, demonstrating that:

1. The enclosures were often by voluntary agreement and by voluntary purchase of rights
2. The parliamentary enclosures were largely of common land, commonly owned, thus implying that these acts were not robbery but the beneficial transforming of communal into individual property
3. That the result was a vast increase in agricultural productivity, due to the larger farms, the end of the vicious open-field system, and the fact that the land was owned by an individual leading to its conserving rather than to overgrazing, as in the past (the same point made by Scott for conservation of natural resources)
4. The enclosed forests were conserved properly by the private landlords (again the same point)

As a result, the agricultural population grew instead of diminished—in many cases, small as well as large farms expanded in number. Those farmers who did leave for the cities left in a stream typical of civilization, in response to higher wages and greater job opportunities; they were not “driven” off the land, as earlier historians thought.

Further: there is a refutation of the idea that luxury demand was responsible for the growth of capitalism or that war demand was responsible; there is an excellent discussion of banking matters showing that the inefficiencies of government minting, the absurdities of bimetallic ratios enforced by government, etc. led to nationwide shortages of small change and coins, thus hampering daily economic transactions. But Ashton shows that private businesses rushed in to remedy the gap very well, putting forth private coins.

He also distinguishes in superb fashion between note-issue banks, which were inflationary and subject to panics, and the type of banking that grew up particularly in the progressive area of Lancashire, where banks loaned bills of exchange or discounted them for cash, and these were not subject to panic. He fails to point out that the latter is the proper, hard-money type of noninflationary banking, and it is heartwarming that this type of banking flourished in precisely the fastest-growing, industrializing areas, thus refuting the orthodox claims that business would be stifled without bank credit inflation.

Ashton also shows the great economic value of smuggling, praising it for expanding trade despite high tariffs and other regulations.

Unions, too, are shown as organizations that could only raise their own wages at the expense of unemployment, restrictions on labor entry (such as apprentice regulations), and lower wages elsewhere; and they are shown as organizations living by violence, rioting, destruction of employer property, etc.

Ashton shows also that the industrial revolution raised wages of labor, provided for growing population and for poverty-stricken immigrants, competed for labor not so much with skilled craftsmen (as in the old mythos) but with miserable, underemployed paupers and squatters, who now became fully employed for the first time.

There is also a masterful description and analysis of the growth of the enterprise economy in manufactures, trade, shipping, agriculture, etc.

Ashton also shows the absurdity of the complaint that the factory system “depersonalized” the workers, by demonstrating that the old “domestic” system was far less personal than the factory.

One interesting tidbit: Ashton shows that the English traders did not, in the main, carry on actual slave-hunting in Africa (it is the hunting of slaves that tends to yield the great profits), but that the original hunting was done by the Africans themselves in tribal war or the slaves were sold by the African chiefs to the English.

And one heartwarming note: so much did private insurance flourish, that Lloyd’s and other companies even insured enemy ships from English assault during wartimes! Some of the professional patriots grumbled at this, but it went on; can you imagine anything like that today?

Once in a while Ashton nods, as when he excessively defends counterfeiting (thinking that inflation is all right during times of unemployment) or when he defends the tyrannical acts that deprived the English poor of their great solace: cheap gin. However, these slips are hardly noticeable in the superb tapestry of economic history that Professor Ashton has woven in this book.

P.S. Another not-to-be-neglected merit of the Ashton work is that he scorns the excessive use of statistics and knows their limitations; his is a fine blend of qualitative and quantitative history.