ADVANTAGES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.


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