Their very existence is at once an indictment and a reproach to the world of mediocrities who live and fatten on their labours; and although they are the real kings, yet being expatriated and disinherited, like Napoleon in exile they count for nothing. On the contrary, they may be thankful if like Shakespeare, whom only special royal favour protected, they may succeed in escaping a whipping at the cart's-tail as 'vagabonds.'

And this brings us at last to the two or three 'outside' Economists who within the last decade or two have been instrumental in preparing the way for the reconstruction of the Science on the new principles which it has been the aim of this volume to still further develop, so as to bring all its parts into harmony. These principles are embodied in the works mainly of two economists - Mr. Gunton and Mr. Hobson - although I learn on the authority of Mr. .J. M. Robertson's book, the 'Fallacy of Saving,' that there was a work written by a Mr. R. S. Moffat in the seventies, which was the first to call attention to the element of Consumption as a necessary factor in the Science. Of Mr. Robertson's book I may say in passing, that it is one of the most deadly assaults on Mill's 'fundamental propositions ' which has yet appeared; and that had the orthodox Economists been alive to their responsibilities, they would by its help have so reconstructed their Science by this time as to have saved it from the reproach of impotency and unreality into which it has fallen.

But, as usual, Mr. Robertson's criticism was ignored, only however to subject them to the more elaborate and determined assaults of Mr. Gunton and Mr. Hobson, who like Mr. Moffat had made the neglected factor of Consumption their mainstay in their new method of approach to a reconstitution of the Science. And the reason they have succeeded where the other 'outside' Economists failed, was that Consumption gave them that second pole - in relation to Production - which as we saw in a preceding chapter, is in all the sciences necessary for the establishment of any really 'scientific law' whatever. But there was a difference in the manner in which these two Economists applied it. Mr. Gunton used it from the start more boldly, perhaps, than Mr. Hobson, - owing probably to the necessity imposed on the latter, as a professional Economist, of following the fallacies of the academical and orthodox schools through their various windings, and in a series of volumes which had to keep step as it were with the academical series.

And as the point of view of the academical Economists, as we have seen, was a purely statical one throughout, Mr. Hobson instead of throwing it overboard once and for all and adopting a purely dynamical standpoint, has from his long immersion in their methods never, I think, quite succeeded in thoroughly emancipating himself from this standpoint. And although in his criticisms he has always proceeded from the dynamic standpoint which his acceptance of the element of Consumption as a definite factor in the Science gave him, still in the constructive portions of his work, he has admitted statical elements which in my judgment have been a source of weakness rather than of strength. Indeed, how important I consider it that all statical elements whatever should be got rid of as mere dead obstructions to the living dynamical forces which form the true subject-matter of Political Economy, may be seen in the fact that, in my opinion, it is to them that is due the difficulty in arriving at any unanimity on the most important of all practical problems for nations at the present day - namely that of Free Trade versus Protection. I do not know what attitude Mr. Gunton has taken on this important question, but the dynamical standpoint which we have in common, has, as the reader will have seen, led me to a doctrine of Protection as rigid in principle as that which is now being practised by Japan; whereas Mr. Hobson does not seem to see his way to any modification of either the doctrine or practice of Free Trade to which England still adheres.

And the reason of this extreme divergence of opinion between two writers who agree in almost every other fundamental doctrine is, I think, that Mr. Hobson has retained more elements belonging to the statical point of view of the orthodox Economists than I can bring myself to admit. But be this as it may, in the fresh solutions which both Mr. Gunton and Mr. Hobson have given to the old problems of the Science, Mr. Gunton took his stand firmly on the position that the Science is a purely dynamical one; and concentrated accordingly on the dynamical factors which a capitalist in entering on any new industrial enterprise holds in his hands, and at once struck down on his central position which was, that the amount of Consumption, as roughly estimated in the wages which the great masses of men have to spend, is the stimulant and efficient cause which keeps the great dynamic factors of Production, like a tightly-strung bow, at their highest tension in order to meet that demand - inventions, new machinery and processes, better cultivation of the land, a greater variety of skill, and a greater efficiency in the workmen, etc., - and that far from increasing the prices of commodities, this increased consumption, by calling forth all these powers, lowers them; while all the time the landlords and capitalists as a body are getting higher rents and greater profits than before.

He saw, too, in opposition to the orthodox Economists and to Henry George, the absurdity of imagining that a rise of rent means a fall of profits and wages; and laid it down as a principle that Rent can no more precede Profits, than Profits can precede Wages; and that a man's land can become valuable only in the proportion in which the capitalists, whether farmers or others, can make profits out of it, - as is seen most clearly in the enormous rents paid for land in the centres of great cities - just as the capitalist in turn can make no profits unless the workers receive wages enough to create a demand for his products; - all in point blank opposition to the doctrines of the orthodox Economy. He sees too with the Fabians, and in opposition to the orthodox Economists, that owing to the high differential rates of profit which the great capitalists get from the superior machinery and processes which they use, they can afford to pay high wages to their workmen, in the same way as they can afford to pay high fees to their lawyers, their architects, their doctors, and other professional men whose services they require; and that the tendency is for all the lower class of workers to level up, as it were, a stage higher, when the wages of the highest class advance.