Adam Smith's work, now styled the _principia_ of economical science by the free-traders, first gave token of the important and decisive change then going forward in society. It was an ominous and characteristic title: _The Nature and Cause of the_ WEALTH _of Nations_. It was not said of their wisdom, virtue, or happiness. The direction of such a mind as Adam Smith's to the exclusive consideration of the riches of nations, indicated the advent of a period when the fruits of industry in this vast empire, sheltered by protection, had become so great that they had formed a powerful class in society, which was beginning to look to its separate interests, and saw them in the beating down the price of articles--that is, diminishing the remuneration of other men's industry. It showed that the _Plutocracy_ was becoming powerful. The constant arguments that able work contained, in favour of competition and against monopoly,--its impassioned pleadings in favour of freedom of commerce, and the removal of all restrictions on importation, were so many indications that a new era was opening in society; that the interests of _realised wealth_ were beginning to come into collision with those of _creating industry_, and that the time was not far distant when a fierce legislative contest might be anticipated between them. It is well known that Adam Smith advocated the Navigation Laws, upon the ground that national independence was of more importance than national wealth. But there can be no doubt that this was a deviation from his principles, and that, if they were established in other particulars, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to succeed in maintaining an exception in favour of the shipping interests, because that was retaining a burden on the colonies, when the corresponding benefit had been voted away.
Although, however, the doctrines of Adam Smith, from their novelty, simplicity, and alliance with democratic liberty, spread rapidly in the rising generation--ever ready to repudiate the doctrines and throw off the restraints of their fathers--yet, so strongly were the producing interests intrenched in the legislature, that a very long period would probably have elapsed before they came to be practically applied in the measures of government, had it not been that, at the very period when, from the triumph of protection-principles during the war, and the vast wealth they had realised in the state, the moneyed interest had become most powerful, a great revolution in the state gave that interest the command of the House of Commons. By the Reform Bill _two-thirds of the seats_ in that house were given to boroughs, and _two-thirds of the voters_ in boroughs, in the new constituency, were shopkeepers or those in their interest. Thus a decisive majority in the house, which, from having the command of the public purse, practically became possessed of supreme power, was vested in those who made their living by buying and selling--with whom cheap prices was all in all. The producing classes were virtually, and to all practical purposes, cast out of the scale. The landed interest, on all questions vital to its welfare, would evidently soon be in a minority. Schedules A and B at one blow disfranchised the whole colonial empire of Great Britain, because it closed the avenue by which colonial wealth had hitherto found an entrance to the House of Commons. Seats could no longer be bought: the virtual representation of unrepresented places was at an end. The greatest fortunes made in the colonies could now get into the house only through some populous place; and the majority of voters in most populous places were in favour of the consumers and against the producers, because the consumers bought _their goods_, and they bought those of the producers. Thus no colonial member could get in but by forswearing his principles and abandoning the interests of his order. The shipping interest was more strongly intrenched, because many shipping towns had direct representatives in parliament, and it accordingly was the last to be overthrown. But when the colonies were disfranchised, and protection was withdrawn from their industry to cheapen prices at home, it became next to impossible to keep up the shipping interest--not only because the injustice of doing so, and so enhancing freights, when protection to colonial produce was withdrawn, was evident, but because it was well understood, by certain unequivocal symptoms, that such a course of policy would at once lead to colonial revolt, and the dismemberment of the empire.