Having had no previous experience in giving presidential addresses, I spent most of the last year on a study of such addresses, delivered before our own and other scholarly associations. The conclusion of my research was that most of those addresses could be readily classified under one of two headings. The subject matter was either “The Discipline and I” or “The Discipline, Its Past, Present, and Future.“ Faced with this alternative, I found the choice between being either frankly egotistic or grandly universalistic rather hard. Although naturally leaning toward the former, I could not quite suppress my interest in the latter. Finally, I resolved my doubts by recalling the well-known proposition that since chocolate is good and oysters are good, chocolate and oysters together must be excellent indeed. What this means is that I should like to make a number of remarks—some anticritical, but some also self-critical—about my approach to the industrial development of Europe in the nineteenth century; but in doing so I shall select those aspects of the matter which have more general significance and try to connect them with some methodological observations.

Scholarly opinion currently evinces disturbing symptoms of latent schizophrenia on the subject of economic growth in the ante-bellum United States. Virtually every student of the era now appears convinced that the long-term rate of growth of aggregate product per capita underwent a significant acceleration “somewhere during the period between 1815 and 1860,” as Douglass North recently phrased it. And, if many economic historians protest W. W. Rostow's labeling the years following 1843 as the period of the U.S. “take-off,” most do not seem to balk at accepting the guess hazarded by Raymond Goldsmith: “a fairly sharp break in the trend of real national product per head … occurred not very long before 1839,” quite probably during the 1830's. To the uninitiated, it might seem obvious that everybody also subscribes to an explicit set of assertions about the secular rate of growth of per capita product during the period from, say, the founding of the nation to the date of the putative acceleration; otherwise, how could all agree that a significant alteration in the trend had occurred?

Examination of approximately a score of U.S. economic history texts indicates that the hypothesis of a change in the structure of consumer preferences in favor of durable goods in the twentieth century, and thereby in the product structure of consumption, has strongly influenced economic historians. By implication, the alleged structural change is unique to the twentieth century. This impression relies upon the treatment of durables expenditures by almost all of that minority of textbook writers who address themselves to the general topic of consumption.

The rise of the new economic history has provoked a vigorousdebate on methodology. At issue is the validity of the effort of econometric historians or cliometricians, as practitioners of the new work are sometimes called, to apply the mathematical models of economics to the study of history. Some older historians have attacked the use of such models on the ground that they violate the empirical character of the discipline. In this view, the models employed by the cliometricians represent an unwarranted intrusion of speculation into an area of research previously limited to the careful collection and presentation of facts. The most severe criticism has been directed at the propensity of the new economic historians to deal with questions of the counterfactual-conditional type, that is, with questions which ask how the development of the economy would have been altered by the absence of one or more of its observed features. It has been asserted that the models which underlie the answers to such questions are “figments” and that they cannot be verified. Consequently counterfactual models are held to be a direct threat to the integrity of economic history as an empirically confirmed description of the economic development of nations.

If we were to reconstruct a blueprint of the Russian government's goals and priorities for industrial development in the late nineteenth century, it would include the following: (1) development of a network of internal transportation, (2) stabilization of the ruble in foreign exchanges through convertibility and the buildingup of an export surplus as a prerequisite for enabling the Russian government to borrow abroad, and (3) stimulation of the development of new industries in Russia and their protection in their “infancy.” Given the relative success of Russia's industrialization during the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries and the important role that the government played in this effort, there is no justification for outright rejection or condemnation of Russian government economic policies. There were, however, serious shortcomings in particular government policies, and the presumed effects that they had upon the industrialization process were not always desirable. This essay is a modest attempt to reexamine Russian government policies on the assumption that the industrialization of Russia was a continuing goal of the state policies beginning with the 1880's and one of relatively high priority. The implication of the analysis is that if some of the defects of the state's policies had been avoided, the process of industrialization in Russia would have proceeded at least at as fast a pace and the economic costs to Russian society would probably have been smaller.

That the modernization of Japanese political and economic institutions during the Meiji period was spearheaded by the government and the samurai class that manned the government is a widely accepted view. One could, with little effort, assemble numerous quotations (in English or Japanese) reiterating this theme with little or no variation. Government-samurai endeavors such as pioneering in modern technology, subsidy programs (tangible and intangible), dissemination of new knowledge (to include modern business practices), and other aspects of “community-centered entrepreneurship” all support the theme. The purpose of this article is to question this well-entrenched view by submitting the findings of a close examination of the emergence of modern banking in Japan. Although this is only one aspect of the general theme, few students of Japanese economic history would deny that it has been often cited as one of the most typical examples of samurai leadership and of government initiative in the modernization of Japan. Eiichi Shibusawa, a former samurai, has invariably been linked with this development, in an attempt to stress that modern banking was a creation of the samurai class.

The rate of urban growth in the United States reached its highestlevel in the twenty years before 1861. Nevertheless in the five preceding decades, 1790 to 1840, those coming just before the railroad age, the cities of the nation grew at a remarkably rapid rate. It is true that during one 10-year period of relatively slow growth, 1810–1820, the city population increased at a pace slightly below that for the total population. But in the other four decades, 1790–1800, 1800–1810, 1820–1830, and 1830–1840, the rate of increase in the number of people living in cities was almost double that for the whole population and exceeded the urban growth rate attained in any post-Civil War decade. This study makes available detailed statistics on urban population changes from 1775 to 1840, directs attention to the differing contributions to urbanization made by four city groups, and notes some of the influences affecting urban population expansion in the years before the railroad became a dominant influence.

This paper presents evidence of long swings in the growth of Swedish population and investigates the question of the possible sources or causes of these demographic movements. I do not have a completely identified model of long swings to offer for empirical testing at this time. It is first necessary to determine the extent to which the long swings are diffused in Sweden and to provide a reliable reference chronology. With this information, the task of seeking the cause and effect relationships can proceed. Nevertheless, an analysis is attempted of the cause and effect relationship underlying Swedish emigration and the interaction of the major economic and demographic variables. In the light of these results, suggestions for further research are offered.

Few generalizations find wider acceptance among specialists onChina than that which holds that the Chinese Imperial Government was hostile to commerce and industry and that this hostility was a major element in the country's failure to achieve modern economic growth. There is, of course, an important element of truth in this generalization, but analysis of the issues involved has generally suffered from a failure to make clear just what it was that the Chinese government in the nineteenth century should have done to promote development.

In 1829 Zachariah Allen, a lifelong resident of Providence, Rhode Island, published his book, The Science of Mechanics. Neither the title nor a casual glance at the contents of the book suggests that it contains material of major interest to economists or economic historians. Allen's book was intended as a manual for American mechanics and manufacturers. It summarized that portion of the industrial arts of its day which the author considered most useful and relevant for the edification of his American readers. The book contains elementary tables of conversion, arithmetic and geometric rules and formulas, a good deal of simple physics, and extensive descriptions of the workings of machinery—especially water wheels, steam engines, and millwork generally. In particular, Allen attempted to summarize much of what he had learned during a recent tour of the major manufacturing districts of England and France, so as to bring Americans up to date on the “latest improvements in mechanical invention in those countries.’ Unobtrusively placed in the back of this book, however, is a chapter, “Comparative View of the Relative Advantages Possessed by England, France and the United States of America as Manufacturing Nations,’ which records his more strictly economic impressions of his tour, taken in 1825. His observations in this short chapter, often trenchant and occasionally pungent, invite comparison with some of the better known European travelers to the United States. Anyone who can write, as Allen does (p. 355), that “An industrious New-England mechanic commonly appears to take pleasure in his business; but the French mechanic is rather inclined to make a business of his pleasures,’ is obviously entitled to a sympathetic hearing.

Much of the controversy over Mercantilist policies has focused on the relevance of political exigencies as against economic principles. Some economists have also attempted to evaluate Mercantilist policies in terms of the difference between various short-run and long-run adjustments. By contrast, the concern here has been with some purely economic but rather basic characteristics of the Mercantilist age. I have attempted to explain Mercantilist policies by the actual pattern of the specie flow, the characteristics of some of the commodity trade, the nature and limitation of foreign investment, and in terms of the existing monetary systems.

This article deals with the interrelations between the economyand the government of the expanding Spanish empire in the era of overseas expansion during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Specifically, it attempts to show how the government reacted to the phenomenon of the growing empire. In a full treatment it would be necessary to show how the various Spanish territories of the Peninsula were unified by the process of the “reconquista” and by the marriage policy of the Catholic Icings; how during the sixteenth century Navarre and Portugal were joined; how the overseas expansion of Spanish power, beginning in the late Middle Ages, continued during the sixteenth century; and how Spain, as a consequence of Hapsburg marriage policy, built an important bridge of possessions from the Netherlands to Italy. Obviously, these questions cannot be dealt with in detail in one article, but they form the background for the following discussion.

Professor Gabriel Kolko in his recent work, Railroads and Regulation, 1877–1916, presents an interpretation or the origin, motivation, and consequences of the movement for federal regulation of railroads which differs in important respects from that which has hitherto been generally accepted. Thus it has generally been held that railway regulation was a response to the demands of farmers and other shippers for protection against monopolistic and discriminatory tactics on the part of the railroads and that regulation was bitterly resisted by the latter. Kolko, on the other hand, holds that regulation was actually welcomed by the railroads as a means of securing the rate and profit stability which they were unable to maintain by their own action, and that “the railroads, not the farmers and shippers, were the most important single advocates of federal regulation from 1877 to 1916” (p. 3). He concedes that “the movement for federal regulation of the railroad system was not, in any strict sense, deliberately initiated by the railroads’ (p. 20) and that legislation could not have been passed without shipper support, but points out that shippers were either inarticulate or divided with respect to the kind of regulation, if any, desired, and that the railroads were always able to secure the support of enough shipper groups to insure passage of the legislation which they favored. Furthermore, the railroads welcomed federal as opposed to state regulation, since they regarded the latter as punitive and restrictive and less amenable to their influence than federal regulation.

In recent years much research work has been done on the economy of Communist China. With respect to economic development in the pre-Communist period, however, although several writers have attempted to view contemporary developments in the light of past performance, the existing stock of knowledge does not permit exact statements.

Italy's rapid industrial growth, which began in the mid-1890's, was preceded and accompanied by important developments in her financial institutions, including in particular the establishment of several industrial credit banks on the German model. The role of such banks in French and German industrial growth before 1914 has been the subject of considerable study. It is the purpose of this article to examine the effects of these banks on the rate and direction of Italian development between 1894 and 1914, and to consider the relation between their near-monopoly of industrial credit and the emergence of concentration of ownership and control in the new and rapidly growing sectors of the industrial structure.

State intervention as an obstacle to economic growth and development is a proposition that is especially intriguing in connection with the Habsburg monarchy of the eighteenth century. The posing of the question forces the historian to consider whether it can be applied to the problem of a static society ruled by a dynasty and controlled by a large agglomeration of urban-corporate and rural-manorial structures. What is a state in this context and what are obstacles to economic progress?

It is well known that the average productivity of capital in American manufacturing increased at a comparatively high rate during the 1919–1929 decade. During the same period the accelerated application of scientific information stimulated important changes in manufacturing plant and equipment. This Note investigates the relationship between these two processes. The inquiry is of historical interest for two reasons: First, the study should help to support statistical observations of the increased efficiency of production facilities during the 1920's, thereby connecting observed productivity change as measured by economists with substantive technological improvements as described by economic historians. And second, it may be possible to characterize the 1920's as a period of unique technological growth in the history of American manufacturing.

Economic historians have been aware for some time of the questionable nature of some of the tonnage figures given for the ships of the English colonies in the Western Hemisphere in the eighteenth century. Several authors who have written on colonial shipbuilding or colonial trade have noted the authoritative declaration of Thomas Irving which was laid before the House of Commons in 1792 and have tried to take his evidence into account in their own investigations. Irving, who from 1767 to 1774 had held the dual position of Inspector General of Imports and Exports and Register of Shipping in North America, stated that while he was in office North American vessels had been consistently registered at two-thirds of their real tonnage. He urged that this deduction be repaired and real tonnage re-established before any attempt be made to compare statistics from that time with those of a later period. Other scholars have either chosen not to notice Irving's claim or have discounted it as of moot significance. Such ambivalence is understandable, for Irving's assertion is narrowly based, confused, and misleading. Still, the sweeping scope of his charge and the even broader testimony of some of his contemporaries who have both agreed with him and expanded upon him have combined to leave the precise nature of all colonial tonnage figures in serious doubt. Given the renewed interest in tonnage measure and the growing trend toward the use of compiled tonnage statistics as a rough and ready measure of trade, it becomes important to resolve this doubt.

In a recent issue of this Journal Peter Temin has offered a challenging analysis of American labor scarcity and the choice of technology. He deserves our gratitude for attempting to increase the analytical rigor in discussions of this matter, but his analysis is puzzling and, I think, profoundly misleading. This note is meant as a comment upon certain of its oddities.