THE

ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.

THE

ELEMENTS

OF

POLITICAL ECONOMY.

BY

ÉMILE DE LAVELEYE.

TRANSLATED BY

ALFRED W. POLLARD, B. A.,

ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD.

LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL.

LIMITED

1884.

LONDON:

R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.

BREAD STREET HILL.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

THIS translation of M. de Laveleye's Les Éléments de l'Économie Politique was undertaken in the hope that the work in its English dress might be useful to students as a supplement to some of the many handbooks already in existence. In English treatises political economy still retains its character of the "dismal science." In Les Éléments the subject seemed humanised by a more liberal and broader treatment, and this is the reason of the present translation being offered to the reader.

As the difference in tone is thus the distinctive feature of M. de Laveleye's work, the fewest possible alterations have been made in this edition. A few quotations have been omitted, and here and there an English illustration substituted for