ABSTRACT
There has recently been published under the auspices of the London School of Economics a book by Dr. Margaret James on Social Policy during the Puritan Revolution. The reader of this book derives as his main impression of the economic life of the country during the interregnum that it was an epoch of almost unrelieved depression. We are not concerned here with Dr. James's conclusions about the effect of the civil wars on trade, but it is necessary, by way of ending this outline of Cromwellian economic policy, to examine her view of the Protectorate; for there is always in the public mind a close (but questionable) association between Government policy and the economic state of the country.
