ABSTRACT
I have traced at some length the difficulties which beset economic progress in France, where neither the information nor the motives of commercial action are of a very advanced type. Let me conclude by pointing out what I believe to be the principal difficulties which exist in this country, where both public opinion and self-interest are supposed to be convinced of the advantages of unlimited free exchange. The main obstacles to our progress I take to be these: – the want of a more thorough application to commercial questions on the part of our so-called commercial Members of Parliament; the absence of commercial knowledge and interest in commercial matters which generally characterizes the chiefs of our great departments of State, and our representatives in foreign countries; the complete absence of any properly organized machinery for the negotiation and transaction of matters of commercial interest between ourselves and other nations.
