ABSTRACT
From one point of view, it needs no apology to discuss the nineteenth century experience. This chapter looks at the nineteenth-century trade cycle for reasons of economic theory, for what this experience can teach us about economic analysis. In many respects, nineteenth-century conditions in Britain were very different from those of today. It is fair to say, though, that most of these differences mean that conditions then were less complicated, more amenable to simple theoretical discussion, and then are conditions. For a large part of the nineteenth century, commercial enterprises were generally small scale and competitive. The world of monopolies, oligopolies, advertising, strong trade unions, etc., only started to develop in the last quarter of the century. There is no need to rely exclusively on such indirect reasoning. Direct evidence exists concerning the economic situation of landlords in normal times, in conditions of good trade.
