ABSTRACT
The study also lends weight to the position that the Mill-Say law of markets was less important to classical and neo-classical economics and the general development of economics than some commentators have claimed.(3) Nevertheless the law has some relevance to the economists and empire over the period 1860-1914. Although there was virtually no theoretical discussion or controversy over Hobson's rejection of the doctrine, he was attacked by some members of the profession, for by the time he was writing, the Mill-Say law of markets was generally accepted as a logical and indispensable component of an economist's set of beliefs.(4)
As a background to the thesis the two phases of classical political economy and the empire were summarized in Chapter Two.(5) In the period under study there are also two general phases,
1860 to 1880 and 1880 to 1914. The first covers the 1860s, a decade somewhat like the period 1776 to the 1820s, when economists were highly critical of British colonial connections and stressed the economic and political disutility of the empire. By contrast, between 1880 and 1914 there was enthusiastic support for the empire from such authors as Ashley, Cunningham, Hewins and Nicholson, although it was also the period of that important critic of empire, J A Hobson, who constituted the leading dissenting voice.
