3. Make a written summary of the hindrances to commerce in France at the end of this period. [Taine, The ancient regime, N. Y., Holt, 1876, $2.50; Edward J. Lowell, The eve of the French Revolution, Boston, Houghton, 1900, $2.]
4. Thomas Mun, an Englishman who lived in the seventeenth century, wrote that the regular means “to encrease our wealth and treasure is by Forraign Trade, wherein wee must ever observe this rule; to sell more to strangers yearly than wee consume of theirs in value.” State the arguments by which Mun would support this proposition, and determine your own opinion on the question.
5. Make a brief written statement of the difference between mercantilism and protectionism.
6. Define the attitude which the mercantilist would assume toward each of the following trade phenomena: import of raw silk, export of silver plate, export of silk goods, import of knives, import of gold bullion, import of salt fish.
7. Study, in a book on economics, the influences determining the distribution of the precious metals, and show how mercantilism was bound to fail in its object of increasing the money in circulation in a given country. [For a brief and clear discussion see F. A. Walker, Pol. econ., advanced, N. Y., Holt, sects. 176-178.]
8. Discover, in the writings and speeches of American protectionists, evidence of mercantilist views. [See, for example, Roberts, Government revenue, Boston, 1884, or R. W. Thompson, History of protective tariff laws, Chicago, 1888.]
9. Criticism of the old colonial policy. [Adam Smith, Wealth of nations, Book 4, chap. 7, part 2, reprinted in Rand, Ec. hist., chap. 1.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A bibliography, unfortunately ill suited to the purposes of untrained students, is appended to chap. 22 of Cambridge mod. hist., vol. 3. See also the histories of economics by Cossa and Ingram, under mercantilism.
Of general discussions the student must choose between the chapter noted above, J. N. Figgis, Political thought in the sixteenth century, which is abstruse and theoretical, or Cheyney, Eur. background, chap. 6, Political institutions of Central Europe, 1400-1650, which is concrete and descriptive; neither is satisfactory for our purposes. Probably the most intelligible discussion will be found to be Seeley’s **Expansion of England, especially lecture 4, the old colonial system; and lecture 6, commerce and war. Schmoller, **The mercantile system, deserves its place as an economic classic, but will be found difficult by beginners. A brief account of mercantilism, by Ingram, will be found in the Encyc. Brit., 9th ed., 19: 354-358.