l foe of England, Pitt
answered nobly that "to suppose any nation can be unalterably the enemy
of another is weak and childish."

[Sidenote: His statesmanship.]

The temper of the time, and the larger sympathy of man with man which
especially marks the eighteenth century as a turning-point in the
history of the human race, was everywhere bringing to the front a new
order of statesmen, such as Turgot and Joseph the Second, whose
characteristics were a love of mankind, and a belief that as the
happiness of the individual can only be secured by the general happiness
of the community to which he belongs, so the welfare of individual
nations can only be secured by the general welfare of the world. Of
these Pitt was one. But he rose high above the rest in the consummate
knowledge and the practical force which he brought to the realization of
his aims. His strength lay in finance; and he came forward at a time
when the growth of English wealth made a knowledge of finance essential
to a great Minister. The progress of the nation was wonderful.
Population more than doubled during the eighteenth century, and the
advance of wealth was even greater than that of population. Though the
war had added a hundred millions to the national debt, the burden was
hardly felt. The loss of America only increased the commerce with that
country, and industry, as we have seen, had begun that great career
which was to make England the workshop of the world. To deal wisely with
such a growth required a knowledge of the laws of wealth which would
have been impossible at an earlier time. But it had become possible in
the days of Pitt. If books are to be measured by the effect which they
have produced on the fortunes of mankind, the "Wealth of Nations" must
rank among the greatest of books. Its author was Adam Smith, an Oxford
scholar and a professor at Glasgow. Labour, he contended, was the one
source of wealth, and it was by freedom of labour, by suffering the
worker to pursue his own interest in his own way, that the public wealth
would best be promoted. Any attempt to force labour into artificial
channels, to shape by laws the course of commerce, to promote special
branches of industry in particular countries, or to fix the character of
the intercourse between one country and another, is not only a wrong to
the worker or the merchant, but actually hurtful to the wealth of a
state. The book was published in 1776, at the opening of the American
war