asily that all things would be arranged into convenient pigeon-holes
as soon as 'Judge and Co.' were abolished. It was a characteristic
error to exaggerate the simplicity of their problem, and to fail to
see that 'judge-made' law corresponds to a necessary inductive process
by which the complex and subtle differences have to be gradually
ascertained and fitted into a systematic statement. One other remark
suggests itself. The Utilitarians saw in the dogged obstructiveness of
Eldon and his like the one great obstacle to reform. It did not occur
to them that the clumsiness of parliamentary legislation might be
another difficulty. They failed to notice distinctly one tendency of
their reforms. To make a code you require a sovereign strong enough to
dominate the lawyers, not a system in which lawyers are an essential
part of a small governing class. Codification, in short, means
centralisation in one department. Blindness to similar results
elsewhere was a characteristic of the Utilitarian thinkers.

III. ECONOMIC REFORM

In another department the Utilitarians boasted, and also with good
reason, of the triumph of their tenets. Political economy was in the
ascendant. Professorships were being founded in Oxford, Cambridge,[41]
London, and Edinburgh. Mrs. Marcet's _Conversations_ (1818) were
spreading the doctrine among babes and sucklings. The Utilitarians
were the sacred band who defended the strictest orthodoxy against all
opponents. They spoke as recognised authorities upon some of the most
vital questions of the day, of which I need here only notice Free
Trade, the doctrine most closely associated with the teaching of their
revered Adam Smith. In 1816 Ricardo remarks with satisfaction that the
principle 'is daily obtaining converts' even among the most prejudiced
classes; and he refers especially to a petition in which the clothiers
of Gloucestershire[42] expressed their willingness to give up all
restrictions. There was, indeed, an important set-off against this
gain. The landowners were being pledged to protection. They had
decided that in spite of the peace, the price of wheat must be kept up
to 80s. a quarter. They would no longer be complimented as Adam Smith
had complimented them on their superior liberality, and were now
creating a barrier only to be stormed after a long struggle.
Meanwhile the principle was making rapid way among their rivals. One
symptom was the adoption by the London merchants in 1820 of a fa