Cyclopædia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of the United States

By John J. Lalor

NEITHER American nor English literature has hitherto possessed a Cyclopædia of Political Science and Political Economy. The want of a work of reference on these important branches of knowledge has long been felt, especially by lawyers, journalists, members of our state and national legislatures, and the large and intelligent class of capitalists and business men who give serious thought to the political and social questions of the day. The present work, which will be completed in three volumes, is the first to supply that want. It is also the first Political History of the United States in encyclopædic form—the first to which the reader can refer for an account of the important events or facts in our political history, as he would to a dictionary for the precise meaning of a word. The French, the Germans and even the Italians are richer in works of reference on political science and political economy than the Americans or the English. The Germans have Rotteck and Welcker’s
Staatslexikon, and Bluntschli and Brater’s
Staatswörterbuch; the French, Block’s
Dictionnaire Général de la Politique, and the celebrated
Dictionnaire de l’Economie Politique, edited by Guillaumin and Coquelin.The “Cyclopædia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States” is intended to be to the American and English reader what the above-named works are to French and German students of political science and political economy. The articles by foreigners in our work are largely translations from the
Dictionnaire de l’Economie Politique, the
Dictionnaire Général de la Politique, the
Staatswörterbuch, and original articles by Mr. T. E. Cliffe Leslie, the eminent English economist; while the American articles are by the best American and Canadian writers on political economy and political science. The task of writing the articles on the political history of the United States was confided to one person, Mr. Alexander Johnston, of Norwalk, Connecticut, thoroughness, conciseness and the absence of repetition and of redundancy being thus secured…. [From the Preface]

Book Cover

First Pub. Date

1881

Publisher

New York: Maynard, Merrill, and Co.

Pub. Date

1899

Comments

Originally printed in 3 volumes. Includes articles by Frédéric Bastiat, Gustave de Molinari, Henry George, J. B. Say, Francis A. Walker, and more.

Copyright

The text of this edition is in the public domain.

ABSENTEEISM

ABSENTEEISM, an expression which has arisen out of the discussions on the miserable condition of the Irish people, and which, as its derivation shows, denotes the habitual absence of the landed proprietors of a country from their estates. From such absenteeism has naturally sprung a system of farming out these estates to intermediaries, which has proved in its consequences of ever increasing injury to the tenant. These absentee Irish proprietors grant long leases of their estates to rich English capitalists, who sublet at a profit to other speculators, commonly known as middlemen, and these latter, dealing directly with the tenants, sublet for short terms, and contrive, by the minutest possible subdivisions, so to in crease the number of bidders as to obtain for each holding the highest rental possible. Besides the effect of this feudal system of rack-rents in impoverishing the tenant to the last degree, the bulk of the rentals so accruing is annually exported without any return in exchange. No portion of such rentals is ever applied to the introduction of improved methods of agriculture, nor even to the development of either the manufacturing industries or the commercial enterprises of Ireland, as would naturally be the case were these proprietors themselves residenters. It is unquestionable, then, that absenteeism is one of the causes of the wretched condition of Ireland.

—The politico-economical effects of absenteeism are everywhere the same, and are more marked in Ireland only because more general there than elsewhere. All export of capital or of income, without any counter-balancing return, is hurtful to the country from which such capital is withdrawn, and beneficial to that to which it is exported; it takes from the one for the use of the other, the means for the maintenance of labor, for the improvement of the natural capacities of the soil, and for the accumulation of wealth; and these results are in exact proportion to the magnitude of the sums exported. Among the causes provocative of absenteeism may be cited a corrupt administration of public affairs, or too burdensome taxation. These and like causes have determined many English families to seek homes in other countries. They thus escape a taxation which in England is very great upon all articles of consumption, and hence the government, to obtain the same amount of revenue, has no alternative but to impose upon the resident classes those taxes which the non-residenters escape. Of all the factors which determine this emigration of capital, the most powerful is the feeling of insecurity. The political turmoils which at times so greatly unsettled the state of continental Europe, drove many families of wealth to seek a refuge in England, although the cost of living is greater there than anywhere else.

AMBROISE CLÉMENT.

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