14

Turgot, had considerable success, and even contributed to the fall of that minister (19th May 1776). On Turgot's successor, de Clugny, dying, 30th October 1776, Taboureau des Reaux was appointed to succeed him, and compelled to accept Necker as his coadjutor. This led to his resignation 1st July 1777, when his duties were handed over to Necker under the title of Directeur-général des finances. Though acting as Contrôleur-général, he was not granted that title, as this would have admitted him to the council of state, and he was a protestant. In this, his first essay in finance, Necker showed marked ability, diminishing the expenses, simplifying the machinery of the administration, and, through his connection with the great Bank, obtaining exceptionally favourable terms for the treasury. The tide of public opinion began now to set in the direction of the convocation of the États Généraux. In 1781 Necker's famous Compte Rendu au Roi appeared, addressed rather to the public than to the head of the state. His popularity increased; the success of his report, the first of its class, though incomplete, was great. The condition of the finances of the country was improved, but an unexpected result occurred. Cabals were roused against him, perhaps fomented by Necker's extraordinary vanity and his folly in mixing praises of his wife, whose salon was celebrated, with his official reports. The court became hostile, and in 1781 he was compelled to resign. But the weaknesses of the bestknown of his successors, Calonne, caused the public to think with regret of the fallen minister, and the publication of De l'administration des finances de la France, 3 vols. 8vo, 1784, contributed to strengthen his popularity. This work, like those which Necker had written previously, is marked by an absence of general principle; it was declamatory and exaggerated in style, but valuable to those who would study how the finances of France were managed in the last days of the old régime.

Necker was detested by the court as a protestant and a bourgeois, nevertheless Louis XVI. found himself compelled to recall him to power, 20th August 1788, this time also with the title of Directeur-général des finances. The financial position was serious. The payment of the interest of the public debt was suspended, the treasury empty; Necker's return to power inspired confidence, and, as if by magic, money reappeared. He had, however, to employ his private resources to sustain the public credit. Though the court was still hostile, the multitude applauded him. When he spoke of retirement the court was compelled to ask him to remain in office, but by one of those sudden turns of fortune so frequent at this period, the king intimated to him his dismissal, 11th July 1789, and ordered him to leave France secretly. Necker obeyed and returned to Geneva,

The

effect of his departure on public opinion was terrific. In the midst of these disturbances the Bastille was taken, and on 29th July, Necker was recalled by the court with the title of Premier ministre des finances, and was admitted to the council. His return was an unparalleled triumph. In every town that he passed through between Switzerland and Paris the horses were taken out of his carriage and he was drawn by the admiring people. This mad enthusiasm could not last. Some slight errors in judgment alienated public opinion, and on 8th September 1790 he was again compelled to leave office and France, this time for ever. The populace was indifferent, if not hostile. In a small town in Champagne, he, who had never deigned to accept the salary attached to his high office, was arrested as a malefactor. How little he had deserved this may be understood from the fact that he had left behind him at the treasury, to assist the public credit, £96,000, his own property, which was only returned to his daughter the well-known Madame de StaëlHolstein in the early years of the Restoration. An order had to be obtained from the national assembly to enable Necker to regain his liberty and to return to Switzerland.

Of Necker's later works we need only mention : Sur l'administration de M. Necker par lui-même, 8vo, 1791. His work on La législation et le commerce is inserted in the economic collection of Guillaumin.

[Adam Smith called Necker "a mere man of detail,"-Sir J. Mackintosh is the authority for this. Rae, Life of Adam Smith, 1895, p. 206.] A. C. f.

NEGATIVE QUANTITIES occur in econ. omics, as in other sciences, when a variable, passing through zero, becomes less than nothing, so that the addition thereof causes not augmentation but diminution. Most economic quantities are susceptible of this change of sign. Thus wealth, affected with the minus sign, becomes debt. The utility attending the consumption of wealth being taken as positive, the disutility of labour incurred by the production of wealth must be regarded as negative. Consumption is negative production. JEVONS proposes to employ DISCOMMODITY to signify any substance or action which is the opposite of commodity, that is to say, anything which we desire to get rid of, like ashes or sewage (Theory, 2nd ed. p. 63). Such an article may be said to have negative value. Among articles which have a negative value AGENTS OF PRODUCTION may occur. The loss attending the use of old-fashioned machinery and plant may be considered as a negative "quasi-rent" (Marshall). It is conceivable that, capital becoming superabundant, borrowers would pay a "negative interest," that is, receive a payment for safeguarding and keeping up the capital borrowed (Prof. Foxwell. The Social

16

commission at the International Statistical Congress at Buda-Pesth, at Paris in 1878, in Paris again in 1885, and in London with Professor von Inama Sternegg in the same year, when the jubilee of the Royal Statistical Society took place. This meeting in London was remarkable for the foundation of the International Statistical Institute, the regulations of which Neumann Spallart drafted chiefly in concert with Dr. L. Bodio, though others had a share in that important work. The institute, at its first meeting in Rome in 1887, elected Neumann Spallart as its second vicepresident; and though far from well at the time, he did much useful work on that occasion. In the winter of 1887-88, the chest complaint from which he had always suffered more or less grew rapidly worse and he died in April 1888.

Neumann Spallart was the author of a great many volumes and pamphlets, many of them having special relation to Austria-Hungary, as might be expected. A list of his works will be found in the Journal of the Statistical Society for June 1888. His most widely-known contribution to statistics is his admirable Uebersichten der Weltwirthschaft published at Stuttgart in various years from 1870 to 1883-84.

W. H.

NEUTRAL MARKETS. It is one of the main objects of neutral states to keep their markets open for trade in time of war. On the other hand belligerent powers, in their anxiety to deal effective blows at their adversaries, are apt to strike at them through neutral commerce. Since the transactions of neutral markets take place on neutral territory, they cannot be directly interfered with by the states at war. But indirectly they can be injured by interference on the high seas with vessels which carry goods to and from their ports. Practice has varied from time to time, and sometimes an exceptional usage has been adopted for a while by powerful belligerents (see INTERNATIONAL LAW). Thus the right of confiscating not only enemy goods found on board a neutral ship, but the ship as well, was claimed and exercised by France and Spain at the beginning of the 18th century. A hundred years later England and France enforced their violent and illegal measures of mutual retaliation at the expense of neutral trade, and to the ruin of neutral markets (see CONTINENTAL SYSTEM; LICENSES (Continental War)). But commercial interests are now far too powerful to be harried with impunity. By the Declaration of Paris of 1856 both enemy goods laden on neutral ships and neutral goods laden on enemy ships are allowed to pass freely to and from neutral ports (see DECLARATION OF PARIS). Leaving out blockade which is sui generis, the only exceptions to the rule of freedom are found in the cases of enemy ships, enemy goods on enemy ships, and contraband of war carried in neutral ships. The two former would dis

appear if private property at sea were exempted from warlike capture. The latter will probably remain as long as wars continue; for no power is likely to deprive itself of the right to seize munitions of war on the way to an enemy. During the American civil war of 1861-1865, each side bought enormous quantities of arms and ammunition in England; and the neutral British port of Nassau in the Bahamas became the centre of a considerable trade in goods intended to run the blockade of the ports of the Southern Confederacy.. In the war of 1904-5 between Russia and Japan the former power purchased all sorts of weapons and warlike stores in Germany, from where they were conveyed to her across her land frontiers. law of contraband is powerless to deal with a trade of this kind which does not cross the seas and cannot be intercepted by the other belligerent.

The

[For later developments see DECLARATION OF LONDON and articles cited in the text. For the sudden rise of Nassau, and the trade in contraband of war between England and America, see the British and American Cases presented to the arbitrators at Geneva in 1872, and M. Bernard's Historical Account of the Neutrality of Great Britain during the American Civil War.] T. J. L.

NEUTRAL PROPERTY may be described as the property of neutral states, subjects of neutral states, or enemy subjects domiciled in neutral states. But if a neutral subject is domiciled in an enemy's country, his property connected with the enemy domicile is regarded as enemy property for purposes of belligerent capture, as also is property at sea owned by neutrals, not incorporated in enemy commerce or subject to enemy control. Moreover, if an enemy subject is domiciled in a neutral state, only his property connected with the neutral domicile ranks as neutral property. Neutral property in neutral territory is inviolable; but if the land forces of one belligerent occupy a district belonging to the other, they may subject neutral property found therein to all the severities of warfare. At sea neutral vessels, if public, are free from belligerent search, but, if private, must submit to it. They may be subjected to capture and condemnation for an attempt to run a lawful blockade or perform an unneutral service. The usual penalty for carrying contraband of war is confiscation of the cargo only; but in aggravated cases the vessel also is condemned. Neutral goods are not liable to confiscation unless they are laden on board an armed enemy vessel, or connected with a breach of blockade, or contraband in their character. On an ordinary merchantman engaged in ordinary traffic they are safe, even under the enemy's flag (see DECLARATION OF LONDON, DECLARATION OF PARIS, and INTERNATIONAL LAW).

See Hall, International Law, pt. iv. T. J. L. NEUTRALITY. See INTERNATIONAL LAW.

NEVES, JOSE ACCURSIO DAS (1766-1834), | a Portuguese economist.

He wrote Variedades sobre objectos relativos ás artes, commercio y manufacturas (Lisbon, 1814 ff. 2 vols.). He was a protectionist in his opinions, and possessed a very thorough knowledge of the economic history of Portugal.

[Cossa, Introduction to Pol. Econ., English trans., London, 1893.]

NEW CUSTOMS. The title given to the additional duties on certain goods imported by Edward I. in 1302, in distinction to the duties termed "Ancient Customs - antiqua custuma" (see CUSTOM, CUSTOMS DUTIES).

[Dowell, History of Taxation, 2nd ed., vol. ii. p. 79 ff.]

NEW IMPOST. The name under which the EXCISE (q.v.) was known when that system of taxation was first introduced in 1643. At first "the prime necessaries of life, flesh and salt," were included, and the tax was, and long continued to be, very unpopular.

[Dowell, History of Taxation, 2nd ed., vol. ii. p. 9 ff.]

NEW SUBSIDY. The original import duties in England (see IMPORT DUTIES) were called the "subsidy" of tonnage and poundage. The subsidy of poundage was from 1373 onwards for a long time fixed at a shilling in the pound or 5 per cent ad valorem; so that in the language of the customs, subsidy came to mean a general import duty of 5 per cent ad valorem. The "new subsidy" was the duty at that rate imposed by 9 & 10 Will. III. c. 23 (1697) and appropriated to the civil list. It was long kept separate in the accounts of the exchequer.

[Hall's History of the Customs Duties.]

C. A. H.

NEWBURY, JACK OF, a hero of 17th century chap-books, around whose name gathered a multitude of absurd and mythical stories, was in fact a certain John Winchcombe, a wealthy clothier, who carried on business at Newbury early in the 16th century. "Winchcombe's kersies" were well known in the reign of Edward VI.; and his descendants afterwards made their way into the ranks of the county gentry. It is probable that, anticipating the later factory system, he made an attempt to gather a large number of work people under the same roof; but all such experiments must have been put an end to by the act of 1553 limiting the number of looms any clothier might possess. [Ashley, Econ. Hist., vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 229, 236.]

W. J. A.

NEWENHAM, THOMAS (1762-1831), was member of Irish parliament of 1798, and strennously opposed the union. After its enactment, he settled in England and endeavoured by his writings to spread a better knowledge of Irish affairs amongst English readers. His works include A Statistical and Historical

VOL. IIL

17

Inquiry into the Progress and Magnitude of Population of Ireland, London, 1805, 8vo, wherein, while holding that the population of Ireland tended to double itself in every forty-six years, and that its then population was nearly 5,400,000, he maintained that Ireland was capable of supporting in comfort a far greater population than this.-A View of the Natural, Political, and Commercial Circumstances of Ireland, London, 1809, 4to: this work is divided into four parts, the first dealing with the natural advantages which qualify Ireland for the acquisition of commercial wealth, and the latter three in a somewhat confused manner with the causes which frustrated these. These books were reviewed by MALTHUS (q.v.), Edinburgh Review, July 1808 and April 1809, vols. xii. -xiv. His last publication, A Series of Suggestions Relative to Ireland, Gloucester, 1825, 8vo, contained the substance of the evidence he would have given before a House of

Commons committee on Ireland had his health allowed him. In this he advocated the establishment in Ireland of banking companies, and strongly opposed the introduction of a poor law (see NICHOLLS, Sir G.), and any system of state-aided emigration.

[Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xl.]

His

This eminent economist and statistician was a native of Thirsk, Yorkshire. He had but few of the advantages that a middle-class education now affords, and was mainly indebted for his general training to habits of self-culture, and to his association at an early period of life with men engaged in active business pursuits. earliest bringing-up was as clerk to a distributor of stamps in his native county, then he moved into the service of the Yorkshire Fire and Life Office at York, and afterwards into the bankinghouse of Messrs. Leathem, Tew, and Co. of Wakefield. Marrying young, and anxious for a wider scope for the exercise of a talent for economical subjects, Newmarch removed to London. There he obtained constant employment on the staff of the Morning Chronicle newspaper, and became at the same time second officer of the Agra Bank established in London in 1840. His knowledge of the principles of banking and of general business gained him the influential support of leading men in the city, particularly of William TOOKE, whose close disciple he became in all that relates to economic science and banking. Newmarch, in 1851 resigned his position at the Agra Bank to become secretary of the Globe Insurance Company. Tooke was desirous of continuing his book on the History of Prices and of the state of the Circulation from 1792, and upon Newmarch's offering to co-operate with him in writing two additional volumes, the offer was gladly accepted, in the same spirit as Mr.

18

Danson's offer of assistance had previously been welcomed in the case of the fourth volume, published in 1848. The fifth and sixth volumes in their turn demanded some years of careful study. A vast body of statistics had to be methodised on novel and original principles of treatment. At length, in 1857, the public obtained the advantage of these researches, and they were accepted with approval, both at home and abroad. In Germany, especially, the two volumes were thought worthy of translation and of use in several universities. In 1857, Newmarch gave evidence before the select committee of the House of Commons on the Bank Acts. Like Tooke, he was opposed to the fixing of legislative limits to the issues of the Bank of England, or to the setting aside of a fixed amount of bullion as a guarantee for the circulation. In place of this he advanced the plea that legal convertibility would adequately secure against over-issue. He also advocated a discontinuance of the separation of the issue and banking departments of the Bank of England.

Newmarch had long been associated with the Royal Statistical Society of London as one of its honorary secretaries, he took the utmost interest in its meetings, and in 1869-1871 became its president in succession to Mr. Gladstone. He was also for many years secretary of the Political Economy Club, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society and a corresponding member of the academy of moral sciences of the Institute of France. he quitted the service of the Globe Insurance Company and became the chief officer in the banking-house of Glyn, Mills, and Co., where he remained until shortly before his death in 1882.

In 1862

Re

Newmarch for more than thirty years contributed some of his best work to the public press, as mentioned previously, to the Morning Chronicle, where, in 1853, a series of his papers appeared on the new supplies of gold. printed in London, in 1853, in a volume of 122 pages 8vo, with five additional chapters, they attracted a great deal of public attention, as containing by far the most valuable review attainable on the Californian and Australian gold discoveries, with facts and statements relative to their actual amount, and their present and probable effects.

In 1855 he published an essay On the Loans raised by Mr. Pitt during the first French War, 1793-1801, with some Statements in Defence of the Methods of Funding employed. The case was supported by elaborate calculations respecting each loan, supplied by Mr. Frederick Hendriks, and the main contention of the essay was that W. PITT, in his plans of borrowing, did the best that could possibly have been done for England under the circumstances of the times. The arguments were controverted

in a published series of lectures to the university of Oxford by Professor Rickards, but were warmly defended by Earl Stanhope in his biography of Pitt.

In 1861 Newmarch was president of the economic section of the British Association at the meeting in Manchester, and in his address he submitted that full as the thirty years then past had been of scientific achievements, those of economic science and statistical inquiry had a place in the first rank, and had arrived at an intermediate point, at which, after long debate, many of the earlier controversies are finally settled, and from which the way can be seen to a higher level, the least doubtful result of our experience being the discovery that the most solid progress is made by guiding ourselves in the main by close observation of facts, and by employing speculative and hypothetical reasoning under the most cautious conditions, and always with distrust and

reserve.

Amongst the most important of Newmarch's contributions to the periodical press, journals weekly and daily, and reviews and magazines, which, although anonymous, did no little in furnishing the public with sound views on banking, free trade, and currency, and on business principles generally, may be mentioned his annual "Commercial History of the Year" in the Economist; this was commenced in 1863 and continued down to 1882. Besides this annual contribution of facts and figures on which a superstructure of able reasoning was raised, Newmarch had long been a valued contributor to the Economist during the editorships of WILSON, BAGEHOT, and Sir Inglis PALGRAVE, and the suggestion came appropriately from the pages of that journal (during the editorship of Sir I. Palgrave), that if his surviving friends desired to promote some public memorial of him, no better form of it could be devised than the foundation of a professorship under his name of economic science and statistics. In the result, a subscription was made by them with this object, and the sum of about £1500 contributed for the endow. ment of the Newmarch lectures at University College, London.

F. H.

NEWTON, SIR ISAAC (1642-1727). For particulars in regard to Newton's scientific, theological, and other work, reference must be made to the various biographical notices indicated below; it is here only proposed to deal briefly with his work in connection with the Mint and currency questions.

Newton's association with the Mint arose primarily from the fact that his college friend, Charles Montague, Earl of HALIFAX, was Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1695, when the state of the currency was causing very grave anxiety through the prevalent practice of clipping and the impossibility of preventing