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when compared with her augmented wealth, their pressure had been greatly diminished since

1815.

2. That the pressure of these burdens, when compared with the means of bearing them, were heavier in other great European states than in England.

3. That on the whole a spirit of frugality is more apparent and influential in the English Government than in those with which it is usually brought into favourable comparison.

In 1860, Remarks on the Incidence of Import Duties. This was written fifteen years earlier, and was a reply to publications by Col. TORRENS, called The Budget and a Letter to Sir R. Peel.

In 1869 Papers on Various Subjects (London, 1869, 8vo). This consists of reprints of papers published at various times and on various subjects, many being articles in newspapers-many very interesting, treating, amongst other things, of protection, the laws of partnership, the poor laws, the national defences, the new reform bill, the export of silver to India, the money market, the housing of labourers, the land question, and democratic government.

On almost all these questions he took a peculiarly advanced, and almost modern, standpoint. He pointed out the fallacies of protection and the mercantile system.

A. L.

NORMANTE Y CARCAVIELLA, DOCTOR LORENZO (second half of 18th century), was probably the first public teacher of political economy in Spain. The uncompromising tone of his lectures and the enthusiastic success of the public discussions which the Royal Aragonese Society organised under his inspiration in Saragossa, were near bringing him into trouble with the Inquisition. His Discurso sobre la utilidad de los conocimientos económico-politicos y la necesidad de su estudio metódico (Saragossa, 1784) is the inaugural address, which he delivered at the beginning of his course of lectures. The Proposiciones de Economía civil y Comercio and the Espiritu del Sr. Melon (1785 and 1786) were written to serve as subjects of debate in the above-mentioned disputations. [Colmeiro, Bibl. de Economistas Españoles.]

E. ca.

NORTH, SIR DUDLEY (1641-1690), entered, at an early age, the mercantile profession, and showed such aptitude that, when twenty-one, he became the leading merchant at Constantinople of the Turkey company. He returned to England in 1680, having made a large fortune. In 1683 he was appointed one of the commissioners for the customs, but was afterwards transferred to the treasury. In both these offices he carried out important reforms. At the accession of James II. he returned to the customs. He was the author of a bill imposing new duties on sugar and tobacco. Unlike most of the leading tories, he did not leave London after the landing of William of Orange. The remaining years of his life were

occupied in private speculations and in the care of the affairs of his brother the Lord Keeper Guildford's children. We are told that he was much scandalised at the English POOR LAW (q.v.), but unfortunately his views have not come down to us.

His importance, in the field of economics, rests on his Discourses on Trade, London, 1691, 4to, one of the earliest and most luminous statements of FREE TRADE (q.v.) principles. Trade is an exchange of superfluities. Wealth consists not in the precious metals, but in the power to satisfy wants. The error of the MERCANTILE SYSTEM (q.v.) is thus clearly seen, but North avoids the opposite error. Gold and silver have some value in themselves, though their main importance depends on their convenience as a medium of exchange. Money is a commodity of which there may be a GLUT as well as a scarcity. The common cry of want

of money involves a fallacy. The real mischief is the failure to get a profit. This may be the result either of a glut of goods, or of the sudden closing of accustomed markets, or of diminished consumption. It is these causes which require remedying, and the best remedies are activity and prudence. Laws against exporting the precious metals must react against the nation enacting them. "A nation in the world, as to trade, is in all respects like a city in a kingdom, or a family in a city." The main spurs to trade are the appetites of man; hence measures, e.g. SUMPTUARY LAWS, which tend to restrain those appetites, clog industry. The rate of interest depends upon the proportion of lenders to borrowers (see D. HUME). "It is not low interest which makes trade, but trade increasing the stock of the nation makes interest low. To attempt to lower the rate by law is to go contrary to nature." As for the theological arguments, "by them 3 per cent is no more lawful than 4 or 12." North clearly demonstrates the folly of tampering with the coinage. He advocates a moderate SEIGNORAGE, the wisdom of which advice was proved by the result of the free coinage of silver in 1696-98. The final conclusion of the whole matter is "that laws to hamper trade, whether foreign or domestic, relating to money or other merchandise, are not the means to make a people rich and abounding in money and stock. But if peace be procured, easy justice maintained, navigation not clogged, the industrious encouraged by indulging them in the participation of honours and employments in the government, the stock of the nation will increase, and consequently gold and silver abound, interest be easy, and money cannot be wanting."

[Roscher's Political Economy, 13th ed. trans. by J. Lalor, New York, 1878, 8vo, 2 vols., contains numerous references to North. See also Cossa's Political Economy, trans. by L. Dyer,

1893, 8vo, and M'Culloch's Literature of Political Economy and Introduction to Tracts, 1856. For biographical details see Life of Sir Dudley North by Roger NORTH, 1744, 4to, and Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xli.]

H. E. E.

NORTH, THE HON. ROGER (1650-1733), was the sixth son of the fourth Lord North. He read for the bar.

His connection with economic science lies in his authorship of A Discourse of the Poor, showing the pernicious tendency of the laws now in force for their maintenance and settlement (London, 1753, 8vo). In this work, after setting forth the existing laws and their inefficiency, North deprecated the use of punishments, which he thought did not influence offenders so effectively as laws of encouragement. He further maintained that the laws for the poor did not help but rather hurt them, and charges these laws with the following consequences depopulation, enhancing of labour, fall of lands, decay of trade, and increase of the poor.

North proposed the repeal of the whole Elizabethan code.

His other publications are:

Examen or an Enquiry into the credit and veracity of a pretended complete History, viz. Dr. White Kennet's History of England, showing the perverse and wicked design of it, together with some memoirs occasionally inserted, all tending to vindicate the honour of King Charles II., London, 1740, 4to.-Life of the Right Hon. Francis North, Baron Guilford, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal under Charles II. and James II.; wherein are inserted the characters of Sir Matthew Hale, Sir George Jeffries, Sidney Godolphin, and other most eminent lawyers and statesmen of that time, London, 1742, 4to, 2nd ed. 1808, 2 vols., 8vo.

-The Life of the Hon. Sir Dudley North, and of Dr. John North, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, etc., London, 1744, 4to.

[For further notice of R. North, see his Autobiography, edited by Aug. Jessop, 3 vols., 1890, Bohn's Standard Library, 1846, 8vo.] A. L.

NORTHCOTE, SIR STAFFORD. See IDDESLEIGH, EARL of.

NOT NEGOTIABLE. The method of crossing cheques with the words "not negotiable" was introduced by the Crossed Cheques Act 1876.

That act is now repealed, and its provisions are replaced by §§ 76-82 of the Bills of Exchange Act 1882. The term "not negotiable" is a somewhat unhappy one, because it is often taken to signify that a cheque so crossed is not transferable. As a fact, however, the cheque is transferable, by indorsement on delivery like any other cheque. The effect of the crossing is that the person who takes the cheque does not acquire, and cannot give, a better title to the cheque than that which the person from whom he took it had (see § 81).

In order to render a bill, note, or cheque incapable of transfer, the drawer or indorser must add words to the instrument or indorse

46

25

ment clearly prohibiting transfer. For instance, a cheque may be drawn or indorsed in the form pay John Smith only," and then John Smith cannot indorse it away (Bills of Exchange Act, § 8).

M. D. C.

NOTABLES, ASSEMBLÉES DES. The Assemblées des Notables must be distinguished from the ÉTATS GÉNÉRAUX of the old French monarchy; the latter were more or less a national representative body, whilst the former were the result of an arbitrary selection and summons by the monarchs, when they desired to consult on important questions, but intended to keep free from the remonstrances and interference of the States General themselves. Higher officials of the state, lay and ecclesiastical, often made up the majority of the Assemblée; its decisions were purely consultative. The first Assemblée des Notables was called together by Charles V. in 1369; others were assembled by Louis XI. in 1470, by Francis I. in 1526 (to declare void the treaty of Madrid), by Henry IV. at Rouen in 1596, by Richelieu in 1626. They were convoked for the last time in 1787 and 1788 under Louis XVI. and led to the election of the States General of 1789, which was the first act of the French Revolution.

[See, besides works on the États Généraux, Beaurepaire, Louis XIII. et l'Assemblée des Notables de Rouen en 1617 (Rouen, 1883).-Collection des Mémoires présentés à l'Assemblée des Notables (Versailles, 2 vols. 1787) and Procès Verbal de l'Assemblée des Notables (Paris, 1788).]

tribunal of commerce in France was instituted by an edict of Charles IX. (November 1563), inspired by the Chancellor de L'Hospital ordering the provost and Echevins (aldermen) to summon an assembly of notable bourgeois for the election of merchants to the position of consular judges. In 1565 this organisation was extended to the whole of the kingdom, and the articles 618 and 619 of the code of commerce of 1807 maintained it, declaring "that the members of the tribunals of commerce will be elected by an assembly composed of notable merchants, and principally of the heads of the oldest and most recommendable firms," with the proviso that "the list of notables . . . will be drawn up by the prefect (of the département) and approved by the minister of the interior." After 1840 it became usual for the prefect to take the advice of the tribunal and chamber of commerce and of the maire; in 1883 the electoral body was greatly extended, and now comprises all persons in trade being French citizens, paying their trade-license tax, droit de patente, and domiciled for at least five years within the jurisdiction of the tribunal. Since then, however, only a small minority of voters (say 1800 out of 42,000 in Paris) take part in the election (see PATENTE).

26

In Belgium the system of notables commerçants has also been abandoned; a law of July 1881 declares that "all persons in trade being communal electors, and paying to the state on account of their patente [license] a sum of twenty francs, are entitled to vote for the formation of the tribunals of commerce." E. Ca.

NOTE CIRCULATION. The power of issuing notes, that is, of possessing a note circulation, was, in the early days of banking in this country, a privilege greatly valued, and highly profitable to the bank which possessed it. Deposit banking in its strict sense scarcely existed during the infancy of our credit institutions. In the first place, there was but little cash to deposit, and in the next, there were not many persons whose credit was so good that their neighbours would trust them with large sums of money. But to hold the note of a banker in good repute was much easier. The note formed a portion of the circulating medium. Anyone to whom the holder owed money was very willing to be paid in that form, and hence, during the early part of the 19th century, the issues of the banks of this country, stimulated partly by high prices, partly by the restriction of specie payments, became very large indeed. Thus in the year

1814 the estimated note circulation of the country was nearly fifty millions, divided as follows:

This diminution is evidence of the alteration in the banking habits of the country, but when we add to it the vast increase in the use of

cheques, the clearing-house system, virtually built up within the last century, and all the modern methods for economy of circulation, the difference is far greater, and the part played by the note circulation is now far smaller even than appears at first sight.

It would, of course, be a mistake to imagine that the note circulation is a thing absolutely useless to banks, but the fact that all the English country banks which issued notes have been willing to surrender the privilege as part of the price for amalgamating with the larger joint-stock banks is some indication of the change of habit which has taken place. With the amalgamation of Messrs. Fox, Fowler & Company, of Wellington, Somerset, with Lloyds Bank Limited, in 1921, disappeared

the last of the English country banks having the right to issue notes in accordance with the terms of the Bank Charter Act.

[For further details see BANKING AND BANK NOTE; CLEARING SYSTEM. - Bagehot, Lombard Street.-F. A. Walker, Money.-Money, Trade, and Industry. - Report, Banks of Issue, 1840, House of Commons. -Report and Evidence, Bank of England Charter, 1832, House of Commons. First and Second Reports, Banks of Issue, Evidence and Appendix, 1841, House of Commons. — 48, House of Commons.-First and Second Reports Report and Evidence, Commercial Distress, 1847

and Evidence, Commercial Distress, 1848, House of Commons.-Appendix and Supplemental Appendix, Commercial Distress, 1848, House of Commons.-. -Report on Banks of Issue, 1875, House of Commons. Report on Bank Acts, 1857, House of Commons, 2 vols.-Report and Evidence, Bank Atts, 1858.-Correspondence, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Bank of England, 1861, House of Commons.-R. H. Inglis Palgrave, Notes on Banking and Bank of England Analysis, London, 1873.]

F. W. G.

NOTES, BOUGHT AND SOLD. This is the name popularly given to notes sent by stockbrokers to their principals, advising them of the sale or purchase of any stock exchange securities. A person who effects such a sale or purchase of the value of £1 or upwards, who omits to send a note of this description to his customer provided with the government stamp (1d. in the case of the value being under £100, and 6d. in all other cases), is liable to be fined to the extent of £20 (Stamp Act 1891, §§ 52 and 53). The contract notes in question generally contain a clause stating that the contract is made subject to the rules and regulations of the London stock exchange, but this provision has in some cases been disregarded by the courts. Thus it was held by the court of appeal that the rule of the stock exchange, which excludes the operation of Leeman's act, is unreasonable and not binding on a principal to whom it is unknown.

E. 8.

[Perry v. Barnett, 15 Q.B.D., 388.] NOTICE. Notice sometimes means know

In

But

ledge of a fact, however obtained, and sometimes knowledge conveyed in a formal manner. sales of property, knowledge on the part of a purchaser of any defect of title causes him to take the property subject to such defect. he who purchases bona fide for value without notice of any defect will as a rule be protected by the courts on the ground that if a person were liable to be deprived of his property because of secret defects in title, no one would be safe in effecting any purchase.

As an example of express notice, reference may be made to the notice of dishonour that has to be given in the case of a BILL OF EXCHANGE in order to make certain parties to the bill liable.

Notice to quit is required whenever a person holds a tenancy from year to year, as such a tenancy

28

tract of record, (2) made under seal or (3) supported by a consideration.

[Sohm's Institutes of Roman Law, Oxford, 1892. -Anson on Contracts, Oxford, 1892.] J. E. C. M. NUMERICAL DETERMINATION OF THE LAWS OF UTILITY is the title given by JEVONS (Theory of Political Economy, 2nd ed. p. 158) to an operation which he, like GOSSEN, regards as possible-the ascertainment of the form of DEMAND CURVES by statistics of prices and consumption. It may be objected to this phrase, that laws of utility cannot be deduced from laws of price, except on the assumption that price is the measure of utility --the Marginal Utility of money being constant (see FINAL DEGREE OF UTILITY). But, even upon this assumption, there are great difficulties in the way of the statistical operation. First, the utility derived from a set of articles is in general not the simple sum, but some unknown function, of the utilities derived from each. Thus the amount consumed of any one article will vary with the prices of othersespecially of those which are substitutes for the one under consideration, as tea is for coffee, or complementary to it, as bats are to balls. Accordingly, to observe the changes in the demand for an article corresponding to the changes in its price is apt to be nugatory unless it can be assumed that the prices of all other articles are constant.

Again, utility is not only a compli

cated function of the amounts consumed, but a variable one, changing its form with every vicissitude of taste and fashion. Professor MARSHALL has pointed out these and other difficulties (Principles, bk. iii. ch. iii.), and attempted to evade them (ib., last section). See CURVES. F. Y. E.

NUYTZ, GAETANO (18th-19th century), was a native of Lombardy, and wrote a book on money of some interest. Nuytz follows the ideas common in his day distinguishing between intrinsic and current value of money. He condemns alterations in money and considers laws against the export of specie useless. He remarks on the conveniency of an abundant coinage up to a certain limit of saturation in the market, and he also recognises the use of paper money in limited quantity. He is not without mercantilist tendencies (see MERCANTILE SYSTEM), which he displays in his investigation into the causes that may increase or diminish money, and also in his proposals for increasing it. There are, in his work, several striking digressions on the theory of value and on luxury and financial matters.

On the whole, however, he has little scientific merit, particularly when compared with other and earlier writers, as well as with those of his own day whose economic ideas were already inspired by new modes of thought.

Forza della moneta nella società, Milano, Anno VI. repubblicano.

U. R.

OASTLER, RICHARD (1789-1861), known during his lifetime as the "Factory King" on account of his services to workers in factories, was born at Leeds. His father, originally a linen merchant from Thirsk, afterwards became steward of the Fixby (Huddersfield) estates of T. Thornhill, who had property in land both in Yorkshire and Norfolk. Richard Oastler was the youngest of eight children, and inherited from his father both a reputation for generous sympathies and an active interest in public affairs. On his father's death in 1820 he succeeded him as steward, and in this capacity resided at Fixby Hall, near Huddersfield, where he remained during the most important part of his career. Oastler described himself as "a Tory and a Churchman," and it is therefore not surprising to find that during the agitation for the Reform Bill he strenuously opposed the popular party; even some years later he was averse to mingling personally among mill-hands because, he said, "they were usually Radicals and Dissenters." But his

work soon changed this attitude. He first came before the public in Yorkshire as a supporter of William Wilberforce in the agitation for the abolition of negro slavery (see ABOLITIONIST); but though living in the heart of manufacturing Yorkshire, he was totally

More

ignorant of the unhappy conditions of the factory hands in the mills near him. In 1830, however, while on a visit to his friend John Wood, a mill-owner, of Horton Hall, Bradford, Yorkshire, the latter remarked to him, "I wonder you have never turned your attention to the factory system, for I assure you there are cruelties daily practised in our mills on little children which, if you knew, I am sure you would strive to prevent." With characteristic energy, Oastler at once wrote a powerful letter on "Yorkshire Slavery" to the Leeds Mercury, then, as now, a highly influential West Riding paper. The letter, dated 29th September 1830, provoked a lengthy correspondence. than this, it was the beginning of an agitation that lasted many years, for the reform of the conditions of factory labour, especially in the case of children and young persons, and for a reduction of hours of work, which finally resulted in the Ten Hours Bill, and other well-known FACTORY ACTS (q.v.). In this agitation Oastler took a leading part both in speaking and writing. Meanwhile, however, he had the misfortune to be imprisoned for debt at the instance of his employer, Mr. Thornhill. He had been dismissed from his stewardship in May 1838 owing to his using his influence in the Halifax and Huddersfield