The revolutionary technological changes that have come to typify our modern industrial society were first felt in the New England textile industry. The American zeal for useful improvements that greeted the industrial revolution was counterbalanced by a patriotic fear that the ill consequences of European manufacturing would be repeated here. The textile manufacturers who introduced the factory system into the United States early in the nineteenth century found it necessary, in order to win a full measure of public support and secure workers in a land where labor was dear, to demonstrate that “the moral standards of the community would not be impaired.”

When one compares ancient and modern economic institutions, the differences are many and deep. One of the most obvious is the appearance of slavery virtually everywhere among those societies that rose from simple village life to civilization. Social and economic specialization, the resulting necessity for interchange of goods, and a higher political organization in a firm, consciously organized state—these are aspects of the appearance of civilization, and with them one usually finds a spectrum of social classes from aristrocrats to slaves.

Since the end of World War II Americans interested in international economic affairs have faced a painful dilemma. Almost every set of international policies advanced during this period has called for the widespread use of American capital to assist in the development of underdeveloped areas in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The United States government has furnished much of this capital during the last decade, but private capital has borne a share of the effort in the past and may well be called upon for a larger share in the future. Unfortunately, in a period of frequent small wars, revolutions, and expropriations, American investors naturally hesitate to send their capital abroad if they can invest it profitably at home. One of the most vexing problems in modern international economic relations is that of predicting or assuring regular returns from American investments abroad.

Historical demography is indeed what Father Mols calls it, a “science des confines” (Vol. I, Introduction, p. xvi), a discipline which is doomed to cultivate the boulder-strewn and not easily accessible borderlands between half a dozen fields of learning. In a territory such as this the first clearings are of necessity a matter of small-scale enterprise; that is to say, local research predominates. But this has been proceeding on a broad front; the difficulties encountered have not been great enough to discourage the pioneers. Indeed, the amount of labor expended on local or regional investigations into problems of historical demography beggars description: antiquaries and genealogists, statisticians and students of medical history, sociologists and economic historians have combed thousands of records and accumulated mountains of quantitative as well as symptomatic evidence regarding past populations.

J. D. Gould in a fairly recent article attempts to explain why Thomas Mun did not develop the “self-regulating mechanism of specie distribution.” I find Mr. Gould's argument unconvincing and while I hesitate to question one point in an otherwise interesting atricle, I think the point merits further discussion.

George W. Wilson's argument would be irrefutable if one could analyze long-term economic trends in terms of monetary theory alone. Undoubtedly, Mun's point was that specie judiciously exported for purposes of foreign trade would not be “lost to die Realm,” as the bullionists feared, but would return witii interest. If, then, we could assume no change in nonmonetary factors, pursuit of the policy advocated by Mun would ultimately make a rise of internal prices inevitable, save by a “flight from gold” on a scale uncongenial to mercantilist preconceptions. So far, Mr. Wilson's logic compels a modification of my argument, and for this demonstration I am grateful.

The Editors regret the error in the title of Miss Sylvia L. Thrupp's article in the December 1957 issue. The correct title is “The Role of Comparison in the Development of Economic History.”