During the century which culminated in the First World War, Great Britain was the principal source of capital supply for countries that drew upon foreign resources. Until 1940 her claims as creditor remained substantially greater than those of any other nation. Investments grossing from forty to fifty billion dollars have been made in the course of her virtually continuous process of capital outlay abroad. The outstanding total in 1914 amounted to twenty billion dollars, yielding an annual income of about one billion, which was nearly one tenth of the national income of the United Kingdom. This was the result of a process of accumulation which reached its greatest intensity during the periods 1868–1875, 1884–1893, and 1905–1912, when annual public issues of foreign and colonial securities averaged 6 or 7 per cent of those outstanding. During the latter period, at least, more than half of all British investment of new capital was being made abroad.

The southern textile mill village has received little empirical attention. I summarize the results of ongoing research using the records of the Courtenay Mill of Newry, South Carolina. There is evidence that stable family life was rewarded, mill housing was used to create dependence, and locally recruited workers recieved less pay than those from other areas. I conclude with a discussion of the possible causes of the local operative earnings differential and indicate other areas for future research.

Seymour Drescher's comments center on whether British traders exporting slaves from Africa directly to non-British territories in the Americas were able to load more slaves per ton after 1788 than the slave-ton ratios imposed by British laws. The bone of contention here arose originally from attempts to estimate the volume of the trade. I argued that the British traders did load considerably more slaves per ton after 1788. Neglecting this factor would lead to a significant underestimate of the volume. Drescher disagreed and offered comments in Econocide; I replied in Forced Migration. In discussing the profits I found the subject still relevant: I argued that loading considerably more slaves than British laws allowed enhanced profits of the larger firms with access to non-British territories. On this Drescher here takes issue.

The twentieth-century American economics profession was privileged and shaped by the federal government's need to direct resources and to call on experts. Bureaucratic tendencies to classify and count had an impact on the discipline's self-concept, subdisciplines, and multiple research agendas. A consensus of professional opinion and the standardization of graduate curriculums emerged out of the involvement of economists with governmental affairs. Moreover, American economists played an important role in the reconstitution of the profession overseas after World War II.

In constructing his social theory Saint-Simon made use of the inductive method: by the study of historical facts he endeavored to win knowledge of the laws of the character and movements of society. In shaping his spiritual program he followed a different path, the path of deduction: his goal was to find a great principle in accordance with which the institutions of the future social order could be consciously molded. “Socrates,” he said, putting his ideas into the mouth of the great Greek, “clearly understood that we must criticize a posteriori and organize a priori.” For “any social regime is an application of a philosophical system, and, consequently, it is impossible to institute a new regime without having before established the new philosophical system to which it should correspond.”

Iam Going to talk about historical comparison along a time axis in connection with the problem of a new framework for social history. Lest I be thought to aim at heights of egomania never before scaled, let me hastily add, however, that the full title of my remarks would not be “Comparison along the Time Axis: A New Framework for Social History! Come and get It!” It might rather be “Comparison along the Time Axis: A New Framework for Social History? Can Anything be Done with It?”