Yet neither tolerance, nor patriotic bias, nor the improbability of reform prevented him from criticising bad institutions. He saw how evil was the system of unpaid magistracies which Bentham burned and Gneist adored. He saw how advantageous was the famous excise scheme which ruined Walpole. He objected to large farms and entailed estates, and was not afraid to declare that a thousand acres ought to be purchased as easily as a thousand yards of cloth. He laughed at the notion, still strangely prevalent, that agriculture is injured by manufactures. “It is always a sign,” he says, “that the country is improving, when men go to town. There are no parts of the country so well inhabited nor so well cultivated as those which lie in the neighbourhood of populous cities.” He described how Philip IV. went to the plough himself to set the fashion, and did everything for the farmers except bringing them a good market; how he conferred the titles of nobility upon several farmers, and very absurdly endeavoured to oppress manufacturers with heavy taxes in order to force them to the country. Smith concluded his discourse upon Cheapness or Plenty with a few remarks on the influence of commerce on manners; and having thus laid the foundations of a new science, a true system of political economy, he went on to “Arms” (Part IV.), and treated of Militias, Discipline, and Standing Armies. His course ended with a survey (Part V.) of the Laws of Nations. The rules, he remarks, which nations ought to observe, or do observe, with one another cannot be stated with precision. It is true that the rules of property and of justice are pretty uniform in the civilised world. But with regard to international law, what Grotius had said was still true. It was hard to mention a single regulation that had been established with the common consent of all nations and was observed as such at all times. Smith, as usual, sought for the reason, and as usual found it. “This must necessarily be the case; for where there is no supreme legislative power nor judge to settle differences we may always expect uncertainty and irregularity.” The pope, indeed, as the common father of Christendom, had introduced more humanity into warfare; but except for this hint Smith seems to have made no proposal for filling up the blank. We can only imagine how one who so loved peace and hated war would have rejoiced to see nations moving slowly but surely towards the idea of an international judge, and learning that, as the Duel is not the last word of civilisation in individual quarrels, so the Battle is not the last or the best trial of disputes between nations. CHAPTER VI GLASGOW AND ITS UNIVERSITY