THE CROP CYCLE AND THE BUSINESS CYCLE 313

main, determinants of such periodicity as there is in industrial fluctua-
tions.'1

Ashton draws the same picture of a shift, accompanying the march of a
Late Modern Western Industrial Revolution, in the Balance of Power
between the non-human external forces and the human internal forces
exercising dominion over Western Man's economic life.

'There is little doubt, I think, that the fluctuations of harvests were a
major cause of variations in economic activity in the eighteenth century.
But nearly all economists now agree that the cyclical movements of the
nineteenth century at least can be attributed to oscillation in investment
(i.-e. the creation of capital goods or goods not in a form available for
direct consumption). It is the human factor rather than physical environ-
ment that is responsible.'2

In W. W. Rostow's opinion3 'the domestic harvests played a significant
part in British trade fluctuations' until A.D. 1850 beyond question, and
probably till the eighteen-seventies.

The epiphany of the particular rhythmical economic fluctuations that
had come to be known as business cycles had been contemporaneous
with the rise and spread of the industrial type of economy. On the strength
of evidence marshalled by W. R. Scott, 'it seems clear', in W. C. Mit-
chell's view,

'that the English crises of 1558—1720 were not business crises of the
modern type, and that the intervals between these crises were not occupied
by business cycles.'4

According to W. R. Scott himself, the vicissitudes in the economic his-
tory of England in the Early Modern Age of Western history were mostly
caused by repercussions of forces operative on non-economic planes of
life.

'It is when the forecast of the majority of traders is in error that a crisis
results. The cause of the miscalculation may He either mainly in the men
who judge or in the events to be judged. . . . At later periods the impor-
tance of Man's judgment and calculation becomes marked in the period
of speculative activity which precedes a crisis. But, prior to the develop-
ment of banking, such intense activity is scarcely to be expected. . . .
Analysing the crises up to 1720 ... it will be seen that, owing to defective
intelligence in the form of news or to bad government, the objective aspect
tends to predominate.'5

The next chapter of the story may be told in Mitchell's, Ashton's, and
Dupriez's words:

'Business cycles are much later in appearing than economic, or even
strictly financial, crises. In England itself they seem not to have begun
before the close of the eighteenth century. But, when they did appear, it
was in the form of an extension—over all branches of industry—of diffi-
culties not unlike those which had been suffered for more than a hundred

1 Ibid,, p. 233. 2 Ashton, loc. cit.

s Rostow, W. W.: British Economy of the Nineteenth Century (Oxford 1948, Clarendon
Press), p. 50. * Mitchell, ibid., p. So.

s Scott, W. R.: The Constitution and Finance of English, Scottish, and IrishJoint-StGc
Companies to 17210 (Cambridge 1910-12, University Press, 3 vols.), vol. i, -