Something I find particularly interesting in the following five exams is that the second course in political economy at Oxford in 1902 was based upon the American textbook, Political Economy, by Francis A. Walker.
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SECOND PUBLIC EXAMINATION.
Pass School. Group B. 3.
Political Economy. I.
Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations.
Time allowed—3 Hours.
- “Why have gold and silver been commonly chosen as the material of money?
- How far did Adam Smith anticipate (a) the Malthusian theory of population, (b) the law of diminishing returns?
- Explain why the earnings of labour are different in different occupations.
- Give an account of the Mercantile System and describe the chief methods adopted under its influence.
- In what ways have the results of free trade in England differed from those suggested as probable by Adam Smith?
- Compare Greek, Roman, and modern colonies as to (a) the motives which led to their foundation, and (b) the conditions of their prosperity.
- In what ways, besides taxation, may a state raise revenue? Are any of them important in England at the present time?
- What information is given by Adam Smith as to the condition of Hindostan, China, Holland, and Scotland?
- Give Adam Smith’s views on—
(a) the importance of the carrying trade;
(b) the expediency of usury laws;
(c) hearth money;
(d) taxes on ale-houses;
(e) land taxes.
- Explain and examine the following:—
(a) ‘Labour is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities.’
(b) ‘The whole price of any commodity must finally resolve itself into some one or other or all of three parts.’
[T. T. 1902.]
SECOND PUBLIC EXAMINATION.
Pass School. Group B. 3.
Political Economy. II.
Walker’s Political Economy.
Time allowed—3 Hours.
- Explain the law of diminishing returns. What is its bearing on the theory of Rent?
- To what extent is the condition of the working-classes affected by the absence of perfect competition?
- What are the conditions which favour the growth of capital in a country?
- What is the connexion between Cost of Production and the Price of a Commodity?
- Under what circumstances is it expedient for a country to import goods although it could produce them more cheaply than the country from which they are imported?
- Why are the total exports from a country and the total imports into it not usually equal in value?
- Describe the chief functions of a modern bank.
- What is Bimetallism? What claims are made on its behalf, and how far are they valid?
- What is a protective duty? Under what circumstances, if any, is such a duty expedient?
- Explain the following phrases: — economic man, territorial division of labour, debasement of coin, depreciation, tabular standard, Gresham’s law, the theory of the diffusion of taxes.
[T. T. 1902.]
Source: Oxford University Examination Papers, Second Public Examination, Pass School, Group B.3. Trinity Term, 1902, pp. 29-30.
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SCHOOL OF MODERN HISTORY.
Political Economy and Economic History.
[Candidates must answer questions from both sections of the paper.]
I.
- What circumstances, in Mill’s opinion, make (a) Wages high, (b) Profits low, (c) Interest vary, (d) Rents fall?
- Enumerate, explain, and, if necessary, criticize Mill’s four fundamental propositions respecting Capital.
- Explain, with examples, the operation, advantage, and danger of the Credit system, as it exists in England.
- Distinguish the forces by which value is determined from the means by which it is measured, and give a careful discussion of the latter.
- Discuss Mill’s views upon any one of the following:—
(a) Unproductive Labour.
(b) Competition.
(c) Equality of Taxation.
(d) An inconvertible paper currency.
- Comment on the following passages from Mill:—
(a) Hardly anything worse can be said of the worst laws on the subject of industry and its remuneration than that they place the energetic and the idle, the skillful and the incompetent, on a level: and this, in so far as it is in itself possible, it is the direct tendency of the regulations of these unions to do.
(b) The exchange value of a thing may fall short, to any amount, of its value in use; but that it can ever exceed the value in use, implies a contradiction.
(c) A thing may sometimes be sold cheapest, by being produced in some other place than that at which it can be produced with the smallest amount of labour and abstinence.
(d) It must be remembered, too, that general high prices, even supposing them to exist, can be of no use to a producer or dealer, considered as such; [sic]
- Define Free Trade. How far do (a) countervailing duties, (b) the recent Tax on imported corn, run counter to the principles contained in your definition?
II.
- Do you consider that the economic prosperity of England has been attained by means of, or in spite of, Legislation?
- What were the advantages and disadvantages of the Manor System to the peasant?
- Do you think that Economic History can be profitably studied apart from the study of Political Economy?
- Explain any of the following:—Staple Towns; Convertible Husbandry; Drawbacks; Gresham’s Law; Navigation Acts; Truck Acts; Sinking Fund; Libelle of English Polycye.
- Compare the debt which England owes to wool with that which she owes to iron.
- Explain and comment upon the following:—
(a) Therefore, to speak of the abolishing of usury is idle. All states have ever had it, in one kind or rate, or other. So as that opinion must be sent to Utopia. (Bacon’s Essays.)
(b) In agriculture, too, Nature labours along with man; and though her labour costs no expense, its produce has its value, as well as that of the most expensive workmen. (Adam Smith.)
(c) To found a great Empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers. (Adam Smith.) - How far did the agricultural improvements of the eighteenth century make the Industrial Revolution possible?
[T. T. 1902.]
SCHOOL OF MODERN HISTORY.
Political Economy. A.
Foreign Trade.
- ‘The one condition at once essential to, and also sufficient for, the existence of international trade is a difference in the comparative as distinguished from the absolute cost of producing the commodities exchanged.’ Cairnes, cited by Bastable.
Explain the principle referred to; and give examples from the commercial history of the nineteenth century of mistakes in policy which may be traced to want of acquaintance with this principle. - ‘Tiefgreifende Umwälzungen der Vermögensverhältnisse, wie sie unter Ricardo’s Voraussetzungen zu erwarten sind, können nicht nur für die Kapitalisten, sondern auch für die Masse der Arbeiterbevölkerung so grosse Uebel erzeugen, dass man häufig vorziehen muss, auf eine an sich zweckmässigere internationale Verteilung der Production zu verzichten…. Es ist vorsichtig, darauf zu achten, dass die Wegräumung der schützenden Schranken keine gemeinschädliche Erschütterung des Wirtschaftslebens verursacht.’
‘Sogenannte Erziehungszölle haben…für die auf der normalen Höhe der Entwicklung stehenden Kulturstaaten keinen Sinn und Zweck mehr.’ (Lexis.)
Translate and comment on these passages. - Trace the history of the Corn Trade from 1815 to Referring to Canning’s speech on the Corn Law in the latter year, criticize the measure then proposed by him.
- What were the advantages claimed by Macaulay, Peel, and Cobden, for a free trade in corn; and to what extent were these advantages realized by the abolition of the Corn Laws?
- Give some account of the Merchant’s Petition in 1820; and trace through the next six years the reforms in commercial policy of which it was the harbinger.
- ‘To re-establish duties upon the import of foreign produce, to be regulated by the principle of reciprocity, would be accompanied with insuperable difficulties.’ (Peel.)
Give instances of the principle of reciprocity being employed by statesmen of the Free Trade persuasion with success. - ‘The Budget of 1860 completed the work of freeing the Statute Book of the United Kingdom from the vast series of tolls which for many hundreds of years had cumbered its pages.’ (Report on the Customs Tariffs, 1897.)
Review the simplifications of the tariff effected between 1840 and 1860; mentioning instances in which the remission of taxation was attended with an increase of revenue. - Point out some of the difficulties attending the use of import and export statistics. Why is the money value of exports, both (a) absolutely and (b) relatively to that of imports, an imperfect measure of a country’s industrial prosperity?
[T. T. 1902.]
SCHOOL OF MODERN HISTORY.
Political Economy. B.
Currency and Banking.
- Mention and criticize some of the doctrines combated by Horner and Canning in their defence of the Report of the Bullion Committee.
- By what arguments did Ricardo defend the Resumption of Cash Payments against Mr. Western in 1822? Comment upon the ‘opinion which he (Mr. Ricardo) had given of the effect which had been produced on the value of gold by the purchases [of gold] made by the Bank.’
- ‘No currency can be good of which the permanent average value does not conform to the permanent average value of a metallic currency; but I do not admit the inference that in order to enable it to do this, its fluctuations in value must conform to the fluctuations in the value of a metallic currency.’ (J. S. Mill.)
Compare Mill’s doctrine as to the regulation of a convertible currency with that which is embodied in the Bank Act of 1844. - ‘The value of money is settled like that of all other Commodities by supply and demand and only the form is essentially different.’ (Bagehot.)
Apply this statement to variations in the rate of discount on the London money-market.
Is there any connexion between fluctuations of discount and permanent changes in the level of general prices? - ‘The question what is the relation between the amount of money in a country and the general scale of prices existing therein’ is ‘perhaps the one upon which the most contradictory opinions have been expressed by economists of reputation.’ (Walker.)
Express your opinion on this question; referring to the views of leading economists, in particular those of Professor Marshall. - ‘A joint supply of gold and silver will probably be more stable than a supply of either metal separately.’ (Foxwell.)
Does the principle involved in this statement—the tendency of independent variations to compensate each other—form a strong argument in favour of Bimetallism?
With what success could the principle be applied to the use of a ‘tabular standard’—based on the variation in the prices of several commodities—for deferred payments? - ‘It is agreed on all sides that violent fluctuations of prices are an evil in the long run; but the difference of opinion is as to whether it is the sudden rise of prices, or the subsequent fall which is mainly responsible for the evil.’ (Marshall.)
‘An appreciation of gold will upon the whole tend to put a drag upon production.’ (Foxwell.)
Compare and comment on the views of Professors Marshall and Foxwell as to the detriment caused by a change in the level of prices. - How would you measure a variation in the value of money with respect to commodities in general between two epochs?
[T. T. 1902.]
Source: Oxford University Examination Papers, Second Public Examination, Honour School of Modern History. Trinity Term, 1902, pp. 32-34
Image Source: Convocation House, looking S.E. 1634–36. ‘Plate 56: Bodleian Library, Convocation House and Schools Quadrangle’, in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the City of Oxford (London, 1939), p. 56. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/rchme/oxon/plate-56 [accessed 13 May 2018].