Henry Clay [1883-1954] was known as a strong advocate of “rationalisation” in the decade of the 1920s. In 1933 he was appointed to an economic adviser of Montague Norman who was the governor of the Bank of England. The purpose of this paper is to examine Clay's ideas regarding the industry, economic organisation, and co-operation that evolved in the period from 1916 to 1929.
Clay lectured on economics for the Worker's Educational Association between 1909 and 1917, and published a book entitled Economics: an Introduction for the General Reader [1916]. Clay's intention was to explain the social arrangements which make the business transaction “possible.” For Clay, economics should be the study of business in its social aspect; it is the object of economics to explain such arrangements in detail and to show how the system works, and economists should study what points of contact the economic order has with the political order, and how far the economic order harmonies with the moral order. Criticizing “a survival from the period of orthodox laissez faire, ” Clay suggested that the object of economics was not the advocacy of the present economic system. Focusing on specialisation and the production system's dependence on anticipated demand, Clay treated difficulties such as severe fluctuations, over-production, and the unemployment that accompanied them as “imperfections of co-operation.” Clay closely evaluated the social role of businessmen in organizing and co-ordinating industry both efficiently and morally, because they prevented those difficulties. In addition, Clay insisted that the economic organisation in the past had been moralized by the action of the State quite as much as through the economic actions of individuals; a few examples would be the reform of the early factories, the abolition of infant labour in mines, the regulation of dangerous trades, and the prevention of deleterious adulteration, all of which had needed the intervention of the State.
After the First World War, the economic conditions and circumstances dramatically changed. Clay came to consider that the most urgent problem was how to reconstruct the British industry. Immediately following the war, Clay insisted on the need for the imperative leadership of government to reset an industrial order for peace (Clay 1918). However, the government did not take such measures. So Clay blamed the difficulties of the post-war unemployment problem and those of depressed industries on the mismanagement of the government including the return to the gold standard (Clay 1929a, 1929b). The greater comparative depression of the export industries was one of the most striking features of the post-war period. In late 1920s, Clay suggested “rationalisation”: the regeneration of private enterprise or the amalgamation of small businesses by banks. Clay regarded the banks to have the ability to reorganize finance and give strategic knowledge to firms, both of which were necessary for efficient management.

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the religious descriptions of J. S. Mill in relation to his epistemology. As far as religion was concerned, Mill, as is well known, was not educated in a theistic atmosphere. His attitude to christianity may be open to some serious questioning. Mill maintained empiricist positions throughout his life. Many empiricists adopted an agnostic position. Of course Mill approved of agnosticism and attempted to reject the “Argument for a First Cause” as having no basis in experience. This paper discloses Mill's epistemological attitude and the new interpretation of “Religion of Humanity” that differ from recent studies. One of the recent trends of Mill studies is to focus on his “Religion of Humanity” and to show its resemblance to that of Auguste Comte. However, this interpretation ignores the fact that Mill was critical to the latter day argument of Comte. In contrast, this paper deals the religious writing of Mill with the careful examination of his discussion of epistemology.
Section one of this paper presents recent studies of Mill's religious thought. As previously noted, Mill's religious descriptions are combined with his epistemology. This paper states that the only reseach of Three Essays on Religion is imperfect, and in order to grasp exactly Mill's religious thought, we have to deal with his wide works, and study from an all-around view. However, Mill's conventional religious studies were concentrated in his Three Essays on Religion. Recently, however, original research of Mill has focused on “Religion of Humanity.” Such studies include those of Humberger and Raeder. Section one states that their studies are novel but inadequate regarding their treatment of Comte.
Section two of this paper delves into Mill's religious directions. This section is composed of two segments. The first segment shows that Mill's religious directions are of three types. The second segment describes Mill's particular Argument of Design.
Section three of this paper provides a close discussion of two famous intuitionists of the nineteenth century, William Whewell and Sir William Hamilton. Mill made pointed remarks about Whewell and Hamilton's intuitionism. The propose of this section is to explain why Mill attacked intuitionism.
Section four constitutes the core of this paper. This section considers Mill's “Religion of Humanity” and Inverse Deductive, or Historical Method, which he treated in the sixth volume of A System of Logic. From the standpoint of human nature, Mill tries to rewrite the “Doctrine of Necessity.” Mill had to accept a distance between a social phenomenon and his epistemology. Mill states human actions are never uncontrollable, and in order to show this idea, Mill suggests the Historical Method.
Thus, when we trace Mill's religious descriptions, we discover Mill's particular-epistemological thought relating to human will. The relationship of Mill's “Religion of Humanity” and the Historical Method lead tothe conclusion that Mill's religious background has an epistemological dimension.

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The purpose of this paper is to consider the direction of the future investigation by way of a review of the studies of the economic thought in the Meiji Period in the last twenty years.
By studying the economic thought in the Meiji Period, generally not only the economists but also the thinkers, the journalists, the statesmen, the bureaucrats, and the entrepreneurs are made the object. As well, in regard to topics in the study of the Japanese economic thought of the age following the Meiji Restoration, we find at present a general consensus. If it is limited to he Meiji Period, the topics can be summarized as the following three approaches. The firs are studies that examine the so-called “continuance and severance” between the idea which allowed the reception of the Western political economy, and the economic thought in the Edo Period. The second are studies that intend to clarify the introduction of the Western political economy into Japan. The third are studies that aim to elucidate the process of the diffusion and the fixation of the Western political economy in Japan. In this paper, the first is called “the approach focusing on continuance and severance, ” the second is called “the approach focusing on the history of the introduction, ” while the third is called “the approach focusing on institutionalization.”
In addition to those studies pursuing the above three lines of thought, there are studies that examine the economic policy ideas and the economic vision in the Meiji Period. This is called the “approach focusing on the history of the economic policy ideas.” This paper emphasizes the importance of the studies taking this point of view.
Two ideas are fairly suggestive in the study talking the latter approach. One is “developmentalism.” This principle focuses on the nationalism of a backward country, industrialization under the governmental leadership, and the affirmation of governmental intervention in an economy. This can provide a conceptual framework for further study because its elements were widely contained in various economic policy ideas and economic visions appearing in the Meiji Period. The other one is the result of the more recent studies regarding the mercantilism. The authors of such studies insist on the following: Most political economy is structured in such a way that government can intervene to any degree in the market from the viewpoint of the public utility. And, free trade and protectionism often complement each other. If this view is accurate, the validity of the simple point of view in which free trade and protectionism confront each other must be reconsidered, this being true in the studies of the economic thought in the Meiji Period as well.

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Since late 1970's there has emerged a variety of ‘new’ interpretations of classical monetary theory, shedding new light on classical economists pace ‘old’ interpretations. They have indeed transformed our understanding of classical theory. Though there have already been several efforts to outline these ‘new’ interpretations: e. g., those of J. Niehans, M. C. Marcuzzo, A. Rosselli, N. T. Skaggs, and D. Glasner, they are far from monolithic, and indeed there are significant differences among their viewpoints. Unfortunately there has been no effort to comprehend ‘new’ interpretations, though several common grounds have been put forward to revise our understanding of classical theory as opposed to ‘old’ interpretations. It is time to synthesize and appraise the major findings of ‘new’ interpretations.
In this review article I propose my own syntheses of ‘new’ interpretations as follows: (a) the theoretical framework of classical monetary theory was quite different from that of the quantity theory of money, while ‘old’ interpretations have often confused them, (b) classical economists had in fact developed a remarkable theory of monetary policy, while ‘old’ interpretations have failed to appreciate it since they have insisted in looking at classics through the ‘rules versus discretion’ lens, and (c) instead, the ‘central banking versus free banking’ controversy should be understood as one of the most crucial themes in appreciating the way in which classical economists sought to develop their own theories of money and banking, while almost all ‘old’ interpretations have neglected this aspect.
Almost all the ‘new’ interpretations, including my own, have shared a broad agreement regarding thesis (a), though there are some differences, for example, regarding their attitudes to the monetary approach to the balance of payments, and its applicability to Adam Smith and David Ricardo. As for (b) and (c), there are differences, to which the modern free banking school has contributed. On the one hand, the modern free banking school, by highlighting the classical theory of commodity money, praises the Smithian-banking school tradition in favor of their case for free banking. In so doing, they put both Henry Thornton and Ricardo in a rather unhappy position. On the other hand, in their perceptive treatments of Ricardo's theory of money and monetary policy, Marcuzzo and Rosselli, and A. Arnon detect a rupture between Smith and the ‘true classical monetary theory’ of Thornton and/or Ricardo. I emphasize a continuity in the development of the classical theory of central banking from Smith to Ricardo via Thornton in that Smith played an important role in making the 1765 Act, banning small notes below f5 and optional clauses, which facilitated the Bank of England in his day to behave in the manner of a central bank. Moreover, it is Ricardo's plans both for ‘bullion payments’ and for the establishment of a national bank, a remarkable achievement of the classical theory of monetary policy, that makes the ‘old’ interpretations based on the ‘rules versus discretion’ distinction obsolete. I argue that there existed quite a coherent classical central banking tradition based on their insights into the fractional reserve banking system under the gold standard, rather than an alleged rupture between Smith and Thornton-Ricardo. I also emphasize that advocates for free banking in the classical era were in fact no match for the Smith-Thornton-Ricardo tradition.

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