CHILD, Sift JOSIAH, BART., was an eminent London merchant n the latter part of the 17th century, and one of the ablest of our earlier English writers on commerce and political economy. his principal publication is entitled 'Brief Observations concerning Trade and the Interest of Money,' by J. C., 4te, London,1668. In his preface he tells us that this tract was written at his country-house In the sickness-year, that is, in 1665. Its leading purpose is to defend the late reduction of the basal rate of interest from eight to six per cent. (originally made by ordinance of the Long Parliament in 1651, and confirmed at the Restoration), and to urge a still further reduction. The author's great example of commercial success is that of the Dutch, and he maintains that "the lowness of the rate of interest is the cause =emu of all the other duets of the riches of that people." The rate of interest, as is now well nnderstood, is merely a measure or expression of the ratio of the supply of money to the demand. It rises or falls with the rate of profits ,• and that again depends in great pert upon the quantity of capital seeking for employment ; so that, in fed, instead of a low rate of Interest being the cause of accumulated wealth in a community, it Is more likely to be the consequence of that state of things. This was pointed out in an answer to Child's treatise, published the rime year under the title of ' Interest of Money Mistaken, or a Treatise proving that the abatement of Interest is the effect and not the Cause of the Riches of a Nation.' In another respect also Child's notions in this publication am opposed to those now generally entertained : his reimmmentlation, namely, that the natural rate of interest should be kept down, or rather attempted to by kept down, by a legal restriction. In support of his views ho reprints, as an appendix, Sir Thomas Culpeper's ' Tract against the High Rate of Usurls, drat published In 1623. Notwithstanding some fundamental defuse however, the work contents much that is sound and valuable ; and some of the principles laid down In it are both In advance of the current opinions of the day and pithily and happily expressed. A second edition, much enlarged, appeared in 1690, under the title of ' A New Discourse of Trade ;' a third in 1698 ; and the work has since been twioa reprinted, the last time in 12mo at Glasgow in 1751. It is in this work that Child has explained his plan for the relief and employment of the poor, of which Sir Frederio Eden has given an account in his 'State of the Poor,' voL L pp. 186, &o. It Included the substitution of districts or unions for parishes, and the compulsory transportation of paupers to the coloules. Ile proposes that the funds should be managed by an incorporated body to be styled Time Fathers of the Poor,' and to wear, each of them, "some honourable medal, after the manner of the familiars of the Inquition in Spain." In Watt's. and other catalogues, this plan Is noticed as a separate publication (though without date); but we do not know that it ever appeared except as ono of the chapters of the New Discourse of Trade.' Child, who was ono of the directors and for some time chair
man of the East India Company, and who took a leading part in the conduct of its proceedings, is stated to have written several tracts in defence of tho trade to the East Indies ; but they appear to have been all anonymous, and the only one which has usually been distinctly assigned to him is that entitled 'A Treatise wherein it is demonstrated that the East India Trade is the most national of all Foreign Tradee, by *Asravias, 4to, London, 1681. This is affirmed in the work called The British Merchant' (originally published in 1710), second edition, voL L p. 162, to have been written by him, or at least by his direction. It was contended by the opponents of the company that the East India trade was ruinous, or prejudicial, by reason of its draining the country of gold and silver; it was answered by Child, as it had been many years before by Thomas Mun, in his 'Discourse of Trade front England unto the East Indies,' that the trade in reality brought mom treasure, or gold and silver, into the country than it took out of it, by our sales of eastern commodities to other European nations. It was upon this ground simply that parliament had recently (by the 15 Car. II., c. 7, a. 12) so far permitted the trade to be legally carried on in the only way it could be carried on at all as to allow the exportation duty free of foreign coin and bullion.
Taking hie stand upon what has been called the mercantile system, the principle of which is, that the value of a foreign trade depends upon the balance which it leaves to be received in money, Child admitted the paramount importance of gold and silver; but contended that the effect of the India trade, taken in its whole extent, as including the trade with other countries which we carried on by mean, of our imports from the east, was to promote, not to prevent, the accumu lation in our hands of the precious metals. The destruction however of the fancy that there was anything necessarily desirable in that result, as far at least as it could be destroyed by reasoning, and the demonstration of the truth that gold and silver do not differ in any respect in their commercial character from other commodities, were accomplished a few years after this date by Sir Dudley North in his ' Discourses upon Trade, principally directed to the Cases of Interest, Coinage, Shipping, and Increase of Money,' 4to, London, 1691.
Sir Josiah Child was the second son of Richard Child, a merchant of London; he was born in 1630, was created a baronet in 1673, and died in 1699. He attained to great wealth, ass thrice married, and by each of his wives had one or more children, who married into seine of the highest families among the nobility. His last wife survived till the year 1735, "at which time," we are told by Morant, the historian of Essex, "it was said she was nearly allied to so many of the prime nobility that eleven dukes and duchesses used to ask her blessing, and it was reckoned that above fifty great families would go into mourning for her."