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During the last thirty years there has been an increased use of business records as a source for the writing of economic history. Before 1920 a great deal of our knowledge of British economic life during the preceding 250 years came from the archives of government departments, the reports of parliamentary committees of inquiry, and the blue books of Royal Commissions. Such material inevitably conveys a distorted picture, because governments in the past did not usually consider themselves called upon to interfere in economic life, except for the purpose of raising money or in order to investigate and endeavour to correct serious social maladjustments.