The search for the origins of government intervention in the nation's economic life has long interested historians of Victorian Britain. Indeed, in recent years it has given rise to an extended and enthusiastic controversy. This debate is so well known and has been so often summarised that it is only necessary to observe here that the core of the argument has been about whether government growth was generated more by ideology (Benthamism) or force of circumstances (Professor MacDonagh's “intolerable situation”). There is, however, consensus on several other points, namely, that the mid nineteenth century was not the “golden age” of laissez-faire that Dicey supposed and that government inspection was crucially important as the agency of state intervention.