56 JOURNAL OF F(JRF,STRV 



two orders of inquiry. One of them falls within the broad field of 

 the natural sciences ; the other is economic in nature and is concerned 

 with property relations. Geologists, agricultural scientists, and for- 

 esters must instruct us, in their respective fields, concerning the nature 

 and extent of our natural resources and methods of putting them to 

 use ; but "it is in the property relations most suitable for conservation 

 that the greatest difficulty arises, and it is on this account that the 

 chief role in conservation belongs to the political economists, who must 

 cultivate more diligently than heretofore that part of their field which 

 we must designate as economic jurisprudence." The scientists have 

 run away with the topic and most of the glory, and have come near to 

 upsetting the applecart ; but long before their appearance on the scene 

 the economists had perceived the fundamental issues and had laid the 

 groundwork for the new point of view regarding the relationship 

 between the public welfare and the rights of private property. 



Thus our Wisconsin economist discloses a twofold purpose : The 

 first and less important is to establish the historical importance of the 

 work of economists as leaders in the conservation movement. In this 

 he does not succeed. Only by a complete distortion of the history of 

 the movement does he make out even a prima facie case. The greater 

 part of his paper, however, consists of an attempt to demonstrate the 

 practical value of economic thought as a means of solving the vexed 

 questions to which the conservation movement has given rise. 



The demonstration, it must be said, is highly disappointing. It is 

 true that property relations and the rights of the public in the mainte- 

 nance or the wise use, from the standpoint of the general welfare, of 

 our natural resources lie at the very heart of conservation. But it 

 was not by applying the principles of political economy to the facts 

 that the course which should be followed was to be determined. The 

 essence of the matter lay not in what the economist can show is true, 

 but in what you are going to do about it. In other words, the true 

 problems involved were problems of statesmanship. If proofs of this 

 fact were wanted, the book before us amply provides it. As econo- 

 mists, its authors can only go a certain distance in telling us what is 

 expedient. Beyond that point they can only say that the way is uncer- 

 tain. You may or may not get through. You will have many risks 

 to run. There is this danger on one side and that on the other. But 

 the statesman cannot wait for the uncertainties of the future to become 

 the certainties of the past before he moves forward. The conserva- 

 tion movement affords much for economists to write about, but a poor 



