14 



fof the Scholarships and the Associates* Dcgreci. If we af0 

 ever to ensure a succession of men really fitted for the work 

 of dealin*:^ with public affairs, it is only in this Way that they 

 can be obtained. Our lawyers must study law, our doctors 

 must study medicine and surgery, our clergy must study 

 theology and bibliology, and give proof of competent knowledge 

 of those subjects before they are allowed to enter their several 

 professions, in order that the interests of the public may be 

 protected against the wild work of ignorance. Why then should 

 state-craft be the only profession in which no special prepara- 

 tion—no study of its principles — is demanded ? 



The lawyer, the doctor, and the clergyman, deal with 

 individuals only ; the statesman with the whole population and 

 interests of a country. To require from the three first a 

 particular training, but from the last none, — is it not to 

 allow that a part is greater than the whole ? As long as 

 the governing body in the State is chosen by the popular 

 suffrage, it is of course impossible to bring it about that 

 none shall be placed in a position of power but such as are 

 prepared by a course of special training ; but what I design to 

 urge is that, as our future rulers will in the course of things 

 be chiefly taken from those who have passed through the 

 highest educational institutions of the Colony, it seems a 

 public duty to prescribe such subjects of study as shall as far 

 as possible conduce to give the youth that skilled education 

 which he requires on his entrance into political life ; and of 

 this education Political Economy is an indispensable part. 



These remarks have been suggested by an article apropos of 

 the reduction of wages by the companies at the London 

 Docks, in an English journal {Keen^s Bath Jov/rnaly December 

 2nd, 1871), in which these passages occur : — "Labour insuffi- 

 ciently paid by those who have its profits is not political 

 economy in an enlarged sense. It is not political economy 

 in the sense of those who relieve the poverty consequent 

 thereon." " What a difference then is there in political 

 economy as to practice ! " " Political economy individually 

 considered is one thing ; but nationally considered, it is 

 somewhat different. While it is prudent for everyone to 

 sell in the dearest market and buy in the cheapest, this 

 alone would not be political economy in the true sense." 

 " Political economy in this sense would profit the employers ; 

 but it would be at the cost of the London charities and of the 

 nation." " Political economy for the nation is the prevention 

 of pauperism and crime, and the sustentation of the working 

 power of the country." 



There is here a confusion of ideas, by which the abstract 

 is put for the_ concrete. Mathematics do not build a bridge^ 



