142 president's address — section f. 



in which the prediction of Mill, which 1 have quoted above, 

 can find no fulfilment. It will expose the fallacy of the 

 Ricardian dogma that, " as wages rise, profits fall," because 

 it will show that a wise and prudent combination of labour 

 and capital will make wages and profits both rise. It will 

 confirm the conclusions at which Henry George arrived, 

 while it will show the fallacy of the premises on which he 

 based such conclusion, viz., "That all remedies, whether 

 proposed by professors of political economy or working men, 

 which look to the alleviation of poverty either by the increase 

 of capital or the restriction of the number of labourers or the 

 efficiency of their work, must be condemned." And, again, 

 " Then wages cannot be diminished by the increase of 

 labourers, but, on the contrary, as the efficiency of labour 

 manifestly increases with the number of labourers, the more 

 labourers, other things being equal, the higher should wages 

 be." It will, furthermore, show that the great principle of 

 co-operation, which has in the past presented such allure- 

 ments and resulted in such disappointments, is, after all, the 

 great motive power in an industrial as it is in our social and 

 political life ; that, rightly understood and intelligently 

 apphed, it suggests a remedy for our present unrest and a 

 happy augury for our future development. 



One word in conclusion. This section of our Association 

 has an opportunity afforded to it of doing useful work in the 

 development of our nascent nation. These young colonics, 

 which have almost sprung into national existence, like 

 Minerva full-panoplied from the brain of Jove, have inherited 

 no legacy of misdeeds from the past, and furnisli us with a 

 favourable opportunity to make experiments in economic 

 science. At the same time our position and our oppor- 

 tunities impose on us grave responsibilities. We are now 

 making the last experiments in the responsible government 

 of a young country which the world shall see ; there is 

 scarcely any other great unoccupied space on the face of the 

 earth where the experiment can be repeated. In this par- 

 ticular, at least, we are — 



" The heirs of all the ages 

 In the foremost files of time." 



Shall we prove ourselves worthy of our destiny ? — Shall we 

 embrace the opportunity offered.'' I, at least, have little 

 sympathy with the Cassandra-like waiHngs of those who are 

 evermore regretting the good old days that are past. I 

 believe that the golden age of humanity is before us, not 



