ASSOCIATIONS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. (BRITISH.) 



>f certain of the more recent authorities, notably 

 that of Pantaleoni and Loria. Concerning the latter 

 he said : " It has excited interest chiefly in academic 

 circles, but need not be disparaged on that account. 

 His theory is that all progress is economic, and all 

 economic change is due to the land and the growth 

 of population thereon. Though he contrives to differ 

 from Malthus, they have much in common; and we 

 can not discuss the'theory of our contemporary with- 

 out remembering that it is exactly one hundred years 

 since Malthus wrote his essay." Of the future he 

 said : " It is surely not irrational to look for a larger 

 diffusion of independence, in the sense of really 

 mutual dependence, with a wider distribution of 

 wealth. When dependence is mutual its sting is 

 gone. In the future the really dependent men will 

 probably be the incapable men, or else the men that 

 have high capacities that are not at the moment 

 wanted, while they have no secondary or second-rate 

 powers on which to fall back. These two classes 

 will give the future two problems to solve in place 

 of some that now trouble us, but are ready to vanish 

 away. The solution may be the public support of 

 both classes of dependents of the first because they 

 are too bad, and of the second because they are too 

 good, to work on exactly the same footing as their 

 neighbors." He concluded with : " To preserve our 

 judicial attitude we must have perfect freedom of 

 criticism. We must not allow our ' institutions,' 

 whether in art, science, or religion, to fall into the 

 hands of one class of society, lowest or highest. We 



must not study our subject with a constant fear of 

 what this rich man or even that poor man will say 

 to what we find there. If deference to the opinions 

 of the rich is subserviency, the more generous defer- 

 ence may easily slide into a love of popularity, and 

 it is hard to say which of the two temptations is the 

 more likely to bias the views of an economist at the 

 present moment. In science honesty is not the best 

 policy merely it is the only policy ; without honesty 

 there is no science." 



The following-named papers were read and dis- 

 cussed before the section : " A Defense of Poor-Law 

 Schools,'' by W. Chance ; " Poor-Law Administra- 

 tion," by Douglas Dent ; " Economic Aspects of the 

 Imperial Idea," by Miss Ethel Faraday; "Indus- 

 trial Conciliation," by L. L. Price; "Banking in 

 Canada," by B. E. Walker; "The Question of the 

 Ratio," by F. J. Faraday ; " Municipalities as Trad- 

 ers," by George Pearson; " Ought Municipal Enter- 

 prises to yield a Profit in Aid of Rates," by Edwin 

 Carman ; " Rectification of Municipal Frontiers," 

 >y W. M. Ackworth ; " The Economic and Social 

 Effects of Electric Traction," by Silvanus P. Thomp- 

 m ; " The Effect of Sugar Bounties," by George E. 

 >avies: "Shipping Rings and the Manchester Cot- 

 >n Trade." by John R. Galloway ; " Comparison of 

 the Changes in Wages in France, the United States, 

 and the United Kingdom from 1840 to 1891," by A. 

 L. Bowley: "Saving and Spending: A Criticism of 

 Recent Theories," by A. W. Flux ; " Partnership of 

 Capital and Labor as a Solution of the Conflict be- 

 tween them," by Henry Vivian : " Details of Expend- 

 iture for One Year of Six Middle-Class Working 

 Women," by Miss C. E. Collett ; and " On the Wake- 

 field Hand System," by W. P. Reeves. 



G. Mechanical Science. The presiding officer of 

 this section was Sir John Wolfe Barry, a past pres- 

 ident of the Institute of Civil Engineers. In begin- 

 ning he spoke of the commercial importance of 

 Bristol and said : " So far as customs revenue is 

 concerned Bristol now stands third, and in regard 

 to the gross value of her sea-borne trade she is 

 thirteenth among ports of the United Kingdom." 

 Then, pointing out how engineering skill had devel- 

 oped harbors from seaports lacking suitable facili- 

 ties, he said: "The approach to Bristol from the 



sea that is to say, from King Road in the Bristol 

 Channel is certainly unpromising for large ships, 

 and indeed, when contemplated at low water, appears 

 not a little forbidding. Something has been done, 

 and more is now in progress, toward straightening, 

 deepening, buoying, and lighting the tortuous course 

 of the Avon below Bristol. More, no doubt, would 

 have been undertaken in former years if the great 

 rise of tide in the river had not provided at spring 

 tides a depth and width for navigation which were 

 sufficient for practical purposes until the size of 

 modern ships imperatively demanded increased fa- 

 cilities of approach. I think it is a remarkable 

 thing that vessels of 3,000 tons burden, 320 feet in 

 length, and drawing 26 feet of water succeed in 

 reaching Bristol, and that the trade in the heart of 

 the city continues to increase." Concerning the 

 growth and the requirements of England's merchant 

 navy he had much to say. " The British people are 

 the chief carriers of the world, and are indeed those 

 ' that go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their 

 business in great waters.' Our oversea import 

 registered tonnage is 34,000,000, and our export 

 registered tonnage is 38,000,000. Our coastwise 

 traffic amounts to 63,000,000 tons a year, making 

 together a tonnage of 135,000,000 tons.' If we add 

 to these figures the tonnage of vessels in ballast and 

 the number of calls of those vessels in the coasting 

 trade which touch at several ports in the course of 

 one voyage, we must add a further 55,000.000 of 

 tonnage, making 190,000,000 of tonnage using our 

 ports yearly ; and if we divide these figures by, say, 

 three hundred days, we have the result 633,000 tons 

 a day entering and leaving our ports. Our merchant 

 fleet is eleven and a half times that of France, seven 

 times that of Germany, eighteen times that of Russia 

 (in Europe), two and three quarter times that of the 

 United States (inclusive of the craft on the Great 

 Lakes), six and three quarter times that of Norway, 

 fourteen times that of Italy, and fourteen times that 

 of Spain. Out of our total tonnage of 10.500.000, 

 6,750,000 are steam vessels. In 1897, out of a total 

 shipping trade (cargoes and ballast) dealt with in 

 ships of all nations at the ports of the United 

 Kingdom, amounting to 90,000,000 tons, 81,000,000 

 tons, or 90 per cent., were conveyed by steam 

 vessels. Of the tonnage of vessels built in the United 

 Kingdom in 1897, 86 per cent, were steamers." His 

 concluding considerations were in connection with 

 the development of early railways and steamships. 

 He said in this connection : " Bristol was the birth- 

 place of the Great Western Railway. I. K. Brunei, 

 its engineer, had previously, by public competition, 

 been selected to span the gorge at Clifton by a sus- 

 pension bridge of the then almost unrivaled span 

 of 702 feet. Again, under the influence of Brunei, 

 Bristol became the home of the pioneers of trans- 

 atlantic steamships, and the story of the initiation 

 of the enterprise is thus told in the memoirs of his 

 life. In 1835, at a small convivial meeting of some 

 of the promoters of the Great Western Railway, 

 some one said : ' Our railway to Bristol will be one 

 of the longest in England,' and Brunei exclaimed, 

 ' Why not make it the longest line of communication 

 in the world by connecting it with New York by a 

 line of steamers ? ' Out of this grew the ' Great 

 Western ' steamship, and the history of the enter- 

 prise and of its success is too well known, at least 

 here, to require any allusion to the steps by which 

 it was brought about. Suffice it to say that, in spite 

 of much discouragement, the ' Great Western ' of 

 the then unexampled size of 2,300 gross tons, and 

 with engines of unparalleled power was launched 

 at Bristol in 1837, and ran successful and regular 

 voyages till 1857, when she was broken up." 



The following-named papers were read and dis- 

 cussed before the section : " The New Works 



