96 



NATURE 



[September i6, 1920 



boundary-making — for, after all, there are no fron- 

 tiers in Europe which can in these days of modern 

 warfare be considered as providing a sure defence — 

 but in regard rather to the stability of the States con- 

 cerned. A great experiment has been made in the 

 new settlement of Europe, and an experiment which 

 contains at least the germs of success. But in many 

 ways it falls far short of perfection, and even if it 



were perfect it could not be permanent. The methods 

 which ought to be adopted to render it more equable 

 and to adapt it to changing needs it is not for us to 

 discuss here. But as geographers engaged in the 

 study of the ever-changing relations of man to his 

 environment we can play an important part in the 

 formation of that enlightened public opinion upon 

 which alone a society of nations can be established. 



Economics and Statistics at the British Association. 



THE meetings of Section F (Economics and Statis- 

 tics) at the recent meeting of the British Asso- 

 ciation at Cardiff were characterised by the 'greater 

 part taken in the programme by the younger students 

 of economics, and the result augurs well for the future 

 of the science. What some of the readers of papers 

 may have lacked in experience and authority they 

 gained in freshness of outlook, in readiness to face 

 the new facts of the post-war situation, and in refusal 

 to be bound by the views of the older generation. 

 It would have been interesting had some of the older 

 representatives of the science been present to see the 

 clash of the old ideas and the new ; in their absence 

 some of the less orthodox views went almost unchal- 

 lenged. 



In the first meeting of the Section the application 

 of the co-operative method to economic life was urged 

 in two connections. Mr. L. Smith Gordon (arguing 

 from his experience of Irish conditions, in which he 

 has been associated with Sir Horace Plunkett) dwelt 

 on the necessity of treating agriculture as an industry 

 to be organised on a scientific basis if its psychological 

 and economic demands were to be reconciled with 

 modern conditions. Such a scientific basis could only 

 be found in co-operation. In his view, the undoubted 

 advantages of large-scale farming lay not in the actual 

 work of production, but in the handling and sale of 

 the goods produced ; and this thesis he maintained in 

 an examination of the economies open to agricul- 

 ture. But such advantages do not necessitate the 

 existence of large farmers ; the same results can be 

 obtained through the adoption by small men of the 

 co-operative methods already applied in Denmark, 

 Belgium, and Germany, and this has the further 

 advantage of building up a numerous race of inde- 

 pendent, prosperous small farmers. 



Mr. J. Lassen, a Dane, with twenty years' experi- 

 ence of England, argued for the introduction into 

 this countrv of the Danish system of credit corpora- 

 tions, and supported his case by a detailed examina- 

 tion of the Danish method. The unique point of the 

 svstem is that, whereas most financing is usually 

 carried out through corporations of lenders (banks, 

 trust companies, etc.), the Danish system begins with 

 a corporation of borrowers. The borrowers, mainly 

 belonging to one locality, and being known to each 

 other, give joint securitv for loans, and the general 

 public are asked to lend on this first-class mortgage 

 security. That the system has worked well in Den- 

 mark was obvious from its history, but the writer 

 was unable entirely to satisfy the sceptics on two 

 points : first, how, if the system were introduced here, 

 the hard-headed Englishman could be induced to 

 accept unlimited liability ; and, secondly, how the 

 public could be induced to subscribe to bonds which 

 are liable to depreciation and do not yield an 

 abnormally high rate of interest. There seemed to 

 be some subtle difference in the psychology of the 

 Dane and the Englishman which remained unex- 

 plained. 



From co-operatiort the Section passed to the con- 



NO. 2655, VOL. 106] 



sideration of coal. Mr. J. O. Cheetham analysed the 

 present coal situation with special reference to its 

 effects on the shipping interests of Cardiff. His main 

 subject was the falling output, an examination of its 

 causes and results, and suggestions for increasing 

 production. In 1913 the coal produced in the United 

 Kingdom amounted to 287,000,000 tons, in 1919 to 

 229,000,000 tons — a fall of 58,000,000 tons. In the 

 same period the numbers employed in the industry 

 increased from 1,128,000 by 63,000 to 1,191,000; and 

 the output per person emplojed in the industry fell 

 from 262 tons to 193 tons per annum. Thus an in- 

 crease of 6 per cent, in the numbers employed syn- 

 chronised with a decrease of 20 per cent, in total 

 output. The writer also estimated (though from an 

 ex parte statement by employers) that labour costs 

 had increased from 63 per cent, of selling price in 

 1914 to 75 per cent, of selling price in 1919. Thus 

 the period of Government control of the coal industry 

 was also the period of the decline in total production 

 and in production per head, and r,f increase in relative 

 labour costs of production. The special caus*s to 

 which the decline in output was attributed were the 

 introduction of the seven-hours' day and the failure 

 of transport to convey the coal from the pit-head 

 owing to the lack of trucks. In addition, the em- 

 ployers accused the miners of restricted production, 

 and the employees in turn accused the owners of a 

 deliberate holding-up of the development of mines. 

 Mr. Cheetham seemed to hold both charges well 

 grounded, but to think that what was a sin against 

 the community on the part, of the miners was natural 

 and justifiable on the part of the owners — a distinc- 

 tion in which it was difficult to follow him. The 

 president of the Section, Dr. Clapham, directed atten- 

 tion to the necessity of discovering to what extent 

 the decreased output was attributable to the employ- 

 ment of a large amount of labour, not in getting 

 coal, but in improving the state of the mines which 

 had been inevitably neglected during the war period. 



Mr. R. F. .\dgie, in a paper entitled "The Conduct 

 of the Mining Industry," distinguished between the 

 economic and the psvchological aspects of the problem 

 of nationalisation. His thesis was that while from 

 the purelv economic point of view the argument for 

 nationalisation was inconclusive, from the psycho- 

 logical viewpoint the balance of evidence pointed to 

 the necessity of social ownership and control. On the 

 economic side he pointed out that there had been an 

 undefined amount of waste connected with the conduct 

 of the industrv under private ownership in the past. 

 There was a good deal in distribution, since coal sold 

 at the pit-head for 235. 5^. was sold to the London 

 consumer at 44X., the distribution charges thus 

 amounting to 47 per cent. This leakage, however, 

 could be stopped bv large-scale or unified distribution. 

 In some other directions the economic defects of the 

 industrv in recent vears (reduced output, inefficient 

 working, etc.) were exigencies of the war period, and 

 were rapidlv disappearing ; and in others unco- 

 ordinated effort and inadequate capital resources had 



