392 



NA TURE 



[September 16, 1922 



degradation of labour. Such kinds of competition 

 being ruled out, there is advocated an equal labour- 

 market, the same blend of competition and combina- 

 tion, for both sexes alike. The unequal pressure 

 of male unions, crowding women into comparatively 

 few occupations, is deprecated, and it is pointed 

 out that a sufficient safeguard against such pressure 

 is not afforded by the interest of the employer seeking 

 to maximise his profits. This insufficiency is explained 

 by a principle widely applicable in economics which 

 may be stated thus. When a quantity is in the 

 neighbourhood of a maximum value, a small change 

 in the conditions on which it depends — the independent 

 variables — is generally attended with a very small 

 change in the dependent quantity. Some suggestions 

 were offered with respect to the difficulty that the value 

 of work is not always measurable without regard to 

 the sex of the worker ; e.g. the employment of a woman 

 is less profitable, so far as, other things being equal, 

 a man is generally more useful in an emergency. 

 Lastly. Prof. Edgeworth considered the serious impedi- 

 ment to equality in the labour market caused by the 

 burden of supporting a family which is commonly 

 undertaken by men. The proposal to obviate this diffi- 

 culty by the endowment of motherhood was examined ; 

 objection is taken to the (commonly implied) socialistic 

 transference of enormous sums from one class to 

 another. The objection is not equally directed against 

 subsidies in kind for the purpose of education ; nor 

 against the proposal that within the same social grade, 

 or association, the childless should contribute to the 

 support of children. 



Br. Rivers and the Development of Psychology. 



In Section J (Psychology) the presidential address 

 by Dr. C. S. Myers was " On the Influence of the 

 late W. H. R. Rivers (President-elect of the Section) 

 on the Development of Psychology in Great Britain." 

 Rivers was invited in 1893 (in his thirtieth year) by" 

 Michael Foster to Cambridge, where he systematised 

 the first course of practical work in experimental 

 psychology in this country. His earliest experiments 

 there were on colour vision and visual space percep- 

 tion, and he contributed to Schafer's " Textbook of 

 Physiology " an exhaustive article on vision, which 

 is still regarded as the most accurate and careful 

 account of the subject in the English language. He 

 soon extended his observations on colour vision and 

 space perception to the Torres Straits Islanders, the 

 Egyptians and the Todas, his membership of Dr. 

 Haddon's Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to 

 the Torres Straits giving him his first introduction 

 to ethnology. These several investigations will ever 

 stand as models of psychological method. In 1903, 

 on his return from the Todas, he began his memorable 

 share in the striking observations on the recovering 

 cutaneous sensibility of Dr. Head's arm. The dis- 

 tinction therein reached between epicritic and proto- 

 pathic sensibility laid the foundations of Rivers's 

 later views on instinct, intelligence, dreams, and the 

 unconscious. While working with Head, he was also 

 engaged in studying the effects of alcohol, caffeine, and 

 other drugs on muscular and mental work. These 

 elaborate investigations he published as the Croonian 



NO. 2759, VOL. I IO] 



Lectures to the Royal College of Physicians in 1908. 

 By them he advanced the pharmacological study of 

 the effects of drugs on man, showing how important 

 it is to disguise the drug and to provide a control 

 mixture indistinguishable in taste from the disguised 

 drug mixture, so as to avoid the complicating effects 

 of suggestion, interest, and sensory stimulation. From 

 1907 to 1915 he confined himself to ethnological work, 

 but during the Great War his treatment of the psycho- 

 neuroses in the Army and in the Air Force led him 

 back to psychology. A period ensued in which 

 Rivers's psychological genius was released from its 

 former shackles and his intuition was no longer con- 

 trolled by intellectual doubt. It is difficult to ex- 

 aggerate the fruitful, stimulating character of his 

 criticisms of Freud and of his views on the unconscious, 

 on instincts, and on dreams which poured forth with 

 such astonishing profusion during the last years of 

 his life. His main object was to give a biological 

 interpretation to the data of psychology. His wide 

 interests, sympathies, attainments, and knowledge, his 

 generosity and honesty, and his devotion to scientific 

 methods inspire us in our common aim — the Advance- 

 ment of Science. 



Organisation of the Agricultural Industry. 



Lord Bledisloe, in his address on " The 

 Proper Position of the Landowner in Relation to 

 the Agricultural Industry," delivered before Section 

 M, pointed out that organisation in the interests of the 

 agricultural producer is the chief desideratum of 

 British rural industry, and for this, enlightened leader- 

 ship is essential. The leader and chief organiser should 

 be the landowner, if he would but take his proper 

 position after due training. Under present conditions 

 it is evident that the unification of the roles of the land- 

 owner and farm tenant is a condition precedent to the 

 full, confident, and enterprising development of the 

 agricultural industry on economic lines. Neverthe- 

 less, it must be recognised that the system of occupying 

 ownership cannot exist in this country to the entire 

 exclusion of that of landlord and tenant. English law 

 and custom in relation to the settlement of estates and 

 to the letting of farms are now frequentlv obstructive 

 in nature under the changed conditions, and it might 

 be well if modifications could be brought about — e.g., 

 if it were made possible in certain cases to sell part of a 

 settled estate in order to provide the necessary capital 

 for the cultivation or industrial equipment of the 

 remainder of it. 



In all continental countries the political power 

 enjoyed by agriculture is founded on the fact that it is 

 an organised industry, whereas in Great Britain it is 

 not. As a result, the continental landowner derives 

 as a rule a net income of 3I.-4I. per acre, as compared 

 with il. per acre in the United Kingdom. Much of this 

 may also be attributed to the failure of the British 

 farmer, in the absence of the landowner's stimulus, 

 to utilise the results of education and research, 

 whereas abroad, especially in Germany, more scientific 

 methods are readily adopted, notably in the economic 

 employment of feeding stuffs and fertilisers. 



Many suggestions may be made as to methods 

 whereby British agriculture, under the direction not 



