784 REPORT — 1886. 



is to he rather accounted for by tlie passage of the science out of the hands of 

 scientific men into those of scholars and business men alone. 



The view of industry as a physical process ' in which the energies of nature are 

 applied was next discussed, and the bearing of the physical doctrine of energy upon, 

 the subject outlined. Interest, for instance, is thus viewed, not simply as 'reward 

 for abstinence ' or the like, but as resting fundamentally as the surplus of income 

 over expenditure in the year's struggle to seize the energies of nature ; like the 

 enero-y of coal, in short, it comes primarily from the sun. Money, of course, being 

 a mere mode of notation of material realities, we must distinguish between apparent 

 saving and real storing. 



The highest aspect of production is thus seen to be not in simply individual 

 effort for personal gain, but in the resulting sum of such efforts — in the accumula- 

 tion and handing on of the total results of industry — in other words, in the col- 

 lective energy, or synerc/t/, of the community. 



Finallv, the supposed opposition of economics to morals is thus seen to lie 

 essentially in a too narrow definition of the aim of production, and disappears in 

 proportion as the individual increase of often imaginary wealth — mere claims upon, 

 the labour of the future — becomes subordinated to the accumulation of the only 

 real and intrinsic wealth — the permanent apparatus of general well-being. Such 

 a city as Birmingham exhibits a typical example of such a change, showing clearly 

 the new city, rich in permanent dwellings and in treasure for the commonweal, 

 in the heart of the older city of merely individualistic production around it. It 

 is in this way that the reconciliation of political economy with morals is to be 

 effected and the good of the socialistic movement retained while avoiding its 

 dangers. 



6. The Hesources and Progress of Spain during the last Fifty Years of 

 Me-presentative Government, in connection with the British Empire. By 

 Don Artuko de Marcoartu. 



The author said that the population and the wealth of Spain has increased 

 lately, in spite of wars and political disturbances, more than her national foreign 

 debt ; that the value of the railways alone, which will revert to the State, is equal 

 to her foreign debt at par ; and that Spain has sufficient assets and means to 

 develop her public works by making a loan of forty millions without increasing 

 her present budget of expenses, and without selling her forests ; that Spanish 

 ao-ricultural products will supply a great deal of the wants of Great Britain ; and, 

 in the mining wealth of Spain, the United Kingdom can find the basis of her 

 metallic production ; that between 1853 and 1883 the degree of activity of con- 

 struction of Spanish and British railways was quite equal ; that the total trade 

 in the last twenty-five years (1860-1884) between England and Spain was 

 288,252,347^., or nearly 296,000,000/., although there was no treaty to favour 

 commerce, and although Spain was disturbed by revolutions. 



British capitalists and British industry made enormous profits from the 

 Spanish mines by selling to Spain steamers and railway plant, although British 

 capital was not employed in the Spanish railways. 



The new Anglo-Spanish treaty is most favourable for England, but unfortu- 

 nately has not settled some important claims on the part of Spain, inasmuch as the 

 sherry and Tarragon wines will pay 100 per cent, and 175 per cent, of their value 

 ia duty, the Spanish di-ied fruits still pay 35 per cent., and the smuggling at 

 Gibraltar has not been extinguished. 



Per head of population, the Spanish Peninsula is the most highly taxed ex- 

 porter to this country, while the Spanish treasury is most seriously defrauded by 

 Gibraltar ; British produce commands a greater consumption per head in Spain 

 than in France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Austria ; the total commerce of Spain 



1 See the writer's analysis of the Principles of Economics, Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin» 

 1885 ; and Williams & Norgate, 1885. 



