TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 133 



science. We are told by alarmists that cue of tLe results of Reform will be, 

 that many matters which were considered settled will be reopened, that Protec- 

 tion will again raise her head, and that the ghosts of old fallacies vnU come back 

 to gibber in the House of Commons. I am one of those who think such fears 

 wildly exaggerated ; but siu'ely the mere possibility of oiu* people lapsing into 

 heresies such as those which have seduced men of our race in America and Aus- 

 tralia should warn us to dift'use far and wide the broad results of Economic Science. 

 It is to be feared that, even in circles where we might expect better things, there 

 is a very considerable misconception about the real teachings of economists. AVho 

 can forget the opposition that was excited by Mr. Cobden's negotiations in France, 

 as if, forsooth, he of all men was going to be false to the principles by the advo- 

 cacy of which he had piut himself in the first rank of contemporary statesmen ? Is it 

 sm'prising that there should be so much hesitation about the acceptance, I do not 

 say of the mere fact of free trade, but of some of its consequences ? Count up the 

 schools in which an attempt is made at giving even a glimpse into Economic 

 Science. There are distinguished professors at both Oxford and Cambridge, but 

 how many men are there who leave the gi'eat English Universities with any 

 knowledge of it ? The Scottish Universities do very little for this peculiarly Scot- 

 tish science. I do not thinlc I am wrong in belieA'ing that no lectures on political 

 economy are ever delivered even in the most laborious and distinguished of Oxford 

 Colleges, the college of Adam Smith. Of the two economical questions to which 

 your President alluded last }ear, as to those which were, for the moment, chiefly 

 occupying the minds of men— the question of our coal supply, and the state of the 

 money market — the first will, no doubt, slumber till the report of the lioyal Com- 

 mission is given to the world. The other still attracts attention, but the " wheel 

 has come full circle," the periodical reaction has set in, and the vast pile of gold 

 mounts dailj' higher, waiting for the spirit of confidence to retm'u. Another econo- 

 mical question has, however, come in these last few months into great and painful 

 prominence. I allude, of course, to the question of Trades Unions, and to the rela- 

 tions of capital and labour. The unhappy contests between these natural allies is 

 not the only joint in our armour. Many eminent men have been declaring that 

 England is falhng behind other nations in the industrial race, and that a better 

 and more extended technical education has become a necessity. All attempts, 

 however, to give a good technical education will break down if we do not imitate 

 Switzerland and Germany in creating a really good system of elementary and 

 middle-class education. That is the soil in which technical education must grow, 

 and at present that soil is woefully thin in many places. Fortunately, however, the 

 public mind is becoming familiarized with the idea of an educational rate ; and 

 if we have an educational rate to assist the poorest, why not a system of gi'aded 

 schools to which all classes may repair if they see fit, and through which a ladder 

 may be built by which merit may climb to the high places of society. How long 

 will English farmers go on paying that the children of their labourers may be 

 educated better than their own ? Amongst the measures of the late session, in 

 which this Section may be supposed to take peculiar interest, was the extension 

 to all trades of the principle of the Factory Acts — these Acts which for more than 

 one generation wore so stoutly resisted in the name of Political Economy, but 

 which enlightened theory approves and which experience has justified. The 

 comparative ease with which the bills of last Session passed was creditable to the 

 Government, creditable to the interests affected, and, above all, creditable to Mr. 

 Henry Bruce, the Vice-President of the Council in the late Administration, whose 

 abnegation of self in the willing support which he ga\e to Bills ■with which his 

 own name will not be associated, was as remarkable as it is, I fear, rare amongst 

 politicians of any party. If it is ea.sy to give a definition of our work as students 

 of Economic Science, which, although, of course, liable to be pulled to pieces by 

 critics, may be taken as fairly correct, how different is the case with our work as 

 Statisticians ? Who can define Statistics ? " Quicquid agunt homines " in so far 

 as it is susceptible of being recorded and expressed numerically. That definition 

 might, perhaps, be accepted by some, but there would be many gainsayers. Two 

 sets of men long disputed as to which of them was most entitled to the name of 

 Statisticians, There were those who considered Statistics to be equivalent to what 



