TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 695 



consequently be diminislied, but would the people be any less prosperous ? What 

 jealousies, heart-burnings, and unfounded terrors leading to hatred would be 

 extinguished if only these elementary facts were generally understood ! 



To anyone who has once grasped the main drift of economic theory, it will be 

 plain that the economic ideal is not for the nation any more than for the family 

 that it should buy and sell the largest possible quantity of goods. The true states- 

 man desires for his countrymen, just as the sensible parent desires for his 

 children, that they should do the best paid work of the world. This ideal is 

 not to be obtained by wars of tariffs, still less by that much greater abomination, 

 real war, with all its degrading accompaniments, but by health, strength and 

 skill, honesty, energy, and intelligence. 



The following Papers were read : — • 



1. The Localisation of Indiistry. Bij Rev. W. Cunningham, D.D, 



The economic principles which account for the concentration of industry so 

 that it may be conducted on a large scale are very familiar. It is worth while to 

 discuss, so far as possible — I. The conditions which have led to the concentration 

 of a given trade in one particular locality ; and II. The probabilities of a counter- 

 acting tendency in favour of decentralisation. 



I. Concentration is partly due to physical conditions, as in the case of coal- 

 mining, or of favourable circumstances for growing some crop ; but the transport 

 of material is so easy that industry is less bound than was formerly the case to the 

 area where it can be obtained. Facilities for xcater power have had much to do 

 with localisation in the past, though good opportunities for trade have been even 

 more important. These last accounted for the extraordinary growth of London 

 at the expense of other towns in the seventeenth century. When a trade has 

 been consciously planted in any district, it has been due to conditions of life rather 

 than merely to the conveniences for the industry. Some aliens (Flemings in four- 

 teenth century) have been attracted to England by political and others (Hugue- 

 nots) by reliyious conditions; while the terms which a particular organiser could 

 ofler have accounted for the development of the trade under his supervision, as in 

 the case of Crommelin and the linen trade. Physical conditions will always be an 

 element, but the business capacity of some capitalist seems to be the main factor 

 in the successful planting or developing of trade in a particular locality. 



II. The process of decentralisation may be observed in recent years in connec- 

 tion with the trade of London and other ports respectively. It showed itself in 

 the difiusion and increased prosperity of the clothing trade in the eighteenth 

 century, when the large employer had little, if any, economic advantage over the 

 domestic workman. The conditions of life which can be offered in garden cities 

 may tend in favour of decentralisation ; and though the survival of the village 

 artisan seems unlikely, there is a possibility of organising industrial employ- 

 ments in rural districts. Still though decentralisation may help to cure over- 

 crowding it is unlikely to revive the old type of village life. 



2. The Influence of Economic History on Economic Theory. 

 By Arch. B. Clark, M.A. 



The battle of the schools which about twenty years ago absorbed the attention 

 of economists, threatened to seriously impede the advance of economic science, and 

 did for a time accentuate the prevailing distrust of the teaching of economists, is 

 now a matter of history ; and it is possible to estimate with some approach to 

 impartiality the abiding influence of the controversy on economic theory. 



It is common knowledge that the historical school has failed to make good the 

 plaim of its extreme representatives to transform or revolutionise economic science 

 by substituting, for the abstract statical laws reached by the hypothetical deductiy^ 



