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deepening of the purely scientific understanding of economic problems. To take 
but one example, the investigation of the modes of life of the working classes 
which we owe to Mr. Booth, to Mr. Rowntree, and more lately to Lady Bell, 
will have little meaning unless we can combine it with a study of the situation 
from the other end, from the end of the director of business operations, and can 
see how his policy is shaped, and how it affects the workpeople. 
May I add one concluding observation, and that not, I hope, in an unduly 
controversial spirit? When one looks back on a century of economic teaching 
and writing, the chief lesson should, I feel, be one of caution and modesty, and 
especially when we approach the burning issues of our own day. We economists 
—for, whether we like it or not, we of to-day have to bear the sins of our pre- 
decessors—we economists have been so often in the wrong! On so very much 
that had to do with the condition of the great body of the people we were for 
half a century either so glaringly mistaken or so annoyingly unsympathetic that 
even to-day a man is ashamed to avow himself an economist in the face of an 
English working-class audience. And on questions of trade, how hasty, how 
superficial, seem now many of the opinions so confidently expressed by our pre- 
decessors in the days of England’s ‘industrial supremacy.’ In the present position 
of economic theory, moreover, there is everything to deter us from dogmatism, 
There are, it is true, a few elementary propositions on which all who have given 
any systematic attention to the subject are agreed; but they are so very few, and 
they carry us sucha little way! In various directions in economic literature 
we can find patches of systematised fact and little bits of general reasoning which 
deserve attention. The outlines, moreover, of our industrial history are beginning 
to be unveiled. But there is not yet—perhaps there never will be—a body of 
generally accepted economic doctrine by which every practical proposal can at once 
be tested. As Professor Marshall has truly said, ‘the science is still almost in its 
infancy.’ Surely we have learnt that the time for sweeping generalities has gone by. 
‘In the world in which we live ’—the same writer has remarked with regard 
to the fundamental question of value—‘every plain and simple doctrine . . . is 
necessarily false, and the greater the appearance of lucidity which is given to it 
by skilful exposition the more mischievous it is.’ And what is true of the founda- 
tion is true of the superstructure. Among serious economists there is hardly one 
left who would maintain that theory is capable of furnishing a conclusive proof 
either of the wisdom or the unwisdom of free trade under all circumstances. 
Nothing is easier than to adduce a number of theoretic arguments on either side. 
The right decision in each case must be reached, not by abstract reasoning, but 
by estimating the concrete facts and probabilities which give the several argu- 
ments their due weight. What the Cambridge economist has pointed out so 
forcibly a few months ago with regard to economics at large is applicable equally 
to this particular topic. ‘There is a general agreement as to the character and 
directions of the changes which various economic forces tend to produce... . 
Much less progress has been made towards the guantitative determination of the 
relative strength of different economic forces.’ And this, he confesses, is the ‘ higher 
and more difficult task.’ Meanwhile, it behoves each of us to make it clear that, even 
if he is speaking ex cathedrd, as people say, he is still speaking in propria persond, 
with all his limitations and unconscious bias ; he is not the mouthpiece of Science. 
I venture to lay stress upon this point, because I am most anxious that 
economists—not as exponents of a unanimous doctrine, but as individuals who have 
given time and thought to industrial and commercial affairs—should have their 
just share in guiding national action in the future. In 1840 John Mill startled 
his utilitarian friends by the remark: ‘The spirit of philosophy in England is 
rootedly sectarian,’ and in ‘philosophy’ he included economics. We have seen 
how the Ricardian school, the first phase of economic orthodoxy, was in fact an 
appendage to the Liberal party of those days. It would be regrettable if an 
impression grew up to-day that economists still gave up to party what was meant 
for mankind. I recognise, of course, that the economist’s present attitude must 
be affected by his forecast of the future. If he thinks that all departure from 
the present commercial policy of this country is likely to be permanently staved 
