592 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 
off, then the preservation of a future influence is not an object worth considering. 
But there must be many who, as they look around them and reflect upon what 
other democracies have done in our own time, will confess that change is probable, 
much as they may at present be inclined to regret it. And, if so, must they not 
desire that the measures on which the country may embark should receive as much 
competent criticism in detail as can possibly be directed upon them? Ihave always 
recognised that the strongest argument against a policy of preference is that it 
may open the door to forms of protection that are unnecessary and undesirable. 
Only a grave sense of the needs of the nation and empire could induce any of us 
to be ready to face the risk. But the risk could be, and ought to be, minimised 
by the pressure of competent and well-informed criticism of particular measures, 
The excesses of protection, both in the United States and in France, have been 
due, in no small degree, to the extreme doctrinaire attitude of American and 
French economists, an attitude so extreme that the busy, practical world went 
on its way as though they were not. Let us hope that this country will profit by 
the warning, and that her economists will not be put out of court at the outset 
by the justifiable ascription to them from either side of a disqualifying bias. 
The following Papers were then read :— 
1. A Suggestion for a new Economic Arithmetic. 
By Professor T. N. Carver, Ph.D. 
How to make the study of economics of greater value in private as well as in 
public affairs is a problem of increasing importance, now that University men are 
turning more and more towards business careers. 
Something may be done by giving more attention to economic history and to 
commercial geography and statistics, but reliance must be placed mainly upon 
economic theory, which need not consist in deduction or @ prior’ reasoning, 
but simply in the analytical study of the observations and experiences of our 
common everyday life. The object of this analysis is to trace the relations of 
cause and effect among the economic phenomena around us. But how to make 
the results of this analysis a part of the mental equipment of the future man of 
affairs is a difficult problem. The writer believes that the method of setting 
problems to be worked out by simple arithmetic, problems based upon well-known 
economic laws, and requiring careful analytical thinking on the part of the 
student, will help to solve the difficulty. Agriculture furnishes simpler problems 
than any other industry, but the method is applicable to all. 
The following table, with the problems based upon it, will serve to illustrate 
the method :— 
Quantity of corn grown with varying quantities of labour-on a given 
quantity of land. 
Number of days’ Product, in bushels, of each of four fields of ten | 
labour of a acres each 
man and team with | 
the appropriate hr eu 7 
tools Field A Field B Field C Field D 
| 
5 50 45 40 35 
10 150 140 130 125 
15 270 255 240 220 
20 380 360 300 270 
25 450 420 : 350 310 
30 510 470 390 340 
35 560 510 420 360 
40 600 540 440 375 
45 630 560 450 385 
50 650 575 455 390 
