TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 725 



and that France and Italy have a third system in force.' The origin and actual 

 ■working of these types of financial administration and their relation to the economic 

 and commercial institutions of the several countries in which they exist present an 

 interesting subject of inquiry, and this is but one trifling instance of what is to be 

 abundantly found in nearly every part of the field of economics. Until such points 

 are studied in detail and by the comparative method, we cannot expect to obtain a 

 completed body of economic doctrine resting on careful generalisations gathered from 

 a sufficiently extensive experience. 



To the same defect is due the weakness in certain respects of our economic 

 literature so far as monographs are concerned. Attention has often been called 

 to the neglect of the problems connected with transport by English writers. We 

 possess no recent works on the great subjects of (1) colonisation and (2) commer- 

 cial crises that can bear comparison with the French and German studies.'- It 

 would almost seem that the attention of the younger economists is too much 

 fastened on the passing aspects of the labour and currency questions to allow time 

 to be devoted to calmer theoretic investigation. Even from the point of view of 

 immediate personal advantage this is decidedly a mistake. No better advice could 

 perhaps be given to the serious economic student at the opening of his work than 

 to steadily avoid ' burning questions.' They are sure to be eagerly taken up by 

 popular and untrained writers. Their scientific features are buried beneath a 

 weight of prejudice and partisan feeling, and, last but not least, they so quickly 

 become ' burnt out,' and public attention turns away to some other and equally 

 temporary subject of debate. Careful examination of a really important question 

 for the moment a little in the background must in the end prove more serviceable 

 when the force of events compels practical men to direct their attention to it, and 

 to consult those who have given time and trouble to its elucidation. 



A third point on whicti some reform is needed concerns the organisation and 

 teaching of the subject more than the advancement of scientific research, though it 

 would not be without good results for the latter. It is the relation of economics, 

 not to the outlines of social science that are its necessary basis, but to the other 

 divisions dealmg with cognate and similarly special branches of social life. There 

 has hitherto been an unfortunate disposition to separate economics too sharply 

 from these kindred studies. When the reformer argues that political science, 

 jurisprudence, and the scientific principles of administration should be grouped 

 along with economics he is met by the rejoinder that ' we should do ona thing 

 at a time,' that 'division of labour' is imperatively needed in so extensive a field 

 of work. To so contend is to quite forget that ' division ' implies ' combination ' 

 of labour, and that mere subdivision of tasks is not of itself advantageous. The 

 contention, besides, goes too far for its purpose. Within the special district 

 assigned to economics there are very diflPerent subjects which have to be tem- 

 porarily kept apart. Nothing would be gained by interpolating a discussion of 

 the ' wages question ' into a treatise on ' money,' though no one would deny the 

 connexion that exists between these two parts of economics. In the same way 

 politics — in the scientific sense — and jurisprudence gain when taken together with 

 economics, and repay that advantage by the additional light which they afford. 

 One of the errors fostered by the stricter economists in this country was the belief 

 that in political economy there was a peculiar department differing totally from 

 Other social and political sciences both in the rigour of its logic and the certainty 

 of its conclusions. Such types of precision as geometry and logic were regarded 

 ns the proper models in the pursuit of this ' exact ' science, whose cultivators were 

 justly entitled to regard with condescension those engaged in seemingly less 

 precise inquiries. The mistake committed was twofold. There was at once an 

 over-estimation of the solidity of economic doctrines and an undue depreciation of 

 the results obtained in politics, jurisprudence, and social ethics, with, as a natural 

 consequence, the severing of subjects that should have been combined to form 



' Kinley, The Independent TreaBury, deals with the United States system ; and 

 Alessio, La Funzione del Tesoro, attempts a comparison of the several methods. 



- Since Merivale's Colonisation (1842, 2nd edit. 1861) no English economist has 

 made any contribution like those of Eoscher and Leroy-Beaulieu to that subject. 



