816 REPORT--1890, 
Section F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS, 
PRESIDENT OF THE SectIonN—Henry Hiaes, LL.B., F-.S.S. 
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14. 
The President delivered the following Address :— 
THE prime concern of the economist and of the statistician is the condition of 
the people. Other matters which engage their attention—particular problems, 
questions of history, discussions of method, developments of theory—all derive their 
ultimate importance from their bearing upon this centralsubject. The statistician 
measures the changing phenomena of the production, distribution, and consumption 
of wealth, which to a large extent reflect and determine the material condition of 
the people. The economist analyses the motives of these phenomena, and 
endeavours to trace the connection between cause and effect. He is unable to 
push his analysis far without a firm mastery of the theory of value, the perfecting of 
which has been the chief stride made by economic science in the nineteenth century. 
When we read the ‘ Wealth of Nations’ we are forced to admit that in sheer 
sagacity Adam Smith is unsurpassed by any of his successors. It is only when we 
come to his imperfect and unconnected views upon value that we feel the power 
of increased knowledge. J. 8. Mill supposed in 1848 that the last word had been 
said on the theory of value. In his third book he writes: ‘ In a state of society 
in which the industrial system is entirely founded on purchase and sale .. . the 
question of value is fundamental. Almost every speculation respecting the 
economical interests of a society thus constituted implies some theory of value: 
the smallest error cn this subject infects with corresponding error all our other 
conclusions, and anything vague or misty in our conception of it creates confusion 
and uncertainty in everything else.’ And he adds: ‘ Happily, there is nothing in 
the laws of value which remains for the present or any future writer to clear up ; 
the theory of the subject is complete.’ 
We know now that he was wrong. Thanks in the main to economists still 
alive, and especially to the mathematical economists, we have at length a theory 
of value so formally exact that, whatever may be added to it in the future, time 
can take nothing from it, while it is sufficiently flexible to lend itself as well to a 
régime of monopoly as to one of competition. Yet our confidence in this instrument 
of analysis is far from inspiring us with the assurance which has done so much to 
discredit economics by provoking its professors to dogmatise upon problems with 
the whole facts of which they were imperfectly acquainted. Given certain conditions 
of supply and certain conditions of demand, the economist should have no doubt 
as to the resulting determination of value; but he is more than ever alert to make 
sure that he has all the material factors of the case before him ; that he understands 
the facts and their mutual relation before he ventures to pronounce an opinicn 
upon any mixed question. He must have the facts before he can analyse them. 
A small array of syllogisms, which, as Bacon says, ‘master the assent and not the 
subject,’ are not an adequate equipment for him. He sees more and more the need 
