SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—F. 407 
Malthusian views have become not only stale but pernicious. Nearly 
everyone has got it firmly fixed in his head (a) that the population ought to 
be reduced, (b) that each country ought to grow more food. The first is 
a matter of taste, but the second opinion is demonstrably wrong. It is one 
of the items of the fashionable economic-nationalist point of view, and has 
resulted in far more labour than is necessary being spent on producing the 
world’s food supply. Except in certain specialities, European agriculture 
cannot at present, without artificial aid, compete against American or 
Australasian agriculture. It is a sign of agricultural progress that labour 
should be released from agriculture, as indeed has been the case in the 
advanced agricultural countries, and not that more labour should be taken on. 
An excuse, but not a justification, for the artificial aid given to agriculture 
in many countries, is the world-wide inequality of the ratio of exchange 
between agriculture and industry, i.e. the relative dearness of manufactured 
goods and the relative cheapness of agricultural produce. This also has 
serious indirect effects, the most serious being that peasant producers over 
many parts of the world cannot yet afford the implements and fertilisers 
even to bring their agriculture up to a nineteenth century level of efficiency 
and have to use an agricultural technique which has been obsolete in England 
for centuries. 
Mr. J. C. GiLBerTt.—Some monetary problems of international trade (11.0). 
A comparison of domestic and international trade. The theory of inter- 
national trade as part of the theory of equilibrium. The advantage of this 
approach rather than that of comparative cost theory. International trade 
distinguished from domestic trade by the special monetary problems 
arising from separate monetary systems. The monetary mechanism under 
gold standard arrangements in the cases of international trade variations 
and changes in one-sided international payments. The relationship 
between changes in the terms of trade and changes in relative price levels. 
A consideration of the difference between international income adjustments 
and those which take place between different parts of the same country. 
The monetary mechanism under independent paper currency arrangements. 
A discussion of appropriate monetary policy in the light of the theory of 
neutral money and the preceding analysis of variations in international 
economic relations. Monetary policies under gold standard and independent 
paper currency arrangements considered. 
Mr. R. A. Hopcson.—Occupational changes and population movement in 
S.E. England (12.0). 
Friday, September 6. 
PRESIDENTIAL ApprEss by Prof. J. G. SMITH on Economic nationalism and 
foreign trade (10.0). (See p. 89.) 
Prof. L. M. Fraser—Present-day economic problems in Germany (12.0). 
Monday, September 9. 
PRESENTATION OF REPORT OF RESEARCH COMMITTEE AND DIscussION.— 
Chronology of the World Crisis (10.0). 
