2jrd March, igog. 



Sir John W. Byers, M.A., M.D., President, in the Chair. 



THE ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF INTERNATIONAL 

 EXCHANGE." 



By E. J. Eliiott. 



(Abstract.) 



Mr. E. J. Elliott, in introducing the discussion, said the 

 tendency at present was not to consider this international exchange 

 from the academic or theoretic standpoint, but from the severely 

 practical point of view. In a word, the study of such subjects 

 had passed from the doctrinaire and the theorist to that much- 

 quoted individual, the " man in the street." Hence it was that, 

 while in the eighteenth and part of the nineteenth century political 

 economy was written about and discussed by persons far removed 

 from the practical spheres of life as Adam Smith, Hume, Ricardo, 

 Mill, and others, at the present time those who were most 

 interested, and whose views had most weight, were practical men 

 of affairs, such as prominent business men and statesmen, who 

 had identified themselves not with theories, but with the practical 

 aspect of financial and fiscal questions. The modern and popular 

 treatment of the subject was therefore practical and empirical, not 

 theoretical or speculative. The expression " free trade " could 

 not be properly applied to any system of exchange of commodities 

 that had ever existed in this planet. Free trade, or, as the 

 French called it, " free exchange," involved absolutely free 

 imports and absolutely free exports. If the entire world were 



