78 W. CUNNINGHAM, D.D._, ARCHDEACON OF ELY, ON * 



attention to the desires of the present generation ; it is by 

 turning our attention to production that we can best take 

 thought for the generation of consumers who are yet to come. 

 When we are looking to the organisation of society in the long 

 run, the important thing is, not to look merely at consumption, 

 but to make sure that the production of useful things, so that 

 they shall be available for distribution, goes on steadily and 

 well. Consumption looks to present conditions and the wealth 

 that has been acquired, production looks to the future, and the 

 prosperity of society in the long run. It is of course conceivable 

 that Socialism may in some circumstances and conditions supply 

 greatly improved organisation for production, and therefore an 

 increased mass of wealth (see p. 76, above). It is particularly 

 unfortunate, however, that socialistic writers and speakers at 

 present are so much inclined to dwell on the advantage of 

 distributing wealth differently among consumers, and are not 

 at more pains to show that the stimulus to efficiency in 

 production will be maintained under their system. 



2. Economic science may have much to say about the 

 production, distribution and exchange of wealth, whatever kind 

 of community is taken as the unit. In the ancient world, and 

 in medieval times, the city was a convenient unit for most 

 economic purposes; and with the rise of nationalities, in 

 modern times, the nation has come to be a convenient unit, 

 both for political and for economic purposes. But the advocates 

 of Free Trade have taken a somewhat new departure in treating 

 the world as a whole, as the unit they had in view ;* they are 

 inclined to disparage the attempt to promote the wealth and 

 power of any one country, and to view all as contributing to 

 and drawing from the common stock of the world as a whole. 

 This cosmopolitan habit of mind is also adopted by socialists, 

 who are inclined to disparage patriotic sentiment and to propose 

 a system which takes no account of dih'erence of race and 

 history. But after all, the cosmopolitanism of Free Traders 

 assumed the continued existence of nations ; each one of which 

 should be part of a complex system, bound to the other 

 members by ties of commercial connection. It is not quite 



In 1891, when I gave a presidential address to the Economic Section 

 of the British Association at Cardiff on "Nationalism and Cosmopoli- 

 tanism in Economics " {Statistical Society's Journal, liv, 6*44), I did not 

 realise as clearly as I do now, the grave eviJs which are inevitably con- 

 nected with cosmopolitanism, or the practicability of treating the Empire 

 as an economic unit. 



