Annual Report of the Council. 



lix. 



employed in production ; and finally, the clear definition of 

 the function of the employer as distinct from the capitalist. 

 It is undoubtedly to the revolution in public opinion brought 

 about by Francis Walker's " Wages Question," and to the 

 further emancipation of thought from many of the crystal- 

 lised formulae of the merely a priori school of economists 

 which it effected, that the full recognition, not only of the 

 right but, even of the economic wisdom — within certain 

 limits — of labour combinations, the legislation for the State 

 protection of labour and for free education, and the general 

 improvement in the economic status of the working classes 

 during the past 20 years are very largely due. Indeed, it 

 may be said that even the possibility of contemplating at 

 the present day such doctrines as that of a minimum 

 "living wage" or of an eight hours' limitation of labour, 

 as being reconcileable in principle with a strictly scientific 

 system of economics, and with the maximum production of 

 wealth is due to the mental liberation effected by a book 

 which has undoubtedly won a perrnanent place in the 

 literature of economics. In his latest published work, more- 

 over, " International Bimetallism," not the least interesting 

 chapter is one in which Walker considers the relation 

 between slavery and the production of the precious metals 

 in the ancient world. 



Quitting the army, in consequence of broken health, in 

 1865, with the rank of brigadier-general of volunteers, Francis 

 Walker devoted his energies to Republican journalism, until, 

 in 1869, he was appointed chief of the Bureau of Statistics 

 at Washington. His familiarity with the statistics of 

 industry and trade in the United States, and with the 

 general economic position of that country, was farther 

 increased by his appointment as superintendent of the 

 American census of 1870, an office which he again filled in 

 1880. In 1881 he was elected president of the Massachusetts 

 Institute of Technology at Boston, a position which he still 

 held at the time of his death. His " Political Economy," 

 which has become internationally recognised as a standard 



