CORRESPONDENCE. 
Correspondence. 
| 
Ss 
SCOPE OF MAGAZINE. 
To the Editor. 
Sir, - 
I have received the first copy of your magazine, entitled as above; and I 
have read your “ Foreword” with interest, in order to ascertain the scope of 
its journalistic outlook. Your opening sentence, containing the phrase “ Scientific 
thought and aspirations,” for which it is to be a medium of expression, at once 
suggests a very wide purview; and the only doubt that can now exist is as to 
whether, and at which point, you are going to place an editorial limit on the 
subjects to be discussed in its pages. For “science” itself is a sufliciently 
wide term; and when it is coupled with the word “ aspirations,’ which takes 
in so much that is beyond the domain of “ knowledge,” the scope foreshadowed 
seems to be almost limitless. 
So far, your contents are largely pastoral, agricultural, or mineralogical; 
the matter being somewhat similar to that which might be found in the magazines 
issued by the Mines and Agricultural Departments of several of the States; but 
I apprehend that you will amplify your journalistic “menw” in later issues. 
I have been wondering whether, having used these comprehensive terms, you 
will consider that articles on political, economic, and moral science come within 
the scope of the magazine; for there is a real want, in Australia, at present, 
of a medium of expression in regard to such subjects. Many years ago, the 
Melbourne Review and the Victorian Review afforded such a channel for public 
opinion; and I am sure that if you were to look through the “ Table of Contents ” 
of those magazines, now. unfortunately extinct, you would see, and acknowledge, 
that they contained many articles, under the heads I have named, which were 
of great intellectual value, and which would do credit to any of the greater 
British or American magazines of to-day; and I am sure also that if you 
had examined some of the contents of those two magazines, you would not 
have said that “there is a paucity of trained men” in Australia; at least, 
in regard to those subjects. My own opinion is that, given a proper medium 
for literary expression, which our daily ephemeral newspapers do not supply, 
it would be found that Australia could excel, in intellectual force and originality, 
as unmistakeably as she has done in her soldiering; for our climate, and 
environment, and isolation, afford distinct aids to intellectual initiative, as they 
do to the practical faculties that have so distinguished our soldiers. 
The opening of your columns to the subject of “ Economic Science” would 
admit a number of articles in criticism of, or in vindication of, our nondescript 
tariff, which, at present, is the battledore and shuttlecock of politicians and 
Chambers of Manufactures; it would admit contributions on the subject of our 
unscientific methods of taxation in States and Commonwealth, portions of which 
have already been vigorously and scientifically attacked by Professor Carslaw 
of the Sydney University, without receiving a scientific answer. 
Such a scope would admit articles in regard to the relative merits of “ Pre- 
ferential” and “ Proportional” systems of voting, and afford room for criticism 
in regard to the economically wasteful overlapping of Savings Bank facilities 
by Commonwealth and States. 
All these are subjects within the scope of the term “science,” in its economic 
side; and your magazine would open up a wide and. far-reaching journalistic 
vista, and possibly become a publication of wide-spread influence, beyond Aus- 
tralia, if you and your Advisory Council see your way to allow others to enter 
upon the discussion of such problems; for you have carefully guarded yourselves 
against responsibility in your “ Editor’s Notes.” 
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