Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/253

 Question is sought in the proposed creation of a Hospita. l. Board for London, which should have power of control and supervmlon similar to those now exercised by such a body as the Metropolitan Asylums Board.

An Examination of the Coal and Iron Production of the Principal Coal-and Iron-producing Countries of the World with Reference to the English Coal Question. By GroR(r CmSnOLM, Esq., M.A., B. Sc.

In the light of copious statistics relating to the production of coal and to allied industries, Mr. Chisholm estimates the danger of English coal being exhausted, and considers some proposed preventives of its too rapid consumption.

Some Aspects of Competition: the Address of the President of Section F—Economic Science and Statistics of the British Association at the Sixtieth Meet;n.q held at Leeds in September 1890.

In introductory sentences of peculiar weight. Professor Marshall describes the change in the methods of economic science which has taken place since the beginning of this century. the change ' from that early stage in the development of scientific method in which the operations of Nature are represented as conventionally simplified for the purpose of enabling them to be described in short and easy sentences, to that higher stage in which they are studied more carefully and represented more nearly as they are, even at the expense of some loss of simplicity and definiteness and even apparent lucidity.' The extent of this change and the danger of exaggerating it are illustrated by the attitude of the present generation of economists towards competition. Taking the policy of Protection as his first illustration, Professor Marshall has the courage to argue that the reasons in favour of Free Trade have not been so cogent in America as in this country. 'Fifty years ago it might possibly have been not beyond the powers of human ingenuity to devise a scheme' of protection which would, on the whole, be beneficial to America, at all events, if we regarded only its economic and neglected its moral effects.' He p. rac. tises his principle: ' In economic discussions absolute frankness m, m the long run, the best policy.' Referring to combination, Professor Marshall doubts whether Trusts have as great a future as is sometimes supposed. He estimates the advantages which have been claimed for trusts and other large combinations less highly than some eulogists of those institutions. His well-balanced observations are calculated to atord assistance in salving what Burke has called the finest problem in legislation, to what extent the State can with advantage control individual action. On the one hand, the Socialists have underrated the difficulty of business work. ' They seem to think too much of competition as the exploiting of labour by capital, of the poor by the wealthy, and too little of it as the constant experiment by the ablest men for their several tasks, each trying to discover a new w.ay .in wh!eh to attain some important end.' But on the other hand it is denied that 'nothing less than the enormous fortunes which successful men now make and retain' would suffice for .the purpose. ' of gett. ing the right men into the right places.' It is argued on h'e contrary an a remarkable analysis of the business man's motives that they are not so sordid as the world in general, and economists in particular, have assumed. The best business man, like the man of science, is actuated by the ' instincts of the chase' and a generous enulation rather than mere love of money; but there is this