ECONOMICS ance that the economic terms, which are also, though in many cases with an entirely different meaning, the terms of business and commerce, should as far as possible be used in their common and ordinary English sense: that they should correspond in meaning with the same words when used in description, in law, accountancy, and ordinary business. This is no doubt a difficult matter. But some change in this direction is necessary both in the interests of the science itself and of its practical utility. All the materials for investigation, all the facts and figures from which illustrations are drawn, all methods of keeping accounts in England, assume the ordinary English tongue. There are few if any conceptions in economics which cannot be expressed in it without depleting the ordinary vocabulary. At present the language of economics is for the ordinary Englishman like a foreign language of exceptional difficulty, because he is constantly meeting with words which suggest to his mind a whole world of associations quite different from those with which economic theory has clothed them. The refinements of economic analysis, as distinguished from its broader achievements, should be reserved for special studies, in which a technical scientific terminology, specially devised, can be used without danger of misconception. But in a subject like economics obscurity and an awkward terminology are not marks of scientific merit. Economic studies should be as relevant to existing needs as those of engineering and other applied sciences. The scientific study of practical problems and difficulties is far more advanced in almost every civilized country than it is in England, where the limited scale upon which such work is carried on, the indifference of statesmen, officials, and business men, and the incapacity of the public to understand the close relation between scientific study and practical success, contrast very unfavourably with the state of affairs in Germany or the United States. The backwardness of economic science is an index of the danger which threatens the industrial and commercial supremacy of the United Kingdom. There are at the present time very few questions of public or commercial importance upon which the best and most recent investigations are to be found amongst English works. This would matter very little, perhaps, if Englishmen had a firm belief, established by actual experience, in the soundness of their policy, the present security of their position, and the sufficiency of their methods to strengthen or maintain it. But this is very far from being the case. If we take, for example, the corner-stone of the British commercial system, namely, the policy of free trade, the present generation does not read the economic works which Economic supplied the theoretical basis of that policy, and problems if it did, would not be convinced by them. The enera on an Brit™** which is ‘ grapidlyfi dying out.knew TheCobden great and men Bright of their period are merely historical figures, not so real to the present generation as the younger Pitt was to their grandfathers. Long before his death, Bright’s references in public speeches to the achievements of the Anti-Corn Law League were received with respectful impatience, and Peel’s famous speech on the repeal of the Corn Laws would not convince the German Reichstag or a modern House of Commons. The result is that free trade has ceased to be an article of faith, or even in any real sense a doctrine of expediency. It is rather an old habit for which the ordinary English manufacturer could give no very reasonable explanation, which is not likely to be given up as long as the generation now over fifty years of age has the predominant influence in commerce and public affairs, but for which a younger generation will care no more than their grandfathers did for the mercantile
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system, unless it can win their adhesion as a policy well designed to realize the aims they will have in view. Hence free trade is in serious jeopardy unless it can be restated in terms which have a direct relevance to the present position of England and present conditions of international trade. If the Imperialist tendencies of the present time continue, as no doubt they will, this question will become one of burning interest. No great scheme of national or Imperial consolidation has ever been carried through without raising and solving questions of commercial policy; and although there is no reason why the consolidation of the British Empire should involve the destruction of the established commercial system of the United Kingdom, and every historical and scientific reason for safeguarding the inheritance of the past, we may see a revival of old fallacies in a new form. It should be the work of economic science ruthlessly to analyse the existing situation, explain the issues involved in the commercial policy of different countries, and point out the alternative methods of dealing with present difficulties, with their probable results. The commercial policy of a state is merely the reflex of its system of public finance. The absence of conviction in regard to British commercial policy has its counterpart in the attitude of many men to the financial system of the country. It is not often that the eulogies showered upon it in the past are repeated at the present time. The difficulty appears to be caused partly by the great increase in military and naval expenditure, which has been made necessary by the exceptional demands of a state of war and the great development of foreign Powers, partly by the great extension of the functions of the State during the latter part of the 19th century. The former causes are partly permanent, partly temporary • but those of a permanent character are likely to increase in force, and those of a temporary character will leave a deposit in the shape of an addition to the normal expenditure of the central Government. The extension of Government functions is much more likely to continue than to be checked. Normal expenditure is therefore Commerce almost certain to rise. It is almost inconceiv- fjnaacem able that it will fall. Meanwhile, in spite of the vast increase in national wealth, it is a matter of increasing difficulty to meet a comparatively slight strain without recourse to measures of a highly controversial character; and it is certain that no important new source of revenue can be suggested which will not raise, in an acute form, questions of commercial policy and the relations between the United Kingdom and the Colonies. Here there is room for a whole series of important monographs. There is no civilized country in which questions of public finance, in a concrete form, have received so little attention as in England. The development of the powers of the central Government has been less than that of the functions of local governing authorities. This, again, is a movement much more likely to extend than to be checked. Local governing authorities now discharge economic functions of enormous importance and complexity, involving sums of money larger than sufficed to run important states a generation ago. At present we do not know precisely what happens. The scientific study of the economics of local administration is in its infancy. It is of the utmost importance that it should be taken up in earnest by economists. These questions of commercial policy and local government are closely bound up with the scientific study of the transport system. On this important subject there is at present not a single treatise of first-rate importance by an English writer, and there is only one English railway company which records in a suitable form the
