IT is no disparagement to the contents of this volume
to say claim to the title of a trained and scientific economist. " Throughout my treatment of this class of subjects," he writes, " I have regarded them from the standpoint of a practical man of business or a public servant anxious to inquire into financial, economic, and social facts, with a view to their bearing on matters of administration or legislation, rather than as an exponent of systems of Political Economy or as the adherent of any special school of thought." It is this attitude that gives peculiar value to Lord Goschen's discussion of economic questions. No one who has followed the present Fiscal controversy, which is doubtless responsible for Lord Goschen's return to his earlier studies, can have failed to be struck by the singular freshness which inspires his utterances on the subject, due no doubt to his lifelong habits of examining facts and figures and of facing new economic developments or new aspects of old controversies. But something more than intellectual acuteness and honesty goes to the making of an economist of Lord Goschen's calibre. Besides the instinct for the hidden meaning of figures and statistics—a gift by no means common in professional political economists—Lord Goschen has the statesman's eye for the really important points in an economic discussion, and his grasp of the bearing of economic truths on the life of a nation. It is impossible to read the essays on " Laissez-faire " and " Ethics and Economics " without being profoundly impressed by these characteristics.
The vindication of the claims of economic science in these papers is all the more convincing from the extreme modera- tion of its ttrms and the recognition of the " honest, well- intentioned, and often noble aims " which have inspired modern Socialistic advance. Lord Goschen gives the impres- sion of writing without any bias save that produced by study of the facts and phenomena of modern societies. He seldom lays stress on a principle as such. An opinion like that
Previous page
