13 JULY 1861, Page 16

THE SOCIAL SCIENCE CONGRESS. T HE Association for promoting the development

of Social Science have now completed their arrangements for the approaching meeting at Dublin, which is to be held in the third week in August, opening on the 14th, under the presi- dency of Lord Brougham. The quiescence from rill political agitation, and even the deadness of the moment with respect to all the more exciting political interests, may probably conduce to a more animated and profitable meeting for the discussion of those intermediate questions included in the range of " Social Science" than could be hoped for at any time when warm national or party interests were agitating men's minds. It is a time singularly well suited to the in- vestigation of those border questions that approach so near to politics on the one side, and touch the most vital principles of social life on the other. As it happens, there is but one of the sections into which the Association's inquiries are divided whieh does not raise questions of the most recent and immediate interest, and that one has a permanent and never diminishing interest for all who know its vital con-. nexion with every other social question : we mean the depart- ment on sanitary measures. With respect to all the other five sections of the Associa- tion's operations there is some germ of immediate interest m the pressing and momentary questions of the day. For example, the Jurisprudence Department, which includes all questions of legislative reform—the department Which, in fact, originated that famous Bankruptcy till, which, adoPted and Modified by the pfeSent Lb d Chancellor'; is now the subject of contention in our Legislature—will discuss, among other important subjects, this year, the' question which has recently excited so much vivid interest- the marriage laws of Ireland and the United Kingdom. The Educational Section—under the presidency, we are happy to see, of Sir J. G. Shaw Lefevre—will have a meet- ing of very unusual importance. The recent report of the Education Commissioners, with the able supplementary criticism of Mr. Senior upon it, together with the crowd of subordinate questions concerning Government aid to ragged schools, so hotly contested between Lord Shaftesbury and Mr. Cumin, will form the subject of warm and, no doubt, able debate at Dublin, and of debate which will be all the more valuable because it will be conducted with the aid of the fullest and most recent knowledge.

In the section on Penal and Reformatory Measures—for which we wish the council of the Association had secured the presidency of Captain Crofton, the chairman of the directors of the noble Irish convict system, though possibly he might have been regarded too much as the representative of a single reformatory doctrine—the recent convict erneutes at Chatham, and the splendid success of the Irish system, will form a subject of the most practical interest. In the section on Social Economy, for which the Associa- tion have secured the presidency of the accomplished Judge Longfield, to whose learning the Irish Encumbered Estates system owes so much, the question of trades unions and strikes will have an attraction even more fresh than last year, since the latest phase of the building strike in London shows more than ever the value of the investigations of the Social Science Committee of last year, and the importance of some of their recommendations. And in the department of trade and international law, under the presidency of the distin- guished French economist, M. Michel Chevalier, the ques- tion concerning maritime warfare and the best mode of securing an international system for dividing the insurance of ships, between the ship, the cargo, and the freight (the law of general average), to which the civil war in America, and the issue of letters of marque, have lent so painful an importance, will have the fullest consideration of the best intellects of the day.

This brief review will alone suffice to indicate on how many points of immediate public interest the approaching meeting in Dublin may be expected to throw light. The choice of intellectual leaders, on the whole, does credit to the judg- ment of the council, though we could wish to have seen a little more infusion of foreign elements. Perhaps, however, social science is More likely to earn practical respect while it keeps to the only field on which English thinkers have much scientific experience.