The Political Economy Club had a great show-meeting on the
Thursday in last week, to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the publication of Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations ;" but as usual at such ceremonials, the practical statesmen rather jostled the original thinkers out of the way. Nothing was heard. of Mr. Bagehot, whose profound and thoughtful papers on the condi- tions of political economy are attracting so much attention in -the Fortnightly Review; nothing of Professor. Stanley Jevons, or Professor Bonamy Price, or Professor Fawcett. Mr. Lowe introduced the discussion with an elaborate e/age on Adam Smith, both as a master of style and as a scientific creator. He dwelt on some of his failures as well as on his greater aehievements, and chose for special eulogy his chapter on edacatioaal, endowments, some of the mischievous effects of which on education Adam Smith foresaw. After Mr. Lowe had spoken, Mr. Norman, as the senior member of the Club, made the sensible and really important remark, that while he was an adherent of the school of Adam Smith, he thought there were things of far higher import- ance than wealth, and that the desire to accumulate wealth ought to give way to those higher considerations, "national defence, national health, and. national morality,"—not a bad tradition, by the way, for the senior economist of such a club to hand down.
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