The Work of Lilian Knowles
Economic Development of the British Overseas Empire.
By Professor Knowles. Volume II. (Routledge. 12s. 6d.) THE late Professor Lilian Knowles (Professor of Economic History in the University of London) planned her work, The Economic Development of the British Overseas Empire, • on a generous scale. Her great merit was that she drew upon sources, of information which are inaccessible in books of reference or, indeed, in most libraries. She broke new ground. And when she gathered in her various harvest all was grist for her mill. It is a sad thought that her fresh and daring mind is no longer at the service of the Empire for which she bad a wise love though a passionate admiration. Her death in 1926, after the publication of her first volume, .was quite unexpected. Fortunately, she had written a large part of the second volume, which is now before us, and had collected a good deal of information for the concluding volume. The second volume carries on, in its first part, the comparative survey Al Dominion problems, and in its second part deals exclusiVelY; with the ecorioinfe development of Canada. The last volume is to describe the economic development of Australasia and South Africa.
Miss L.. ,C. 'A. TOmn, who after her marriage became Ptii, fessor Knowles, was a " Double First " at Cambridge .She- took the Historical Tripos and then the Law Tripos. There was only one name in the Law Tripos of 1894 above that of Miss Tomn, and that was " J. C. Smuts, Scholar of Christ's College." Time waited long to practise its ironies. When the list was published little notice was taken of the young Dutchman from South Africa ; the popular Press was much more concerned with the clever Girton girl. During the Great War, when General Smuts was in London, he heard of his former companion in the 1894 Law Tripos, and invited her to dinner. An air-raid added piquancy to the entertainment.
If the world had moved a little faster in the first years of the twentieth century Miss TOMn would probably have become a practising barrister, but, as it was, the, obstacles were too numerous. She was, however, the first woman to read in Chambers, and she followed up that experience with six months in a firm of solicitors. Sir Frederick Pollock, though always the friend of innovation, remarked doubtfully that Miss Tomn's work under him was rather a novel experiment," but he soon admitted that it was " refreshing to find someone interested in law for its own sake."
After abandoning all hope of the law as a profession Miss Tomn helped that stimulating economist and admirable man, Dr. William Cunningham. Her next step was to become Teacher in Modem Economic History at the London School of Economics, and in July 1921 she was appointed Professor of Economic History in the University of London. According to all accounts her lectures were unlike those of anybody else. She had a talent for happy generalization, and betrayed her consuming interest in every subject under the sun by digres- sions which were never irrelevant to her theme. It was said of her that she could " make a Blue Book as lively as a detec- tive story." She made her pupils slave, but she was their slave too. When she began to teach economic history at the London School of Economics it was held by such great autho- rities as Dr. Cunningham and Mr. L. L. Price that it was impossible to teach English economic history after 1846. She eagerly desired to teach it up to her own day, but she could find hardly any book to help her except the History of Trade Unionism, by Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb. She was, as one may imagine of such a confessed Imperialist, considerably disconcerted at this discovery that the economic history of the present day as usually taught was " Labour," and that even then only one side of Labour was represented—Trade Unionism. She set to work to remedy this defect so far as she could, and the history before us is one of the witnessei to her industry.
We cannot do more than indicate the character of this volume. In Part I we have a comparison of the temperate and tropical Dominions with an analysis of the determining consequences of climate upon human occupations. This is followed by a discussion of the economic beginnings of nationality and the economic foundations of Federation. In Part II we see the economic development of Canada beginning from widely separate bases—from the Maritime Provinces, Vancouver, the St. Lawrence, and the Red River. The influence from each base radiates outwards until all coalesce. As the process proceeds the industries of the Interior gradually dwarf the importance of the Atlantic seaboard. The prairies of the North-West become the granary of the Empire ; the Canadian Shield reveals its fabulous mineral ,wealth, .and so on. The Dominion has become the possessor of the greatest State-owned railway system in the world, and a Canadian Province possesses the greatest electrical undertaking. Such achievements are the result not of " Socialism," but of the pressure of circumstances.
Nowhere else, it is said, is there such scope as in Canada for working out the conception of an organized agriculture bgsed on science. We agree with all that is said in praise_ of .the loyalty to one another of the Canadian farmers who have become members of that great cooperative organization,.the Wheat Pool. Nevertheless, we must insinuate a word of caution. If the trouble is the over-production of wheat the maintenance of very good prices by the Pool is not likely to discourage excessive production. This is not a Pond argument
against a Pool, but it is a point not to be ignored. -
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