Mr. Balfour presided on Wednesday at the annual meeting of
the British Economic Association, when Professor J. Shields Nicholson read a paper on "Political Economy and Journalism," which Mr. Balfour described as full of " brilliant epigram," and marked by " extraordinary force and vigour of style." As Professor Nicholson is described as a bimetallist, we suppose we shall have from him a defence of the bimetallist doctrine which will be at once lucid and lively. Mr. Balfour, however, went on to remark that Professor Nicholson's effort to proselytise the Press of this country is a very audacious one; and spoke of the Press, in terms which appear to have given great offence, as one of those institutions "under which we live, which we submit to, which we profit by, which we suffer from, but which we do not criticise." And he further ventured to suggest that the Press often thinks less of instructing its readers, than it does of getting readers to instruct, and thereby obtaining not only readers but dividends. We do not understand why this very reasonable and practical remark has given so much offence. It is a perfectly just one. Every sane editor knows that though you can give a newspaper to a reader, you cannot make him read it unless it attracts him, and that if you fill it with either monometallism or bimetallism, it will not attract more than one reader in a hundred, and that the hundredth reader whom it will attract, will not be satisfied unless there is currency and nothing else. We venture to say that very few shrewd editors are willing to give much space to such subjects as these, and that they are quite right and wise in avoiding them. What is the use of filling your paper with " dismal science" ? And a dismal science political economy must be to 99 per cent. of the world. Doubtless editors are often enough shrewd economists ; but the shrewder they are, the more sparing they are of economic dissertations,. It takes a Harriet Martineau at least to make political economy at once clear and attractive.
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