that bread-winning should go on under circumstances which secure the most comfortable life for the men, women, and children of the family, which permit the fullest development of all powers, and openly substitute economic co-operation on the part of the wife for economic dependence.

Such people ground their objections to home work on—

(1) Danger to public health.

(2) The low rate of pay in industries where home work prevails.

As to (1), if existing sanitary laws, properly enforced, do not safeguard the public, then no prohibition of home work would either.

As to (2), the smaller sum earned by a woman in her home may place her in as good a pecuniary position as the larger sum earned in a factory.

The advantages of home work outweigh all the drawbacks, because it enables married women to contribute their quota to household maintenance in the way most congenial to them, and most consistent with home life.

4. On the Progress of the Newspaper Press, and the Need of Reform and Consolidation of the Laws affecting it. By Professor J. A. STRAHAN, M.A., LL.B.

Statistics showing the progress of the newspaper press.—In 1695 the first daily started in England. In 1712-when the stamp tax on newspapers was first imposed the yearly circulation of newspapers in England was about 2,000,000. In 1755 it was about 7,400,000; in 1801, about 16,000,000; in 1836, about 39,400,000; in 1837-when the stamp tax was reduced from 34d. net to ld.-about 54,000,000; in 1854-the last year of the stamp tax-about 122,000,000. Since 1854 estimates of circulation must be conjectural, but the great increase in the number of newspapers-from 493 in 1840 to 2,200 in 1893, of persons connected with journalism, e.g., of 'reporters,' from 636 in 1861 to 2,677 in 1881-shows that newspaper production must have increased enormously. The yearly circulation of the twenty-nine London daily papers must approach 1,000,000,000, of the 170 provincial dailies must pass that number. Besides these there are now 2,000 weeklies in the United Kingdom, some of which have a weekly circulation approaching a million.

Legislation affecting newspapers. For the first 150 years after the first daily was started there was practically no legislation specially affecting newspapers; during the last fifty years there has been plenty, but most of it has been haphasard and illconsidered.

Advantages which would result from codifying law.— (a) The law would be made more intelligible. This is very necessary, as the law has frequently to be applied by the editor without the opportunity of legal advice. (b) It would be made less cumbersome. (c) It would be made more effective. At present it frequently fails to carry out the intentions of the legislature. (d) It would be made more just. At present the journalist has too good grounds of complaint: (1) his liability to vexatious actions for merely technical libels; (2) his sole liability for defamation appearing in reports of speeches publicly delivered. Suggestions for dealing with these.

Suggestions for establishing a legally qualified profession of journalism.—ODе probable result of recasting law of the press-an enactment that henceforth no newspaper should be started without a legally qualified editor to conduct it, such editor to be liable to expulsion from the profession if shown to be guilty of unprofessional conduct.

5. On the Census of Foreigners in France. By M. A. DE LIÉGEARD.

6. On Social and Economical Heredity. By W. B. GRANT. The evil consequences of folly and wickedness are not exhausted in the sufferings of the individual, but are transmitted to offspring, and the misery and wretched

ness found in town slums and elsewhere are largely due to inherited taint; so that individuals cannot properly be dealt with as if each was solely responsible. It is quite impossible amongst the living at some particular time to say on whom the responsibility should fall. Some national effort is therefore required, and must be directed to the removal of those who have proved themselves incapable of dealing with the difficulties of life, viz., the criminal and the helpless.

The remedy proposed is to found national compulsory colonies of two kinds, which might be called relief colonies for the helpless and retreat colonies for criminals. All the great national colonies have risen on the wealth derived from the soil; and under good superintendence it might be assumed that agricultural village colonies established and conducted under strict rule would be successful. For the relief colonies such discipline would be sufficient as has been ascertained to produce good results in the parish poorhouses of Scotland. The criminal colonies would require a firmer control, but both might easily be made more than selfsupporting from the intelligent prosecution of cultivation, planting, pasture, and tillage appropriate to the particular localities selected.

Colonies might consist of family colonies of 100 persons, each on two square miles of land; and fifty family colonies would form a grand colony of convenient size, being ten miles square.

The criminals to be compulsorily emigrated would be least and at first those sentenced to penal servitude, and they would be astricted to their colonies for life. Individuals with a criminal taint would in this way have a better chance of leading useful lives than they could have in open competition; and the hereditary taint would gradually be eliminated from society.

The relief colonies would be for the submerged-those worsted in the battle of life, families and individuals found living without sufficient food, clothing, and lodging to assure permanent good health. These would not be astricted to their colonies for life, but would have an opportunity of working themselves free by their own self-denial and exertions.

The system would be established gradually. A single colony of each kind in different and suitable localities would first be settled, and others added as previous ones became self-supporting, the responsibility and expense to be undertaken by some existing Government department; and after the system had proved successful a separate Government department could be established.

By these or like means it is thought that the population of our islands could be gradually purified, strengthened, and elevated; and a new era of prosperity would thus become possible for the United Kingdom.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19.

The following Papers were read:

1. On the Currency Problem. By Prof. H. S. Foxwell, M.A.

2. On the Currency Question practically considered from a Commercial and Financial Point of View. By W. E. DORRINGTON.

Currency is an international question. It is the keystone of the commercial arch, and, unless we revert to barter, a well-regulated system of currency is the only means whereby wholesale production can be adjusted to retail consumption.

Gold monometallism is a barrier to the development of free trade. The present position of the Customs tariffs in foreign countries, necessitated by the various nations endeavouring to keep their gold, and also induced by the efforts of foreign Governments to help their manufacturers against constantly falling prices, has fostered protection.

As the standard of value in a portion of the world is in silver, and in the other part in gold, commerce requires a stable par of exchange between gold and silver moneys; and, as the exigencies of business necessitate contracts for prolonged periods, the industrial and commercial world requires a stable standard of value for the equitable settlement of such contracts.

It is also most important to industrial and commercial Britain that foreign debtor nations shall not suffer by having to send to their foreign bondholders— English or otherwise-on account of an alteration in the standard, an unfair and unexpected increased amount of produce in discharge of external debts, to the impoverishment of such debtor countries, and their consequent and corresponding inability to purchase our goods.

Gold alone does not furnish a stable measure of value; silver is much more stable. Having regard to the existing standards and currencies of the world, a joint standard of the two metals, as of old, but on a broader international basis, would afford the best promise of stability. It is a fallacy to suppose that if prices of commodities fall producers or manufacturers get an immediate pro ratá reduction of their costs of production. Many adjustments are only slowly effected; some elements of cost cannot be adjusted.

The industrial capitalist therefore suffers, and labour must sooner or later share the loss.

A silver-standard country with products or manufactures competing with those of gold-standard Britain has an unfair advantage over the producers or manufacturers of this country.

The increasing scramble for gold throughout the world must, unless relieved by a broadening of the monetary metallic base, increase and intensify and prolong financial tension and panic. Great Britain, being practically the only country whose monetary laws afford no means of protecting its gold, except the clumsy and ofttimes slowly efficacious procedure of raising the Bank rate, must experience to the fullest extent the evils of such financial disturbance. This affects credit, checks trading facilities and trade and enterprise, and puts a tax upon productive industry.

The only remedy which it is even suggested would give a stable par of exchange between the various peoples on earth; which would give a steady and permanent measure of value between buyers and sellers who make prolonged contracts, and between debtors and creditors, individual and national; and the only remedy to relieve the 'scramble for gold' and provide a suitable expansion of 'international legal tender' from time to time is international bimetallism. Monetary history proves that this would provide all these desiderata, and also proves that it is practicable.

3. On some Objections to Bimetallism viewed in connection with the Report of the Indian Currency Committee. By L. L. PRICE.

The publication of the Report of the Indian Currency Committee marks a stage of great importance in the progress of the monetary crisis, and the report is not devoid of instruction for the student of monetary affairs. The aim of the present paper is to examine a few of the points on which such instruction may be obtained. Bimetallism is frequently charged with being artificial, and the objection is undeniably plausible. But the student will not dismiss the proposal on that ground alone, for he is aware of the abuse which often attaches to the distinction between what is natural and what is artificial. The layman, however, may be prejudicially influenced by the charge; but the review of foreign systems of currency contained in the Report of the Indian Currency Committee should suffice to convince him that, compared with these complicated systems, which are in many cases the consequence of the abandonment of bimetallism, or of the refusal to return to it, the bimetallic scheme appears simple and natural. Another consideration raised by the report is the fact that a currency change has now been sanctioned, which is distinctly designed to meet evils occasioned by currency changes. The particular phase of the malady with which the Indian Committee deal is that connected

6

with fluctuations of exchange, and they do not profess to effect a complete cure, but to check the further inroads of the disease. In England and Europe the more prominent phase is rather that of an appreciation' of gold. To deny the existence of this is now hardly possible, in whatever sense the term 'appreciation' is used, and to ignore the evils which are consequent upon it is no less difficult, while the Indian analogy renders inapplicable the plausible argument that Governments should not tamper' with the currency. And yet this argument, together with that based on the supposed artificial character of bimetallism, not improbably supplies a large part of the vis inertia which hinders its progress in this country, and does so in the minds of candid practical men honestly desirous to set aside prejudice. It is to them that the appeal must be made, and they may fairly be asked at the present juncture to give their careful attention to the question, for the action of the Indian Government is likely to accentuate the monetary difficulties of the Western world. Directly and indirectly it can hardly fail to increase the appreciation of gold. It may indeed so intensify the troubles as to compel attention to what was unheeded before, and thus out of present evil future good may possibly issue. But, with a view of shortening the period of suspense, the candid observer may be asked to contemplate the dilemmas to which the refusal of bimetallism has brought those who are anxious to relieve by other means the pressure of monetary difficulties. The Indian proposal illustrates some of these dilemmas, and is at the best acknowledged to be but a pis aller. It affords a fresh example of the dangers and difficulties of a policy of drift, and the practical man may now be asked whether he is really willing that such a policy should indefinitely continue. Happily there have of late been signs that the crust of indifference is being broken through, and to this beneficial process the Report of the Indian Currency Committee promises to render material assistance.

4. On India and the Currency. By F. C. HARRISON.

India's action was dictated by political and financial considerations-political in that the import trade and the official were suffering, financial in that Government found both the variation and the continuous decline in silver intolerable.

As India has always possessed a favourable balance of trade whether gold was dear as in 1835 or cheap as in 1866, whether silver was dear as in 1870 or cheap as in 1893, so it will continue to have a favourable balance under altered conditions. There is, therefore, no reason for supposing that the present experiment will fail owing to changes in international trade.

On other grounds India's action is also defensible. Europe is not at present prepared to adopt bimetallism, and many think that it is possible to manage with a gold standard and an extended use of silver and silver notes. India, therefore, by adopting the gold standard and using the least possible quantity of that metal in its circulation is doing the least injury that is practicable in changing from silver to gold.

SECTION G.-MECHANICAL SCIENCE.

PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION-JEREMIAH HEAD, Esq., M.Inst.C.E., F.C.S.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14.

The PRESIDENT delivered the following Address:

THIS Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science was founded with the object of making more widely known, and more generally appreciated, all well-ascertained facts and well-established principles having special reference to mechanical science.

As President of the Section for the year, it becomes my duty to inaugurate the proceedings by addressing you upon some portion of the scientific domain to which I have referred, and in which your presence here indicates that you are all more or less interested.

MECHANICAL SCIENCE.

The founders of the British Association no doubt regarded the field of operations which they awarded to Section G as a not less purely scientific one than those which they allotted to the other Sections. And, indeed, mechanical science studied, say, by Watt was as free from suspicion of commercial bias as chemical science studied, say, by Faraday.

But whatever may have been the original idea, the practice of the Section has recently been to expend most of its available time in the consideration of more or less beneficial applications of mechanical science, rather than of the first principles thereof. Our Section has become more and more one of applied rather than of pure science. None of the other Sections is free from this fault, if fault it be (which I do not contend or admit), but Section G seems to me to be beyond all question, and beyond all others, the Section of applied science.

The charter of the Institution of Civil Engineers commences by reciting that the object of that society is the general advancement of mechanical science, and more particularly for promoting the acquisition of that species of knowledge which constitutes the profession of a civil engineer, being the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man.'

It seems that in 1828, when the Institution was incorporated, the term 'mechanical science' had a wider meaning than it is now usually understood to have. For, according to the charter, the art of directing the great sources of power in nature is only a particular species of knowledge which mechanical science' includes.

In 1836, or eight years later, the founders of our Section adopted the term without again defining it. Probably they accepted the careful definition of the Great George Street Institution. Time has shown the wisdom of that decision. For we civil engineers and other frequenters of Section G in active practice need far more knowledge than mechanical science can teach us in the ordinary or narrow pense of the term. Our art in its multifarious branches requires, if success is to be