of or having any communication with members of the Government, so that I must not be thought in any sense to speak with authority on this subject; but as I understand the Legislature and these Acts, I entertain not the slightest doubt that the Acts have conferred on our central authority the further power of making, with the consent of the localities, such combined districts as practice, experience, wise energy, and the good intentions of the people see in their several neighbourhoods to be desirable. But it is manifest to all who reflect on the subject that the alteration of boundaries and areas is a difficult thing that it involves various kinds of local interests affecting property, party, and sentiment; such as county, union, parish, and franchise questions, together with personal relations of all the officers severally engaged in these respective divisions; so that a great amount of labour must necessarily be undergone to settle the hundreds, or, more probably, the thousands of questions which will demand the personal attention and judgment of the Local Government Board. With regard to future legislation, I earnestly hope there will be no Public Health Bill next Session; but I no less earnestly desire that the attention of the Government should be given to the subject of local taxation, for this must be settled before anything like finality will be arrived at with regard to the financial questions connected with the public health, or the payment of a new class of sanitary officers. Both central and local experience will be gained by a little timely delay. I grieve to say that utterances of impatience, and even of desire to repeal the Acts of 1871 and 1872 have been already heard. I do not know whether those who are anxious to effect another alteration in this matter have reflected on two circumstances the magnitude of the work which has been undertaken by the Local Government Board, and the fact that even our public officers are mortal. The work of the Board is becoming very heavy, and I sometimes look with alarm at the share I have taken in urging the Government to construct an office which has to regulate or reconstruct and to administer the more than thirty subjects which I have before enumerated.

I would therefore urge this Association loyally to support the authorities, central and local; to look for the fruit of the existing law; and to wait until the local authorities throughout the country have had an opportunity of maturing their plans. After waiting a few months, thus occupied, I presume that the parties of the House of Commons will once more combine in order to produce a permanent sanitary code, and not a mere consolidation. For my part, I prefer a complete sanitary code

to mere consolidation. The latter might be prepared by an ordinary draughtsman. Any skilful lawyer can consolidate Acts of Parliament. The difficulty is to find out what are the powers permanently required; what it would be reasonable, what useless to exercise; what should be expunged; what, in short, should be the national sanitary code. I appeal to all persons connected with any public work whether it is possible to complete an undertaking of that kind in haste, or under feeling of doubt whether your conclusions will be allowed a fair trial.

VI.

CONCLUSION.

And now, my lord, I must thank you and the Association for the kindness with which you have received my remarks. I will in conclusion only say, that there are two dangers which all of us are liable to fall into, and which therefore I would distinctly point out. Some persons appear to think we are backward, wanting in patriotism, or even indifferent, if we do not insist on complete measures; and they declare they will not accept anything which has not the aroma of completeness about it. Well, I only hope they will exercise forbearance towards those who are in the difficult position of constructive legislators, and that they will gather confidence for future progress from past success. I delight in theoretical and complete schemes. They are important and instructive, and deserve the respectful and considerate attention of all persons who are engaged with the practical work of the State. But to wait for completeness is very often simply to defer, from year to year, the doing of that which might have been done. to-day. In most respects this country is in a progressive state, though the fundamental principles which lie at the root of all our institutions are not only being severely criticized, and will be considerably modified, if not in our time, at any rate in the time of our children.

We may congratulate ourselves in this Association upon the sagacity of Mr. Hastings in promoting for so many years with so much success entirely free discussions on social subjects at these Congresses. I believe it is through associations of this kind that we shall get complete views of many subjects worked out, and presented to the public and to Parliament. There is a class of persons-I am happy to say rapidly diminishing in number-who seem to be of opinion that we who are engaged in sanitary work are somewhat fanatical,

and that because it is connected with our material frame, it is therefore a second-rate subject fit only for inferior men. With them I entirely differ. Bred a physiologist and a physician, I am not in the least afraid of being called a materialist. I believe that we are now able to look at things fairly in the face. I believe that by our health, by our inheritance, by our climate, by our lives, by our characters, we become what we are. I believe that the human body is the instrument through whose agency alone, in this wonderful world of ours, the mind can do its work. I believe that mental education is the blessing of modern life if wisely directed, to the end of making good men, and useful citizens. I believe that the body, when overtasked and exhausted, brings destruction to the best qualities of the mind. If I can read anything in the history of the globe, it is this, that the great qualities of a people depend in large measure (except in rare instances) upon the physique of the nation. I appeal to historians-to all, that is, who have studied the philosophy of historywhether it is not the fact that some of the highest of human qualities have been shown in a most eminent degree in days when there was a noble physique, but when there was no systematic education according to the modern notion of book learning. If you overtask men, you make them irritable and nervous: you may shorten their lives, as in our days we have seen great and good men's lives shortened because of the overweight that has pressed upon the tenderness of a sensitive conscience. You bow down a man, who, if you but gave him more time, would have worked long and well in his useful station. I could mention more than one rare spirit who would have been working for the nation to-day if this had not been so to him. So far as the comparative national health is concerned, I say there is no possibility of exaggerating the importance, not to our own country alone, but to the world, of fostering and caring for the body of man. The body of man is not only the casket which contains the soul. It is more. It is a casket which, under certain conditions, moulds and modifies the soul. The casket may even be injured by the vices and follies of parents-by parents who transmit to their children accursed and accursing diseases. You may ruin a nation in the same way by letting it rush into too exciting commercial speculations in pursuit of wealth; you may weigh down your best men by harassing, useless details; you may wear out your public men in senseless midnight discussions with no worthy object and without result. You may ruin a nation from the highest to the lowest, through want of patience,

without an object and without result. You may ruin a nation from the highest to the lowest, through want of patience, through lack of care, through want of quietness. Believe one who has passed middle life not without some poor endeavours to promote mental and physical vigour among the people: believe him when he says, you may unconsciously press too hard upon the mental and bodily power of your people; you may, unawares, destroy that precious gift of God-that health which enables man to do the great work of man, his duty towards his fellow-creatures, his duty to himself, and his duty to his God.

DIAGRAM TO SHOW THE PROPORTION OF DEATHS PER 1000 PER ANNUM, AS RECORDED IN THE REPORTS OF THE REGISTRAR-GENERAL ON OCTOBER 25, 1872.(See p. 79.)

88

Address

BY

SIR JOHN BOWRING, LL.D.,

ON

ECONOMY AND TRADE.

I

HAVE been unexpectedly honoured with the request that I would undertake the presidency of the Department of Economy and Trade at the present meeting of the Social Science Association. I was not willing to decline the duty, though I have felt that I could only imperfectly and unworthily discharge its claims. Had more time been allowed me, I would have endeavoured to present a more general and complete view of the field, and to have pursued the inquiry into ramifications which I am compelled to abandon. No one can be more aware than I that in the various departments of political economy and trade, an investigation, in order to be wholly satisfactory, should be exhaustive; but as every day's experience and observation adds something to the statistical facts upon which ought to be grounded the deductions of the philosopher and the legislation of the lawgiver, any thoughtful suggestions must augment those materials upon whose study and proper appreciation the wellbeing of society depends. Progress in every department of thought and action is happily the tendency of the intellectual tide, and if we cannot always direct its course, or increase its potency, we may at least allow our little barques to be carried forward in the stream.

It may be doubted whether there is any topic of social or individual interest which is not in some way or other to be tested by statistical and economical results; at all events, it may be contended that when such results are attainable they will tend much to the elucidation of any and every controversy. Every argument is strengthened if it can take a mathematical or arithmetical shape, and the tendency of all inquiry is to subject every contingency to some law of harmony or order. The great controversy of the day is, whether any event in the widest