The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-12-28

Dryr n,sSHsi. stors. 159 Church St..
 work of these commissions as whole there is no need of passing judgment or balancing their good and their evil. Sui flee it to say that they have too often proved wholly extraneous element in the development of the law; and that in assuming quasi-judicial functions they have antagonized the courts in stead of helping them. As matter of principle, the attempt to supplement courts by commissions, involving as it does a separation of the progressive from the conservative, of the technl- cally intructed from the legally instruc- ted, is questionable in theory and likely to produce conflicts in practice. As a matter of political experience, l think it is safe to say that technically trained commissions have proved themselves more valuable as assistants to the leg islature or the administration than as supplements to the activity of the i courts.
 But why did not this conservatism of the courts give the economists all the
 
 islature, either directly or through leg islative commissions? If the courts be- came the opponents of precedent, why could not parliaments with the as- sistance of just such commissions as have been described, be the champions of progress? Was there not here field for the activity of economic ex- perts who, seeing farther than their fel- lows, could give advice which should be followed and should stand? As econ- omists lost the chance to influence judi cial decisions, were they not face to face with a wider field for influencing legislative debates?
 For the better part of a century this possibility existed. In fact it may be said to have lasted nearly as long as legislative debate itself lasted. But the days of legislative debate are number ed if they are not already ended. Con- gresses and parliaments have been com pelled to abandon their watchword of free speech, and to adopt in one form or another the principle of closure. The system of representative government, devised originally as a check upon the administration, and admirable as i lllGdIiS lOl SlNluS lIeS ulSCuSSlOH lO measures of a more or less independent administration, has not proved equally successful as a means of discussing &C., tual business in it's initiatory stages. Armies" says Macaulay, have won victories under bad generals, but no army ever won victory under a de- batting society,"" For the actual conduct of public business the legislature is at i once an unwieldly and irresponsible 1 body. It is so, in the first place, on ac count of its numbers. When the object 1 of a parliament was to form and i'm press public opinion large body of members was indispensable. When the object is to manage the actual business of government intellgently numbers are hindrance rather than a help. The difficulty is heightened by the preva- lence of the bicameral system. When the object was the creation of public sentiment two houses secured twice as much publicity. When the object is despatch of public business two houses result in divided responsibility, with all the consequent delay and chicane. And finally, the system Of district represen- tation, at first admirable as a means of representing all the different sec tions of the community, becomes under the new conditions a positive disadvan- tage. In the creation of public senti- ment, it gave us exchange of opinions; in the despatch of public business it means exchange of favors. Instead of corporation in the general interests we have log-rollng for particular inter- ests. Under the current system of po- litical ethics there is in fact direct antagonism between the theory of economics and the practical working of representative government. The econ omist shows how largely the independ- ent action of the parts may be made to conduce to the collective goods of tn , whole. The practical working of repre- sentative government, making each member primarily responsible to his district--or one might better say to the members of his own party in his dis trict-means that the collective action of the whole is made means to fulfill the separate wants of the parts even though the satisfaction of those wants may antagonize the general interests of the nation. The history of every tariff bill and of every river and harbor bill affords illustrations of this tendency of our representative system. The econo- mist is at disadvantage in influencing members of the legislature, because his ends are different from theirs. He is trying to pursue collective interests; they are trying-and under the exist ing condition of things necessarily try ing--to balance, to compromise, or in some fashion to reconcile divergent ones.
 This difference of aims, which puts the economist at a disadvantage in dealing with the legislature, ought ap- parently to put him at corresponding advantage in advising the executive. For the head of the executive depart ment, be he wise or unwise, disinter- ested or self seeking, nevertheless re- gards himself as a representative of the whole people rather than of small sec tions of the people. It would seem that such an executive, on whom the nation relies for progress in the face of judi cial conservatism and for wise collec- tive action in the face of legislative particularism, would feel more than ever the need of advice from trained economists to guide him in the work of administration That such need exists