The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 1926. ECONOMICS AND COMMERCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 86, 13 April 1926, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 1926. ECONOMICS AND COMMERCE.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that toe can do.

It is unfortunate that Professor Copland's visit to Auckland is of necessity casual and brief. For the professor is one of the most eminent of all the graduates of the New Zealand Univer- j sity who have achieved distinction out- j side the Dominion, and the mission on which he is now engaged may ultimately. produce most important results for our own country in the material or commercial as well as the academic sphere. Originally, Professor Copland graduated from Canterbury College, and since! his student days he has directed economic I studies in Tasmania, as well as in Victoria. He is now head of the ] faculty of commerce in Melbourne University ; and in all these centres he has made himself conspicuous by his efforts' to bring the teaching of economics into close and intimate contact with the J industrial commercial and financial sides of national life. For economics regarded from the standpoint of the school of thought which Professor Copland represents is not merely a science or theoreti-1 cal study, but an art with a definitely ] practical side; and it is to this one of' its many aspects that the professor chielly directs attention.

Onq interesting development of Professor Copland's activities in Australia has been the foundation of an Economic

Society, established lor the discussion of economic problems, more especially those of a practical nature, and for tha collection of statistical and other

material of economic value. Already the society has branches in all the larger Australian cities; there are branches' established in the three southern centres' of the Dominion; and the difficulties that have hitherto prevented the forma-' tion of a local branch in Auckland will _ soon "be overcome. The "Economic Record," the official organ of the society, is a valuable and authoritative periodi- j cal, and even a brief glance at its con-1 tents serves to confirm the conviction 1 that economics thus handled must infallibly become an important factor in the industrial and commercial development of the country. But the work on which Professor Copland is now engaged is of far more than local interest. He is travelling to New York at the request of the trustees of a Rockefeller Memorial Foundation, to discuss with them a scheme for exchange scholarships between the Australian and American Universities for the benefit of students in economic and commercial subjects. A beginning is to be made with the Commonwealth, and graduates from its universities will thus have an opportunity to investigate industrial and commercial conditions in the United States under the best possible conditions, New Zealand is to be, brought into the scheme subsequently, and as Professor Copland is himself a graduate of our university we can be sure that our interests in this respect may be left safely in his hands. Fortunate indeed will he the students who sooner or later will be able to take advantage of these unprecedented facilities for the practical investigation of economic problems, and their success cannot fail to react beneficially upon the industrial and commercial prospects of the whole Dominion.