STILL SOUND AFTER 150 YEARS

Maoriland Worker, Volume 13, Issue 31, 1 August 1923, Page 11

STILL SOUND AFTER 150 YEARS

Adam Smith and His ''Wealth of Mates* Since Adam Smith was bom at Kirkcaldy on June 5, 1723, we count to-day as his bicentenary, though it would be, perhaps, more sensible to celebrate it on the 200 th anniversary of the publication of the "Wealth of Nations" In 1776. For it is upon this great survey of economics that his fame rests. ' * . : '■' His life is briefly told. He went at the age of fourteen from Kirkcaldy School to Glasgow University, and thence, three years later, to Balliol College, Oxford. In 1751 he became' a professor—first of Logic and then of Moral Philosophy—at Glasgow. Twelve years later he threw up ihe post in order to travel as tutor to the young Duke of Buceleugh. It was an all-important decision, for hl» three years abroad, and especially his meet- 1 rngs in Paris 'rath French economists, set his mind to economic questions. : For ten years alter his return he worked quietly in Kirkcaldy. And in 1776 the great book appeared. In 1787 he was elected Lord, Rector of Glasgow. In 17:*0 he died. ISo much for the biological facts. What of the man's work—of which only the "Wealth of Nations" need now concern us. . EXTREMES OF CHITTCISM. Smith has been revered as : an inspired prophet whese- lightest; word was economic law. He has been denounced — mainly ,hy Protectionist gentlemen who never read him —as the source of all economic evil. Actually he was a painstaking, honest inquirer.' A clear, rather than a deep, thinker. An acute observer. Above all, a master of lucid exposition, with a fine power of apt illustration. _It is that gift of exposition which has made Smith's fame. He is not— as he is often called—the "father of political economy.." He did" not add much to economic thought. His brain was rather akin to that of a Euclid than of a Newton. ■ - But he collected and clarified and expounded as no man had done before him. He found a confusion and left an- ordered science. He drew,' as it v/ere, the first good map, of which all later explorers have made use. v And therefore he has contributed very .much —though he -.would.have been astounded to xoretsee . it —to the development of Socialist thought. HIS INFLUENCE .., ■ '. Ricardo drew upon. Smith. Marx upon Ricardo. And that is only one of the lines of descent. His .clear 'phrases helped clear thinking. Even to •critist him was an education. . ; Hear .some of these phrases. "The produce of labour constitutes the natural recompense .... of labour." "Landlords love to reap where -they never sowed." " The interest of the 'capitalist is always in. som-e respects ! different from and opposite ;4o that j of, the public." "Labou?;-is the real [measure of exchange value of <&l\ commodities." . .Would, you n0t.... swear that they came from a Socialist textbook? .-■■■' . !M - •'■ "--• ,Do not - think that I am. claiming Smith as.;;a -Socialist.;.-.;- He was the chasipion of laisser-faire against tne old mercantile system. • But that was his.lesser ..task. The the one that endures —was.to suryejr and ito ma,p, with exquisite .'clarity; the territory of economic thought \ ■ Much that he vrrote is. out. of date. ! Much is wrong. But an amazing proportion is right. And the reading of the .whole is still as essential .to the making of a sound economist as : the reading of Euclid's -Elements or Newton's" Principla' to that; of a sound ' mathematician, — -W.N.E., " ia . "Tfc* ' Daily Herald."