The Commerce of Nations

by C. F. Bastable

Overview

This is undoubtedly the most scientific volume which has yet come under our notice of the series to which it belongs. Professor Bastable's previous writings on the subject of international trade form a guarantee for sound and careful reasoning, which is fulfilled in the little book before us. He has, if we may say so, made a department of economics, which is, perhaps, the most intricate and perplexing within the range of the science, in a certain sense his own; and yet he has also in this book, as it appears to us, been singularly successful in combining fullness of knowledge and profundity of thought with lucid and interesting explanation of practical fact. It is a strange coincidence that, in England at any rate, perhaps the greatest success of economics in the domain of practice has been achieved in the department-so difficult in theory-of international trade; but the success was won by the help of the inevitable logic of stubborn fact rather than by the assistance of the nice refinements of theory; and the persistency with which protectionist fallacies linger among us, and still continue to captivate even able intellects, is one indication of a failure to grasp the essential elements of the economic theory of international trade. In discussing, then, the subject of the ' commerce of nations, ' Professor Bastable is dealing with what is still a ' question of to-day, ' and will, we imagine, for some time continue to be so, although the tendency of thought and of practice may really incline in the hopeful direction indicated by him in his last chapter.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781663509406
Publisher:	Barnes & Noble Press
Publication date:	05/30/2020
Pages:	226
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.52(d)

About the Author

C. F. Bastable, (1855–1945) was an Irish economist. He was Whately Professor of Political Economy (1882–1932) and Regius Professor of Laws (1908–1932) at Trinity College, Dublin. After graduating, Bastable considered a legal career and was called to the bar in Ireland in 1881, but the following year he successfully sat the five-yearly examination for the Whatey Professorship and during his tenure the statutes were altered allowing him to be re-elected without examination. He remained in the chair until retiring in 1932. He was also professor of jurisprudence and political economy at Queen's College, Galway, from 1883 to 1903; and professor of jurisprudence and international law at Trinity College between 1902 and 1908. Bastable made significant contributions to theories of international trade and finance. He was a founding member of the Royal Economic Society and in 1915 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy, the United Kingdom's national academy for the social sciences.