450 ECONOMIC CONFERE?CE--BOMBA Y purposes they resolved to form a national body which . should be genuinely representative of field of economics throughout India. Committee was elected, two honorary secretaries were appointed, and it was agreed that the next Conference should be held at Bombay. Owing to lack of time, however, little more was accomplished. On the present occasion, therefore, we must make it the Association on a Economic apology. The concern .to place business-like bssis. An all-India take it, no the Conference physical workers in the A provisionaJ our primary sound and requires, I scientists and mathematicians have lately organized periodic congresses: indeed both are going tO meet in this very city next month with great 8clat. It is only natural that economists should desire to follow suit: the more so since economic questions probably excit? more general public interest nowadays than any others. Hitherto, however, a difficulty has stood in our way. For until quite found in India a fessional economists national conference. scarcely to be number of pro- the nucleus of a recently there was sufficiently large to constitute At the university colleges politi- c&l economy was & minor subject, taught by gentle- men who were very able, no doubt, but whose chief interest was history, philosophy, or political science. But within the last few years things have changed. In C&lcutt?, Madras, Bombay, Allahabad, and other centres, 'we now have distinguished scholars whose lives are devoted first and foremost to the continuous study o? economic problems; and we also have an increasing number of men in the Civil Service, in business, and in other vocations who. while they do not make all economic knowledge their province, take up one special line of investigation and speak on that with authority. .
