SAVINGS AND THE SOCIAL WELFARE.

The article presents a speech by George Paish, editor of the journal "The Statist," delivered at the meeting of the Sociological Society, held in London, England, on May 2, 1911. The world is fast approaching economic maturity and to that high condition of well-being which cannot fail to result from fuller knowledge, and from the elimination of the physical and mental barriers which have so greatly impeded progress in the past. When families ceased to preserve a self-contained existence, and the economic unit became the district, the human race left behind its swaddling clothes, and there was a great advance in social well-being. Again, when the state instead of the district became the economic unit, the race entered upon its adolescence, and mankind rose to a still higher level of material well-being. In modern times the whole world has been rapidly taking the place of the state as the economic unit, and although the process is far from complete, the advantages already gained from the removal of the physical barriers which divided continent from continent, and country from country. Greater knowledge and the wider principles of social welfare brought with them inventions of the most remarkable character.