There was no lack of material, as we all know, but the author seems often to show an intentional or a blind refusal to discriminate. Deliverances are often garbled and distorted, — particularly in the second chapter of the seventh book, —and are made to say what suits his purpose of invective or imprecation. In the analysis of social conditions, it is not a whit in advance of Progress and Poverty. It panders merely to the class hatred of those who have long been obsessed by an idée fixe, and "disgorges into the general world" the "embossed sores and headed evils" which an angry man has gathered from the public prints.

The other two volumes stand less nearly related to the single-tax gospel. In the case of Mr. Howe the primal impulse has been a practical one, though energized by his vision of the City Beautiful. But the enginery of the tax on land rentals seems to him so essential an instrument of realizing the Hope of Democracy that he is quite at one so far as urban policy is concerned Iwith the founder of the doctrine. He does not so much differ from the single-taxers as he superadds to their platform. The stern individualism of the senior Henry George-for, except in the matter of land ownership, he was individualistic to the core becomes transmuted in Mr. Howe's hands to a generous belief in governmental initiative and coöperation. In short, Mr. George's ideal was justice, while Mr. Howe's is civic welfare, which he believes will be powerfully subserved by the tax on land values.

Mr. Reeve's volume acknowledges the original impetus received from the elder George. Whatever else may be true of The Cost of Competition, it illustrates one tendency to perfection, that no thinker of active mental temperament can finally rest in Mr. George's programme as allsufficient for economic regeneration. Such a thinker will either react against the doctrine of Progress and Poverty, and veer toward Rae's proposition that "land is as much the creation of man as any

thing else, and everything else is as much a gift of God as land." Or else he will not content himself with the socializing of land alone, but will logically insist on socializing all the other means of production. The single-tax theory is, by its very nature, in unstable equilibrium. Mr. Reeve represents the latter type of logical departure away from George in the direction of a more inclusive collectivism.

Mr. Howe's book will be very differently rated according as one is in quest of inspiration or information. It has life, vigor, movement. It is imbued with a healthful optimism. It is, without doubt, the counterpart of able, self-sacrificing, and hopeful civic effort on the writer's part. The patriotic public service that it will inspire can hardly fail to result in making for the public weal, however far short it may come of realizing the writer's dream. But if we assess the book in the cold, clear light of impartial criticism, we shall hardly fail to discover that the foundation of fact is absurdly inadequate to support the superstructure of conclusions. Mr. Howe depicts in lively fashion the ideal city that is to be, with its teeming millions. He finds the tap-root of our present political decadence in the fact that unscrupulous business men, mostly seeking or enjoying franchises, have bought up the government, body and soul. He discovers the way out through municipal ownership and operation of public utilities. Finally, in order to pay the bills of urban socialism, he proposes to confiscate the rentals from urban site-values.

This is a perfectly intelligible programme. There is no particular use in describing it as socialistic, though there is no very evident reason why its projector should disclaim the name. But it fairly exposes itself to strenuous objection in the off-hand way it alleges the financial success of municipal ownership in Great Britain and this country. A serious student who will take this slightly diluted asseveration for scientific proof does not begin to know the elements of what scientific proof is. The truth is, Mr.

Howe's enthusiasm sometimes runs away with his judgment. No one not totally out of touch with current work in economics would ever hazard in cold print the statement that "there is something queer about the familiar contention, especially common in universities, (sic) that land is a factor of but little importance in modern industrial life." Much must be allowed to the fiery zeal of the reformer. We may not measure the vision of the prophet with the common yardstick. But while our fellow mortal has a perfect right to speak with unknown tongues, he must excuse the weary plodders amongst us who still use the alphabet, and must not ask us for belief, unless he supplies us with evidence.

The third volume in this subgroup, Mr. Reeve's Cost of Competition, is exempt from the characteristic defects of its two predecessors. It does not ask us to take declamation for reasoning. Its social vision may be astigmatic, but it is unmistakably penetrating. It does not have to fumble through its pockets when asked for its credentials as an accredited messenger from the realm of scientific thought. It will undoubtedly suffer, so far as popular apprehension is concerned, by reason of its very excellence. The more than occasional employment of mathematical analysis will close its best pages to the generality of readers. Mr. Reeve subdivides his assessment of the seamy side of our industrial life into two divisions, the first treating of its economic cost, the second of its ethical cost, to the winners no less than to the losers. It would be a stout optimist, indeed, who would minimize the social cost of competitive wealth-getting. That it involves waste in advertising, soliciting of trade, cross freights, no less than in a thousand other ways, no sane observer can deny. These are all incisively instanced by our author. To avoid this social waste he proposes a plan whereby the prices of goods shall no longer be the sport of competitive bargaining, but shall be set by governmental authority

apportioning to each producer a remuneration proportioned to the "life-supporting power" of each producer's product. Such authoritative price-fixing, which will, of course, be a continuous function of the State, he assures us, could be patterned after the "central office" of a big manufacturing plant which credits various departments each with the value of its respective contribution to the final product. Mr. Reeve's plan apparently allows private possession of goods which have been produced by the owner, or acquired by him through exchanges at State-sanctioned prices, but only so far as such goods are actually used by the possessor for enjoyment. The lending of money at interest, or the exaction of payments by individuals for the use of productive agents, he apparently inhibits.

To Mr. Reeve's indictment of "capitalism" on private property in productive agents, the typical economist, for whom our author has scant patience or respect, would emphatically demur. The demurrer would be based on the average effect of "capitalism" as affording a powerful stimulus to the creation of productive agents. There is one thing worse than having individuals idly pocket incomes from the rentals of productive agents. That worse thing is a society so scantily provided with productive agents that there are no incomes for either idlers or workers to pocket. As to the all-wise State bureau that is to fix exchange ratios in Mr. Reeve's renovated Utopia, the objection seems pertinent that such a bureau is not so much impossible as superfluous. What is termed the market constitutes a smooth, self-acting, economical bureau for price-setting. Our author, in his analysis of barter, fails wholly to inquire what effect is produced upon the margin of unfair gain to be obtained by bargaining when, instead of two traders facing each other in exchange, there are thousands interested in buying and selling the same commodity. In world markets for the staples, the "forced gain," which Mr. Reeve makes the virus of our

economic life, can be shown to be a vanishing quantity.

The borderland between works advocating organic changes in our economic structure and works which are devoted to a colorless scientific view of social phenomena is found in four volumes, three dealing with our railroad problem, and one with our colonial policy, It is rather remarkable, when we consider the flood of printed matter precipitated by the silver question, that the railroad issue has evoked so scant a response from the press. The small output has made possible a very searching inquest into its merits, and criticism at this time may almost be limited to a judicial summary of the consensus of expert opinion.

The searchlight of investigation has beaten most severely on Professor Hugo R. Meyer's volume.1 It is not unfair to say that the conclusion of his high argument has been generally discredited. Despite the wealth of erudition paraded in the footnotes, the cautious reader puts the treatise down, unsatisfied, incredulous. That government attempts at rate regulation have always resulted disastrously from the larger standpoint of economic welfare puts too heavy a strain on sober students of transportation. When railWhen railway men themselves concede the existence of certain evils demanding legislative remedy, it will hardly do to preach laissez faire. In one respect the volume presents a pathetic side. To its making there evidently went the most laborious toil. If it fails to arrive at conclusions with which sober readers can concur, the writer is at fault neither in point of patient research nor in intellectual honesty. The conviction is forced upon one that his is a type of mind which, however widely it may sift facts, will inevitably find only reasons for its preconceptions.

1 Government Regulation of Railway Rates: A Study of the Experience of the United States, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Australia. By HUGO RICHARD MEYER. New York: The Macmillan Co. 1905.

In a Froude, where there is combined with this tendency both wit and a constructive imagination, the result may be well worth while. Unfortunately, railroad administration affords little scope for the exercise of these subsidiary qualities, even if Professor Meyer possessed them. In common fairness, it must be said that the tide is running so strongly against this book that some of its really good points are in danger of undue disparagement. The description and defense of the "basing-point" system in our Southern states, whether true or not, is highly ingenious. The account of the collection of grain at the primary markets and its distribution from these centres is a real contribution to our knowledge of transportation. And the author rightly insists on the fact that the selfish demands of localities for special transportation privileges would be an obstacle to governmental regulation. Hence, unqualified condemnation of the book is unfair. Because we feel that we require confirmation of the author's conclusions as to German and Australian railroads is no reason why we should discredit his sententious verdict that “in the conflicts of interest which are a necessary incident of progress, few men practice a broad and liberal patriotism, when interest affords the incentive and institutions afford the opportunity to do otherwise.”

1

For the other two books on railroads, the meed of praise has been deservedly liberal. Mr. Haines sweeps a rather wider horizon than Judge Noyes, and covers railroad construction, operation, and finance, as well as the matter of rate-fixing. Still, the two volumes finally converge in their discussion of restrictive legislation. It is significant that a practical railroad man like Mr. Haines and a railroad president like Judge Noyes are at one in conceding the necessity for further

1 American Railway Rates. BY WALTER CHADWICK NOYES. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 1905.

Restrictive Railway Legislation. By HENRY S. HAINES. New York: The Macmillan Co. 1905.

remedial legislation. Judge Noyes devotes the greater part of his book to the question of rates. But so central is this theme that the book easily takes high rank in our American literature of railway economics. Mr. Haines's chapter on ratemaking is below the standard which he elsewhere maintains in his book, but in general the two volumes supplement each other admirably. He who masters them both will have no mean equipment in the science of transportation.

Both volumes, however, are equally subject to a common criticism. They over-estimate the technical legal difficulties attendant upon Congressional regulation of interstate commerce. There savors much of the ultra-scholastic about such contentions as that the fixation of rates is in its essence a legislative power and may therefore not be delegated by Congress to a tribunal; or in the contention that the determining of the reasonableness of rates is a purely judicial function, and therefore may not be entrusted to a commission. One feels, on reading these deliverances, almost like the "cornfield lawyer" in the Senate, who sardonically remarked that the people could be so happy "if it were not always for the dear old Constitution." The truth is that the separation of legislative, executive, and judicial powers cannot, from the nature of things, be absolute. A court which punishes for contempt exercises executive power. A Congress which determines the right of its members to their seats exercises judicial power. And a railroad commission which shall combine both powers, subject to court review where Constitutional guarantees are involved, is not going to be denied us by the Supreme Court, if the voice of Congress is quite unmistakable in the matter.

The fickleness of popular interest strikes one forcibly on turning from the three works on railroads to Mr. Willis's treatise on our foreign problem, the Philippines. The truth is that we are

1 Our Philippine Problem: A Study of American Colonial Policy. By HENRY

tired of the Philippine question. The glamour attendant on conquest has faded. The "trust for civilization doctrine," which reconciled the American republic to our retention of the islands, is becoming wearisome. Now that business enterprise sees little opportunity of commercial exploitation in the islands, selfish interests in Congress content themselves with defeating measures that would extend Philippine markets to the prejudice of American growers of sugar or tobacco. The subsidy-seeking shipping interests amongst us still hope to monopolize the shipping of the archipelago. But public interest is languid. The annual drain of $20,000,000 on our treasury is not relished by Congress, but it seems unavoidable. We try to forget the whole wretched business, and groan internally when a wholesome massacre of bandits with their wives and children occasionally discloses the skeleton in the national closet. Most people who think soberly about the question are probably agreed that the natives as a whole are unfit for self-government, and are equally agreed that it is little less than a national misfortune that we must govern or misgovern them. For this reason Mr. Willis's book must intrude on unwilling ears. Nor does he soften a whit the plain, objective tale. There is no resiliency in his exposition. The civil government is sketched without sympathy, a disguised oligarchy. There is even lacking adequate appreciation of the benevolent motives of such a governor as Secretary Taft. The educational system is characterized as sadly inefficient. The ecclesiastical policy in the matter of the friars' lands is held to be more than dubious. The decadence of social morality since our advent is said to be undeniable. Only in the matter of scientific sanitation, and in the negative policy of preventing corporate land grabs, is our policy commended. Business and agriculture are said to languish, and there is little or nothing to relieve the sombre PARKER WILLIS. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1905.

picture. It is a Pandora's box with Hope left out. For that very reason it will not satisfy even those who concede the substantial truth of its specific assertions. But the book ought to be provocative. It challenges the defenders of our colonial policy. By silence they simply plead guilty at the bar of conscience. If they can file a reasonable demurrer, they ought to do so. It is to be hoped that the book may incite to more intensive study of the situation on the spot. No task is more needed than an envisagement of the mutual attitude of the islanders and ourselves in the light of even-handed equity and good will, which selfish interests on both sides ought not to be allowed to pervert or stifle. To acquiesce in our present mood of opportunist ennui is just neither to our wards nor to ourselves.

1

We reach the wholly irenical group of significant books in our subject, with the admirable series of Selections and Documents in Economics 1 which is appearing under the editorship of Professor William Z. Ripley. In his preface to the first volume of the series, Trusts, Pools and Corporations, the editor declares that his aim is a deliberate attempt at "the application to the teaching of economics of the case system, so long successful in our law schools." He is careful to add that the material thus assembled is designed for use in the domain of descriptive economics. It would certainly imply an indiscriminating analogy that would seek to employ the case method in the teaching of pure economic theory. But in the field indicated these selected readings and cases admirably supplement the usual text-books, and put the essence of the

1 Trusts, Pools and Corporations. Edited, with an Introduction, by WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY. Boston: Ginn & Co. 1905.

Trade Unionism and Labor Problems. Edited, with an Introduction, by JOHN R. COMMONS.

Boston

Ginn & Co. 1905.

Selected Readings in Public Finance. By CHARLES J. BULLOCK. Boston: Ginn & Co. 1906.

Sociology and Social Problems. By THOMAS N. CARVER. Boston: Ginn & Co. 1906. VOL. 97-NO. 6

most suggestive collateral material in the hands of every student. As labor-saving devices alone, they will amply repay their cost. The discussion of typical cases in the field of trusts, labor problems, public finance, and sociology ought to impart to their study a sense of reality and vitality which is wholly lacking to an abstract lecture syllabus.

Worthy of notice in connection with the group just adverted to, and similar to it in purveying much well-sifted information in short compass, is M. Pierre Leroy-Beaulieu's The United States in the Twentieth Century. So far as material is concerned, there is comparatively little in this compend which could not be extracted from the Abstract of the Twelfth Census. Indeed, the author admits frankly that the census reports have been his main mine of facts. However, he has traveled recently in this country. and has thus added to his well-known scientific equipment a visual knowledge of our economic life. Our French critic's volume gives rise to the suggestion that when Congress next authorizes the taking of the census, an adequate appropriation should be made for editing its results. The specialist will, of course, at present give careful heed to the census statistics. He must. The general reader of fair intelligence may occasionally cull out from the tables of figures bits of information in which he has a particular interest. But there is waste in the expenditure of millions for statistical findings, often of great significance, and their subsequent editing in so unattractive a form as never to invite any general attention. It takes a certain amount of genius to turn the dryas-dust figures into gold nuggets, but it can be done. And in some measure this is what M. Leroy-Beaulieu has effected. That he is a foreigner who sees us at a peculiar angle and from a viewpoint different from our own, only augments the

2 The United States in the Twentieth Century. By PIERRE LEROY-BEAULIEU. Authorized translation by H. ADDINGTON BRUCE. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co. 1906.