power for good and evil, and presents the various plans for dealing with them which are worthy of attention. It takes a moderate and sane view of the situation created by the trusts and of the policy which their presence calls for. The latter part of the book is occupied by a discussion of the tariff. The author refutes some venerable claims as to the effect of protection on the rate of wages and contends that the time for a reduction of exorbitant duties is at hand.

Mr. James Howard Bridge's Inside History of the Carnegie Company (New York, The Aldine Book Company, 1903) is devoted to the task of proving that the greatness of the Carnegie Company is in no way due to the wisdom and energy of Mr. Carnegie. Brute luck, and the perseverance of partners of whom the public have never heard, placed the Carnegie Company in its predominant position in the American iron and steel industry, if we are to accept Mr. Bridge's views as correct. The History is interesting-though somewhat gossipy and will prove of some value to students of the industrial history of the United States.

The literature on the labor problem in the United States is so meagre that Mr. John Mitchell's judicious, if somewhat popular, discussion of Organized Labor, its Problems, Purposes and Ideals, and the Present and Future of American Wage Earners (American Book and Bible House, Philadelphia, 1903, 436 pp.) deserves a cordial reception. It is written in a terse and forceful style and fully makes up for its dearth of historical and statistical information by its sane treatment of phases of the labor movement touching which the author's opinion is of great value. As was to be expected, special chapters are devoted to the anthracite coal strike in which Mr. Mitchell played such a conspicuous and creditable rôle. It is to be regretted, on some accounts, that even greater prominence was not given to this strike, to the exclusion of other topics on which the author has little or nothing to say that is not matter of common knowledge. Of the fifty-one chapters into which the book is divided at least half-a-dozen might have been omitted without any serious loss to the reader. This does not, however, lessen the value of the really admirable discussions of practical phases of tradeunions in the United States in other chapters.

The interesting experiment which is being tried in Holland of settling differences between employers and employees by means of elected labor boards is the subject of a valuable monograph, Die holländischen Arbeitskammern, ihre Entstehung, Organisation und Wirksamkeit (Tübingen und Leipzig, J. C. B. Mohr, 1903, xii, 193 pp.) by Dr. Bernhard Harms. The steps preceding the enactment of the law

of 1897 authorizing these boards are reviewed, their organization is described, and the results of their activity and conclusions in reference to their defects are presented. The law directs the minister of labor, trade and industry to create boards consisting of an equal number of representatives of workmen and of employers for such communes, either single or in combination, and for such trades, either single or combined, as he deems desirable, and to determine the number of members (usually ten) to be elected to each one. These boards choose an executive committee, consisting of one presiding officer and one member from each side, and the presiding officers serve alternately for periods of six months. The purpose of the boards is to collect information in reference to conditions of employment for the benefit either of workmen, of employers or of government officials; to settle disputes between workmen and employers; and to attempt to conciliate the contending parties when strikes or lock-outs occur. They are purely voluntary bodies, notwithstanding their official character, and may be rendered helpless by the refusal of either employers or workmen to continue to participate in them. The conclusion of the author's study is that the public labor boards have accomplished a useful purpose in making the relations between employers and employees more friendly and cordial, but that they have failed of their chief purpose because of the unwillingness of employers to submit to their decisions. He suggests changes in their organization which would make them more efficient, but questions the ability of mere voluntary bodies to secure industrial peace, especially in a country like Holland, in which trade unions are still in their infancy.

Some of the addresses given at the conference of employers and employed which was held in Minneapolis in the fall of 1902, were published in Public Policy and are now collected and issued in a volume from the office of that paper. (Employers and Employes. The Public Policy Co., Chicago, 1903.) They constitute a symposium on the subject of the best method of dealing with labor troubles, and reveal the attitude of different classes of men toward such measures as are before the public. Of course the views do not entirely harmonize, but that fact does not in any way impair the usefulness of the book.

Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst in an interesting volume, The Woman Who Toils (Doubleday, Page & Co., 1903) tell of their experiences as mill hands in various industrial centers. The authors, as we are again and again informed, belong to the cultured class, and descended for a few weeks into the ranks of labor in order to act as spokeswomen for their less fortunate sisters. Naturally, they found

the life of the mill hand hard, inæsthetic, unhealthy. They discovered also that there were among the workers persons who had potentialities which made them in a sense kin to the cultured. Mrs. Van Vorst was especially struck by the sacrifices poor girls make in order to secure cheap finery, by their lack of serious purpose and their aversion to the state of wifehood and motherhood. She regards it as a great evil that those who are provided with necessaries by male members of their family should compete with those whose sole means of support is their own labor; and she suggests that those who do not need wages for support should interest themselves in the artistic handicrafts. This is the sole remedy she has to propose for the malady of social decay which she describes. One can but believe that if she had devoted years instead of weeks to her investigation, she would have found the malady less acute, but more deep-seated; and her remedy would have been of quite another nature. Of the part of the book written by Miss Van Vorst, the most important chapter deals with life in a Southern mill town, where, it would appear, the social conditions of the women wage-earners are most deplorable.

A book full of illumination and inspiration is Miss Jane Addams's unpretentious volume on Democracy and Social Ethics (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1902). Many a ponderous work on the nature of democracy has failed to get so near to the heart of things as do Miss Addams's studies, born of her intimate knowledge of all sorts and conditions of human beings. No one has ever shown more clearly just why it is that such organizations as Tammany have so tremendous a hold upon the poorer masses of a great city population. It is a phenomenon which can be understood only when we see, as Miss Addams has seen, how the ethics of humanity, of citizenship in a broad sense, of the new and the progressive, conflict in daily life with the ethics of family responsibility, of personal allegiance to the friend who has offered a helping hand. The chapters of this book touch on charitable effort, filial relations, household adjustments, industrial amelioration, educational methods and political reforms.

Le Progrès Social, by Louis Skarzynski (Paris, Felix Alcan, 1901), is a succinct manual of social reform which ought to be in the hands of every practical sociologist. It describes, briefly but adequately, recent attempts, public and private, to ameliorate the conditions of the poorer classes of Europe. Although M. Skarzynski is obviously an enthusiast, his work is for the most part entirely scientific.

Messrs. Rowntree and Sherwell, whose exhaustive study of The Temperance Problem and Social Reform has become a veritable text

book for temperance advocates in Great Britain, have supplemented that work with a useful discussion of Public Control of the Liquor Traffic, being a Review of the Scandinavian Experiment in the Light of recent Experience (London, Grant Richards, 1903, xxx, 296 pp.), in which critics of the "Gothenburg" or "Norwegian" system of control are answered and reasons are urged in support of the introduction of that system into Great Britain. Although controversial in tone, the book gives evidence of careful preparation, and may be commended as a convenient summary of the latest information bearing upon the topic considered.

Another doctoral dissertation from the University of Pennsylvania of noteworthy excellence is that of Carl Kelsey entitled, The Negro Farmer (Chicago, Jennings & Pye, 1903). It embodies a study of existing conditions in the South, and its leading purpose is to place in a proper light the relation of various phases of negro development to Southern geology and geography. The text of the monograph puts in some sort of coherency a large number of familiar but rarely so wellcorrelated facts; but the distinctive value of the work is an admirable series of well-executed and easily understood maps showing for each of the Southern states the distribution of the negroes by counties and in reference to the character of the land, the classification of regions under the latter head including the metamorphic or piedmont, pine hills, pine flats, sand hills, black prairie and alluvial. We know of no other maps that can be compared with these for comprehensiveness and convenience; and the light thrown on the much discussed race problem by a mere glance at them almost justifies the demand that any one undertaking to talk or write on that problem should, in the interest of public order, be required by law to be familiar with them. Not the least significant of the facts emphasized by Dr. Kelsey in his text and illustrated by the maps is, that where there are the most negroes there are the fewest indications of a race problem.

An admirable example of close and comprehensive scientific description is The Physical Geography of New York State, by Professor Ralph Tarr (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1902). The state of New York happens to be a region of peculiar physiographic interest on account of the extensive effects of glacial action, which created the system of inland lakes, and on account of the great Niagara gorge. The description of these and other features leads up to a final chapter on the relation of the physiographic features of the state to its industrial development. Students of economics could not do better than to examine this book, and to study with some care its concluding chapter.

To the student of political science much of interest will be found in the first two parts of Dr. D. B. Macdonald's Development of Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence and Constitutional Theory (Scribners, 1903). These two parts deal respectively with constitutional theory and jurisprudence. The author is very successful in applying the categories and terminology of Christian politics and law to the ideas of the Mohammedans, but the result is an exceedingly queer "system." To parallel it in West European experience, one must recur to a time a millennium in the past. The sketch makes it clear that Islam has no message for Christendom to-day in regard to political and legal science. At the same time the knowledge of what passes for such science among the Mohammedans is bound to be useful to the Christian whose mission, whether political or religious, brings him into close relations with them.

German Ambitions, by "Vigilans et Equus" (New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons; London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1903, xi, 132 pp.) is a book which should never have been written. It is calculated to excite hostility and strife where friendship and harmony should reign. It is the most contemptible essay yet made to secure the friendship of the United States for Great Britain by exciting hostility to Germany. By the concealment of his true name, the author appears to manifest his own appreciation of the meanness of his work.

Mr. John R. Dos Passos's The Anglo-Saxon Century (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1903. — xiii, 242 pp.), deals with the same subject as the preceding work, but it is written with an altogether different spirit and purpose. The author establishes in the most convincing manner the proposition that Great Britain and the United States are natural allies in working out the problem of world civilization; but he does it in a spirit of friendship for all nations and does not anywhere attempt to play upon the meaner passions of human nature in order to secure the end sought. He works out his plan with much particularity and presents it quite clearly. A possible criticism is that the author overlooks the fact that an alliance must precede the attainment of the results which he desires. Moreover, Mr. Dos Passos does not touch upon one thing which is probably essential to the bringing together of Great Britain and the United States: that Germany shall be included in the general understanding. Otherwise, Germany would be compelled to enter upon an alliance with Russia; and in such an event, she would drag the mass of continental Europe with her. Of what use would close friendship with Great Britain be to the United States with the whole of continental Europe arrayed against those two nations?