know, and could not reasonably be expected to know of the presence of disease, there is no penalty. The regulation of home work is evidently in an extremely tentative stage in England; and is regarded as chiefly the duty of the sanitary authorities, although the number and variety of occupations carried on in homes is large and appears to be increasing.

While the marked bias of the compilers against all provisions applying to women only and not to men deprives the work of any claim to scientific value, this bias is so frankly avowed that the reader is enabled to make due allowance for it. Altogether the book is both suggestive and instructive.

NEW YORK CITY.

FLORENCE KELLEY.

Elements of Political Economy. By JAMES BONAR. London, John Murray, 1903. — 207 pp.

In the little manual which he has contributed to Murray's new series of secondary education text-books, Dr. Bonar reveals all the qualities of vigorous thought, independent judgment and felicitous statement that distinguish his more elaborate writings. Perhaps no request comes to the professional economist so often as a demand for a book which will enable a man of ordinary intelligence but untrained in the lingo of the elect, to acquaint himself with the elementary principles at the root of the commercial and industrial "problems" that periodically disturb the business world. Certainly in few directions is it so difficult to render helpful service. Of comprehensive treatises pitched in technical key, or of crass manuals reminiscent of Mrs. Marcet's Conversations and Miss Martineau's Illustrations, there is no dearth. But the serviceable hand-book, explicit enough to command the respect of busy men and readable enough to hold their attention, is painfully lacking.

In this last direction lies the prime usefulness of Dr. Bonar's Elements. It appears at a peculiarly opportune moment, and the welcome accorded the volume suggests an even larger educational service than that primarily contemplated.

Of the ten chapters that make up the book as originally issued, the first five (dealing respectively with introductory matters, value, capital, wages and rent, and profits and income) acquaint the reader with the general outlines of economic theory. It is necessarily a bird's eye view, but the sweep is comprehensive and the groupings symmetrical. We are in touch with a careful observer of actual economic phenomena,

while virile concepts and fluent style afford refreshing contrast to the flat aridity of the ordinary economic text-book.

These qualities are, if anything, more prominent in the second half of the volume dealing with currency, trade, finance and social reform. The passing from theme to theme is logical and easy, and there is no lack of positive color and content.

It is however in the supplementary chapter on "Interference with Foreign Trade" issued, in consequence of the extraordinary interest in commercial policy, as an appendix to the first edition and to appear hereafter as an integral part of the volume, that Dr. Bonar is at his best. Forceful statement here becomes eloquent expression and nice phrasing passes into such quotable epigrams as " Protection like perversion or orthodoxy is a fallacy in one word which begs the question," or "The claim for protection is everywhere a claim either of weakness addressed to a strong Government, or of interested strength only too capable of controlling a weak Government."

It may be that such vigor does not make for academic calm; but certainly in the whole mass of pamphlet literature that the fiscal controversy in England has brought upon us, there is nothing which in refreshing definiteness and in terse sanity compares with that which Dr. Bonar has written.

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.

JACOB H. HOLLANDER.

History of Coinage and Currency in the United States, and the Perennial Contest for Sound Money. By A. BARTON HEPBURN. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1903. -xx, 666 pp.

This book satisfactorily fulfils the intention of the author as laid down in the preface. It is designed as a "work of convenient size and popular character, covering the history of coinage and currency of the United States with data and details in chronological order, available as a book of reference." Possibly the work has not all the earmarks of popularity, but it is certainly convenient, orderly in arrangement and precise.

The field of this book is a familiar one, but in spite of all that has been written, I recall no single work which brings together in one volume the essential legislative facts regarding all the different kinds of money known to American experience. For the period preceding the Civil War, there are three chapters on the currency system; two on colonial currency and the Federal Bank, and two on state banking; for the period from 1861 to 1890, four chapters on legal tender notes, two

on the Ever question, and three on the national banking system: for the period since 1996, the shapter the siver contest of 1996, and one on the reform act of spoo. The work coodudes with a general review, a descriptive and serviceable bitüography of a dozen pages and an appendix of two hundred pages. In this are reprinted extracts from the principal laws relating to coinage and money: Jefferson's notes on a coinage system; Hamilton's report on the mint: Jefferson's letter of approval; and Hamilton's report on a national bank. The index is analytical and detailed; and in addition there are marginal titles throughout the volume which aid the reader who is locking for some special point. All in all the work is a helpful tool to the student. The usefulness of the volume is strengthened by concise and intelligible statistical tables appended to the several chapters, which have been either prepared or verified by Mr. M. L. Muhieman, a most competent authority. These are naturally based upon official data, such as the reports of the secretary of the treasury and of the comptroller of the currency. Presumably they have been independently compiled, for the tables on state banking differ materially from those published in the Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance of July, 1898. The author accepts the term "banking power" which has been recently used by the comptroller of the currency in his annual reports and is borrowed, I believe, from Mulhall. The term is an interesting one, but should be used with care. Is it proper to include both capital and circulation among the several elements which go to make up the total, if circulation depends upon bonds which must be purchased out of the capital? And if deposits in trust companies are redeposited in national banks, should both be included in a statistical measurement of credit?

Mr. Hepburn has had a practical experience in banking affairs which gives weight to his exposition. As superintendent of banks in New York, and as comptroller of the currency from 1892 to 1893, years which tried the banks and gave rise to the greatest variety of currency schemes, he has been forced to a careful consideration of monetary history. Although he presents his data with fairness, he does not neglect to voice his own convictions. He wishes to assure "stability as to metallic money, security and flexibility as to paper currency, to the end that prices may not be subject to ruthless disturbances and interest rates be reasonably uniform and equitable throughout the land." This is a heavy burden to place upon the money medium, and if this goal is the ideal without which currency is in some degree unsound, it may well be feared that the contest will remain perpetual.

Mr. Hepburn believes in the act of 1900. It is not probable that except under extraordinary conditions the gold standard has anything to fear from the present amount of silver currency. The situation is vividly summarized: “Silver is laid under contribution to perform the daily exchanges of the workaday world and cannot leave its task either directly or indirectly to aid in withdrawing gold out of the treasury. It is chained to the wheels of industry." Mr. Hepburn believes that the sub-treasury system has worked mischief; he finds good in the old United States banks but admits that the establishment of a central bank at the present time would not be desirable. Federation and not centralization is the true line of reform. Under the circumstances the most practical remedy is to permit the secretary of the treasury to deposit all bonds over and above the reserve maintained against legal tender obligations and ordinary checking balances, in the banks of reserve cities. In the elasticity provided by the emergency circulation of Germany and the safety fund in the Canadian system, he finds much to approve.

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY.

DAVIS R. DEWEY.

Cartells et Trusts. Par ÉT MARTIN SAINT-LÉON. Bibliothèque d'économie sociale. Collection publiée sous la direction de M. Henri Joly, vice-président de la société d'économie sociale. Paris, Victor Lecoffre, 1903. — viii, 248 pp.

This remarkably clear exposition is a concrete elaboration of the author's main thesis that industrial history shows a perpetual oscillation between the two poles of liberty and restriction, but that history is never a mere resurrection of the past and the process of evolution will discover and work out truth and social advantage midway between the two extremes.

The cartell or pool is characteristic of continental Europe, the trust of the United States and England. The author appears to think that this is due, not so much to the higher economic development of the Anglo-Saxon countries as to the extreme individualism encouraged by their laws.

In Germany the courts have gone so far as to enforce contracts between the selling-syndicates and their individual members; and it is only since the recent industrial depression in that country that there has been any popular clamor against these numerous and powerful associations. In Prussia the state itself is a member of the Kali-Kar

tell and exercises effective control over output and prices. In Austria the cartells have been more oppressive and unpopular than in Germany, and at the same time less permanent.

In France, article 419 of the penal code appears to forbid all combinations in restraint of trade, but hitherto it has not been rigidly enforced, largely because of the moderation of the industrial syndicates. In case of need the courts would, no doubt, give a more severe interpretation, and the law is, therefore, of considerable potential value.

Some organization of producers is absolutely necessary, and it is neither possible nor desirable to suppress the cartells. As a rule they have been socially beneficial, but at times their methods have been questionable and oppressive. During the recent industrial depression in Germany the coal syndicates insisted on maintaining prices to the disadvantage of the manufacturing interests. Similarly, the sugar cartells habitually maintain prices in the home markets, while supplying the British consumer at very low prices. This effect will be largely prevented if the various countries abolish the bounty system, in accordance with the resolutions of the Brussels Conference.

The account given by the author of cartells in European countries is in part a compilation of the information contained in the United States. special consular report on Trusts and Trade Combinations in Europe; but all the other leading sources have been consulted, as is shown by the excellent bibliographies cited and the frequent foot-notes.

M. Saint-Léon's discussion of the American trust shows a remarkable familiarity with recent economic and political thought in the United States. The financial organization of the trust, in its various forms, is briefly and lucidly explained. The trust is, perhaps, the outcome of the American idea of scientifically organized production, but it is to some extent the work of shrewd promoters who have transferred to the investing and speculating public enormous quantities of watered stock. Over-capitalization, the author asserts, is "the most characteristic feature of the trust," and he goes so far as to say, in curiously cis-Atlantic French-"pas de watering, pas de trust." He quotes with high approval the investigations of Professor Jenks concerning the influence of trusts upon prices, and gives other authority to confirm the view that both trusts and cartells frequently exercise monopoly power by controlling prices and increasing the producer's margin of profit. It is also clear, he thinks, that trusts are fostered by a protective tariff.

The power of trusts in the United States, the author believes, is largely due to the nature of the federal Constitution, under which ef