renture in the same subject is protectioniste en Angleterre (Paris, Tax-thirds of the essay is devoted

A modea cortionnor, to the W Ginger Wanders La Pritique Veron Vecchite, 1904 77, 161 pp.). My a statement of Mr. Chamberlain's position, with the arguments of onponents. In the opinion of M. Blondel, the

policy will in the end be injurious to England; he believes, nevertheless, that the chances favor its adoption. In the last third of the essay M. Blondel discusses the probable effect upon France of the adoption of a protectionist policy by England. France is certain to be injured by such a change in British commercial policy. Retaliation being out of the question, France can seek to reinvigorate her industrial life only through a radical change in the educational system and through the adoption of forms of industrial organization similar to those of Germany.

Another essay by the same author merits at least a cursory examination. This essay, entitled La France et le marché du monde (Paris, L. Larose, 1901; 164 pp.), contrasts the position of France with that of her chief competitors, and attempts to account for the relative decline of France in commerce and industry. M. Blondel regards the low birth-rate as the principal cause of the loss of national prestige in economics as in politics. What France lacks most is competent leadership; and the small family is not likely to furnish men possessed of self-reliance and initiative. Other important causes mentioned are the lack of adequate transportation facilities, incapacity for organization (misnamed "individualism" by the author) and an unpractical system of education and unpractical social ideals.

Professor Karl Kaerger's Landwirtschaft und Kolonisation im spanischen Amerika (Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot, 1901; 2 vols., 939, 743 pp.), offers a vast mass of information on the agricultural resources of South America. Dr. Kaerger was agricultural expert with the German legation at Buenos Aires, and consequently had excellent opportunity for observation of South American methods of production. A careful perusal of this work will strengthen the belief that if ever Argentina succeeds in securing a good supply of efficient labor, she will become a most formidable competitor in the wheat and livestock markets of the world.

By a curious coincidence two books on the economics of wheat with almost the same title, and yet written in an entirely different way, have recently been published simultaneously in France and the United States. The French work, by Edouard Huet, is entitled Le Grain de blé, d'où vient-il, où va-t-il, (Paris, Guillaumin). The American work, by William C. Edgar, is called The Story of a Grain of Wheat (Appletons). M. Huet's book discusses in the first part the cultivation of wheat, and takes up in a second part, the French legislation in its relations to wheat culture and wheat trade. Mr. Edgar's book is more popularly written, and contains a somewhat wider survey of facts from

on the silver question, and three on the national banking system; for the period since 1890, one chapter on the silver contest of 1896, and one on the reform act of 1900. The work concludes with a general review, a descriptive and serviceable bibliography 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 looking 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. Muhleman, 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