show the evolution of scientific thought on the subject, in the other to refute the opposing arguments. In his latter task he displays a considerable degree of controversial skill. He is a relentless critic, and he takes particular delight in pointing out the weak places in the arguments of Boccardo and Leroy-Beaulieu. The list of those in favor of progression he lengthens by including the names of Bentham and Mill, who went no further than to approve the exemption of the minimum of subsistence; but de Grossi holds that progression is the logical and necessary result of that exemption.

The author has a decided bias in favor of progression, but he would not carry it too far. He argues that the chief objections to progressive taxation are really objections not to the principle itself, but to the exaggeration of the principle; and that the dire results often predicted could not be true of a moderate progression. On the contrary, he holds that the adoption of progressive taxation would serve to ward off the more radical demands of socialism.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

MAX WEST.

A Treatise on Money and Essays on Monetary Problems. By J. SHIELD NICHOLSON, M.A., D.Sc., Professor of Political Economy in the University of Edinburgh. Third edition, with new second part to A Treatise on Money. London, Adam and Charles Black; New York, Macmillan & Co., 1895. - xviii, 431 pp.

The form in which this book originally appeared and the transformations through which it has gone are discouraging to those who hold that scholars should maintain high ideals in book-making. The first edition contained "A Treatise on Money" and eight essays on monetary subjects; the second added half a dozen essays on similar topics and two on "Living Capital" and "Capital and Labour" (see this QUARTERLY, IX, 180); the third omits these last two essays, as unsuited in character to this collection, and adds to the "Treatise on Money" a second part, dealing with the relations of the supply of the precious metals to industry and trade. As now constituted, about four-elevenths of the book are devoted to the two parts of the "Treatise on Money"; while the remainder consists of two interjected essays on "John Law of Lauriston" and "One-Pound Notes. for England," and ten essays in advocacy of bimetallism.

It is unfortunate for readers and for Professor Nicholson's reputation that he thus took "the risk of some repetition, instead of modifying and enlarging" the "Treatise," and incorporating into it the

essential parts of the fugitive essays. As it is, even in a third edition, the reader is never sure that the author's exposition at a given point is not subject to qualifications expressed elsewhere. That Professor Nicholson's method makes possible serious misunderstanding of his position, may perhaps best be shown by comparing his latest exposition of the "quantity theory," in the new "Part" of this edition, with the criticism by Professor Laughlin, which appeared almost simultaneously in the Journal of Political Economy, of his exposition of that theory in the second edition. In this case, to be sure, as in most of the current controversies over the "quantity theory," the difficulties in the way of agreement upon any interpretation were intensified by the critic's fear of literalism and his predisposition toward a particular scheme of "rehabilitation"; but the fact remains that, if Professor Nicholson had concentrated his scattered remarks about this theory, even such a misunderstanding would hardly have been possible.

It is even more unfortunate that the author did not throw the argument for bimetallism into the form of a coherent monograph. Instead of a systematic treatment of the subject as a whole, he has given us a collection of literary fragments - addresses and contributions to periodicals - which, because of repetitions and omissions, can be convincing, or even readable, to but very few persons. Yet, judging from the notable success attained in some parts of his exposition, Professor Nicholson might have written two monographs on "Money" and " Bimetallism" which would have been very attractive and stimulating.

Some of the pages of the book bristle with points which, from the careless way in which they are made, irritate the careful reader. Thus, Thus, it is hard to understand his insistence on the facts that "silver is the basis or the constituent of half the money in the world" (p. 117), and that it "still forms the standard money of half the people in the world" (p. 127). According to his own views (p. 146), it makes a vast difference whether the metal is the "constituent" or merely the "basis" of the money referred to. Moreover, do these halves represent half the trade, industry or civilization of the world? When he speaks (p. 112) of the injuries inflicted by the "new silver" on the weavers of Lancashire, one feels that he forgets, even though his chapter on "The Effects of Great Discoveries of the Precious Metals" seems to show his indebtedness to, Cairnes's luminous exposition of the general effects of the "new gold" on England and other countries, as nations. Finally, when he conjectures (p.

158; but see pp. 243 and 295) that a rise in prices would give a "generous impulse to trade," the reader wonders how far he is committed to inflation. Professor Nicholson's attack is bold, but his argument is vulnerable in more than the heel.

His distinctive argument for bimetallism, though presented in several other places, is perhaps best stated on pages 153 and 154. Under normal conditions, says the author, the present supply of gold would sustain higher prices, but for the depressing effects of the fall in the value of silver. When silver bullion thus falls, exports from India and other silver-using countries are stimulated, because, when such goods are sold in the gold-using countries, they yield a larger amount of silver than when sold in India. Similarly, the importation of English goods into India is checked, because, selling there for only the same amount of silver as before the change in its value, the return in gold to the English seller is smaller. But, since such conditions will inevitably arouse competition between the exporters of Indian goods, it must soon follow that their prices in England will fall - much in the same degree in which silver has fallen. Further, through the "sympathetic interaction of prices," a similar fall will occur in the prices of most of the related groups of commodities in gold-using countries. In such a chain of consequences, following the fall in the value of silver, is to be found the real cause of the fall in prices since 1873.

Probably all economists will agree with the author in his statement of the method by which a country paying more than the world price for silver will tend to increase its exports of other goods and increase its imports of silver; but few will follow him beyond this point. Insisting, as he does (p. 103), on the immobility of prices in the East, he asserts (p. 154) that silver prices have remained practically steady, and apparently assumes that they will so remain. This amounts to the assertion that India can forever absorb silver in exchange for goods. If this is the premise on which further arguments are built, what can be said of their stability? If the assumption, in this extreme form, is not justifiable, why does not the author express the limitations, and carry his analysis to its logical conclusion?

Even admitting that the Indian government cannot easily make its remittances to London (p. 111), and that "the continuous fall in silver... [has] been injurious to the manufacturers and traders of Lancashire" (p. 112), and that we are apt to share in the losses of our neighbors (p. 115), it by no means follows from Professor

Nicholson's reasoning that England (and still less, other countries) ought to relieve India from the results of a backward civilization. Furthermore, so long as India continues to make large demands on the West for silver, so long silver will tend to become the staple export in exchange for Oriental goods: the larger the premium on silver in the East, the cheaper the West will get those goods; and, under such conditions, lowered prices brought about by "substitution," will, after readjustment of industrial forces, mean a greater abundance in the West of the material sources of welfare. By the terms of his own hypothesis, there is little for gold-using countries to fear from the silver-lined cloud which Professor Nicholson has painted so black and threatening.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

A. M. DAY.

Produktion und Konsumption in der Volkswirtschaft. Aus dem Nachlasse von Prof. Dr. JULIUS LEHR in München; herausgegeben und vollendet von Dr. KUNO FRANKENSTEIN. Leipzig, C. L. Hirschfeld, 1895. viii, 261 pp.

This book constitutes one of the most recent additions to the larger work, Hand- und Lehrbuch der Staatswissenschaften, edited by Dr. Kuno Frankenstein, Dozent at the Humboldt-Akademie in

It is intended, however, that each volume shall, while fitting into its place in the general scheme, be in itself a complete and symmetrical treatise of a special subject. Thus we have here another of those attempts at system-building, so characteristic of German thought. Regarding the earlier works of this sort it could well be remarked by Schönberg, in the preface to the first edition of his Handbuch der Politischen Oekonomie in 1882, that they had then become somewhat antiquated. But with a revised edition of Roscher, with Schönberg's excellent work in its third and recently revised edition, with Wagner's Handbuch even now in progress, with the completion of Conrad's monumental Handwörterbuch, and with other recent German publications of much the same genus, it can hardly be said that the opus magnum of which the present volume is a part is coming to fill a long felt want. Meantime the German language still remains without an available elementary text-book on political economy.

This is not meant as a sweeping condemnation of the work. Indeed, the American might enviously wish that his language could boast of one such systematic treatise, if only "for the name of the

thing." The plan of taking, as it were, a general inventory of the state of the science as taught by a given set of men at a given moment, while contributing nothing to the existing stock of knowledge, is not without advantages.

To the three main divisions of the book, "production," "consumption," and "the relations" of the two, are devoted 195, 40 and 10 pages respectively. In the first chapter is discussed the concept and essential nature of production; and following this are chapters devoted to land (or nature), labor and capital. Here is well presented a bird's-eye view of the various concepts expressed by these words, but at the close most readers, it seems likely, will be left with confused rather than clarified notions regarding the scientific as opposed to the loose or popular use of these terms. Then come interesting discussions of the division of labor and of capitalistic enterprise in general. The chapter following, on the special forms of business organization, constitutes about one-fourth of the book. It deals with the economic advantages and limitations of the various forms of capitalistic enterprise, ranging from that of an independent individual, through the various modifications of partnership agreements, to stock companies and productive coöperative associations. The legal provisons bearing upon the subject in various countries are briefly referred to, but in the main the presentation is of German experience and legislation. The chapter concludes with a consideration of large and small production, in which are portrayed the economic and social consequences of the competition of large factories with hand workers and house industries. Since it is the most concrete portion of the book and deals chiefly with German problems, this chapter is perhaps the one most valuable to American readers. Under the head of the social (or legal) conditions necessary for production, is given a review of the various theories regarding the origin and justification of private property, and regarding the right of inheritance. This adds nothing to the able presentation by Wagner in fact, follows essentially his arguments and conclusions.

The next division deals primarily with the individual as the determining factor in consumption in existing society; discusses saving, extravagance, luxury, and the influence of circumstances, customs and fashion on expenditure; closing with a brief sketch of consumptive coöperative associations. The part played by the state in determining the consumption of goods is indicated; and then is treated "consumption in reality," that is, the quantities of leading kinds of