see our American paper currency simplified and otherwise improved, would be more convincing if they did not set up, as the only alternative to the existing systems, something which looks so much like free banking and a gratuity to the bankers. The advantages of a sound paper currency must, in a great measure, accrue to society at large, no matter who formally issues the notes. But the majority of Americans believe that the great gain remains with the first issuer; and they are unwilling that their government should forego that gain. For the most part, and with the limitations already implied, the discussions in the book are of unusually high merit. Those chapters which deal with the first century of English banking, with the first and second United States Banks, and with the chaos of state banks in America are perhaps the best; but the crisis of 1893 is exceedingly well described. In matters of social science, each man must to a certain extent be allowed his own peculiar points of view; but probably all critics would agree that certain statements of the book are erroneous. If not simple and obvious, it is nevertheless true, that the uncovered issues of a bank do make a real addition to the capital of a community (v. p. 10). It is certainly a strange teaching that, in times of industrial depression, "even laborers who are thrown out of employment cannot suffer any such loss in a modern civilized state as is suffered by capital" (p. 463). Of course, "capital," being an inanimate thing, cannot, except by a rhetorical figure, be said to suffer at all; and no thinking man will deliberately maintain that capitalists suffer as much from industrial stagnation as do laborers. The capitalist loses a few or many dollars, with which he might have bought luxuries dollars, therefore, of low subjective value; while the laborer's loss means the lack of necessaries. To a man who takes a human view of economics the laborer's loss is incomparably the greater. Again, most thoughtful readers will be greatly surprised that Mr. Conant never so much as refers to an insufficiency of money as even a contributory cause of the panic and crisis of 1873. He need not accept the view of the majority of professional economists, but he should at least give it a definite rejection.

Notwithstanding minor imperfections the book must receive no faint praise. It is immeasurably superior to most of the writings which have been called forth by the peculiar monetary conditions which at present prevail.

WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY.

WILLARD FISHER.

Geschichte der Nationalökonomischen Krisentheorieen. Von EuGEN VON BERGMANN. Stuttgart, W. Kohlhammer, 1895.440 pp. If it is true that the science of anatomy owes its birth to functional disorders which called the attention of men to their own internal mechanism, it would be interesting to know precisely how nearly analogous were the conditions which gave birth to the science of economics. The attention given to it has unquestionably been intensified by the existence of economic disorders of various kinds. Some of these may have been more acute, but none have been more persistently before the minds of economists than the ever-recurring stagnation of business, with its resulting depression, failures and waste of productive energy. No form of economic disorder has received the attention of a larger number of economic writers. To bring together from their scattered sources, and to place before us in logical order, the various attempts to account for this particular form of economic disturbance is the distinctive service which Dr. von Bergmann has performed in the preparation of the volume before us.

Instead of presenting the different theories in strictly chronological order, the author has adopted the obviously more satisfactory method of classifying them on a logical basis into distinct groups. But it is a source of added satisfaction to find that the groups themselves fall into a more or less distinct chronological order. This fact lends support to the assumption that economic theories reflect, in a certain sense, the contemporary economic conditions.

The general crisis of 1825 was the first of international importance, and the first to receive the careful and scientific attention of economists. But there had been industrial depressions before. They began, in fact, with the modern industrial system itself. In his introductory chapter the author considers the attempts of the earlier writers the Mercantilists, the Physiocrats and Adam Smith—to explain, in connection with their theories of demand and supply, those early industrial depressions. Subsequent writers are classified into eight distinct groups and a chapter is devoted to each group.

The views of Lauderdale, Storch, Spence and Ganilh belong to the class which the author characterizes as the simple, or naïve, overproduction theories. The distinctively classical theory is that there is a necessary correspondence between the sum total of supply and the sum total of demand: in other words, a supply of one article is a demand for another, and there can, therefore, be no such thing as a general over-production. Those who hold this view are considered under the second group, and this group contains a larger number of

distinguished names than any other. The theories of Tucker, Turgot, Quesnay, J. B. Say, James Mill, Ricardo, Senior, McCulloch and Bastiat are explained at some length, and those of a number of other writers are stated. In the writings of Malthus, Chalmers, Sismondi and a few others is found a perfected, or more thoroughly workedout, over-production theory, wherein it is held that general overproduction is brought about not merely by improved processes but by changes in the organization of society.

The next largest and most distinguished list of names is found in the fourth group, whose writings date from the currency controversies of 1830 to 1840. This list includes writers of great diversity of opinion; but they all seem to agree in explaining crises on the ground of an abnormal diminution of circulating capital through over-speculation. On this basis, Lord Overstone, Tooke, J. S. Mill, Bagehot, F. A. Walker, Thorold Rogers, Mangoldt and Leroy-Beaulieu are grouped together. The attempt to explain the seeming periodicity of crises characterizes the fifth group of writers. In searching for a physical rather than an economic cause, Jevons's crisis theory is unique in the attempt to trace a relation between crises and sun-spot cycles. The sixth group finds the explanation of crises in the conditions not of production alone, but of distribution and consumption. The seventh and eighth are socialistic groups, which find the cause of crises, as of most other economic disorders, to be inherent in the present capitalistic organization of industry.

In this volume the reader has set before him not only the general characteristics of the different groups, but a somewhat detailed examination of the views of the individual writers. For this reason it is doubtful if very many will read the book in its entirety, though every one should read it in part. The author has shown first-rate judgment in giving prominence to the more important writers; yet it was inevitable that much of the material which he has gathered together would be of interest to a very limited number. Nevertheless, it must be considered as a valuable contribution to enonomic literature. T. N. CARVER.

OBERLIN COLLEGE.

La Dépression Économique et Sociale et l'Histoire des Prix.

Par HECTOR DENIS, Professeur à l'Université Libre de Bruxelles. Ixelles-Bruxelles, Imprimerie générale, G. J. Huysmans, 1895. — XV, 412 pp., with accompanying atlas of 37 diagrams, folio.

This is a very elaborate attempt to describe and explain the depression of industry and commerce since 1873. The method is

to show the continuous fall of prices during that period and to refer to that fall all concurrent phenomena. In his first step, the author employs the usual index numbers of Palgrave, Sauerbeck, Soetbeer and The Economist, adding one for Belgium based on twenty-eight articles of export and twenty-two of import. All these numbers agree in showing a very great fall in prices since 1873. Without criticising the method of index numbers, the author accepts this fall as the central fact of economic history during the last twenty years.

His second step is to correlate other economic facts with this fall in prices. Thus, he shows that exports and imports fell after 1873 and rose in 1881-82, only to fall again with the last fall in prices. Even taking the quantities and not the values, there was a diminution in 1873 and again in 1883, although there was a rapid increase in 1889 and 1890. The author tries to show that in Belgium a greater quantity of exports is now given for the same amount of imports, so that the change has affected that country unfavorably; but this is evidently a national and not a world-economic (mondiale) point of view, though it is the latter that the author professes to expound. In addition to this effect on international commerce, the falling prices have, according to M. Denis, discouraged business enterprises, reduced the investments of capital, lowered rent, interest and profits, increased bankruptcies, unemployment and strikes. The author even directly connects certain social phenomena, such as the increase of tenants in place of owners of land, the increase of crime and suicide, and the decrease of the birth-rate and the marriage-rate, with the fall in prices. The most serious question, however, is whether such fall has affected the distribution of the product between the laborers on the one hand and the capitalistic classes on the other. Here we have some very important phenomena. Rents and farmers' profits have fallen in advance of and faster than agricultural wages. Industrial profits also have fallen, and in some years have turned into losses. On the other hand, nominal wages have either advanced, remained the same, or at most decreased slightly; while real wages (purchasing power) have greatly increased, owing to the very fall in prices. Still further, with falling prices the relative share of wages in the fund devoted to wages and profit has increased at the expense of capital. The consumption of food (alimentation) and the standard of living of the laboring class have also improved.

The author's third step is to inquire into the cause of this decrease in prices which has had such a dislocating and, according to him,

such an unfortunate effect on all economic life. There are three explanations: (1) scarcity of money (the thesis of most bimetallists); (2) decreased cost of production (the thesis of the monometallists); and (3) conditions, such as over-production, protective tariffs, foreign competition, etc., which affect current prices in particular countries (the thesis of so-called practical men). The author presents all three of these views judiciously, and with apparent impartiality, without deciding absolutely in favor of any one of them.

What interpretation shall we put upon these facts so laboriously and patiently brought together? The author attributes only half of the decrease in prices to the contraction of the currency (p. 389). He does not explain how the quantity of specie money affects prices, although he admits that instruments of credit take the place of money and affect prices. He does show that the total operations of clearing-houses have not increased with falling prices; but that is perfectly compatible with the theory that improvements in production have caused the lower prices, and that consequently the same amount of transactions is represented by smaller figures. So, too, he has not noticed the recent figures of Lexis in regard to the increased metallic circulation of Europe and the United States. With reference to the influence of the contraction of the currency his remarks are, therefore, inconclusive.

For relief M. Denis seems inclined to look towards bimetallism and a mild form of socialism. The facts he has cited, however, cannot be made to support either; while a most serious counter-check to both is contained in the facts regarding the effect of decreasing prices on the laboring class. That is the kernel of the question. Here the author seems to struggle against his own conclusions. For instance, he says:

Nous nous sommes engagé dans des recherches étendues sur les variations du salaire nominal et du salaire réel, et malgré les perturbations profondes et funestes qu'ils ont subies, nous avons pu vérifier une tendance historique à la hausse des salaires et à l'élévation du standard of life, ou de la somme de jouissances que le travailleur considère comme la légitime rémunération de son travail. Les calculs relatifs à l'alimentation et à la force de travail sont, à cet égard, suggestifs et très importants. [p. 385.]

La constatation historique de l'élévation du standard of life nous a permis d'éclairer le plus grave problème qui se rattache à la population; nous avons constaté un progrès réel dans l'individuation aux dépens d'un stérile et redoutable progrès de la population; car, depuis 1850, bien que le mouvement progressif des salaires ait été plus rapide qu'antérieurement,