arbitration, but to secure, in any controversy which threatens to lead to war, the postponement of hostile action until opportunity has been given for mediation and the proposal of an adjustment. Acceptance of a proposed adjustment is not to be forced upon the disputants; the members of the league are pledged only not to resort to war without giving time for mediation. If either of the disputing states breaks this pledge, all the other members of the league are to break off all relations with the offending country. They are to forbid their citizens to give any aid to that country, and they are to permit them not only to trade with its adversary but also to lend the latter any assistance they choose. The automatic boycott of the Paris covenant is quite in line with Dr. Lammasch's plan. In the earlier chapters of the book, the author makes many practical suggestions for the betterment of international law.

The mass of controversial literature produced during the World War has been so great that it has been impracticable to review or even to notice in this journal any considerable proportion of the indictments and defenses framed in the contending countries. Belated tribute should be paid to M. Emile Waxweiler's La Belgique neutre et loyale (Lausanne, Payot, 1915; 305 pp.), of which G. P. Putnam's Sons promptly published a satisfactory translation, Belgium Neutral and Loyal (xi, 324 pp.). The case of Belgium against Germany is here presented so simply and clearly and with such restraint of expression as to entitle the book to rank as a classic. All M. Waxweiler's contentions have since been supported by additional evidence, not a little of which has come from German sources.

The Principles of the Moral Empire (London, University of London Press, 1917; 247 pp.), by Kojiro Sugimori, is a treatise suggested by problems that have arisen out of the war. It is a plea for a moral, theological and social reform to be attained by strengthening the concept of personal worth as against the desire to render the interests of the individual, the class and the nation paramount over all other considerations. The author, who is professor of philosophy in the University of Waseda, Tokyo, finds the basis of the moral empire in a "metaphysical pride, which consists in a boundless self-respect and self-responsibility, as well as an infinite faith in our own power or creative possibility." The principles of it he then proceeds to elucidate from the standpoints of conscience and utility, the inner and outer world, pride and love, and personal worth and the social order. Only in a new religion which shall make this recognition of the moral value of the individual supreme, he thinks, will it be possible to right the present maladjustment of the relations of mankind.

In La Question d'Afrique (Paris, Librairie Félix Alcan, 1918; xi, 391 pp.), Professor Raymond Ronze seeks to explain the share of African problems in bringing on the Great War. To this end he has traced the relations of Europe and the Dark Continent from their origins up to 1914, successively increasing the amount of space devoted to the later periods, so that rather more than half of the work is taken up with an account of the developments since 1885. In view of the fact that many excellent treatises have been written on specific portions of the general subject, the author has tried to synthesize them and make a connected story. As might be supposed, the work of France bulks large in the treatment, but without being assigned an emphasis altogether inordinate. The main thesis laid down is that just as there has been an Eastern Question, Near and Far, so there will be an African Question, which must be settled either by cooperation among the European nations now holding nearly all of Africa or by the inhabitants of the continent themselves, in proportion as they rise to a consciousness of the power of numbers reinforced by intelligence and by material means of defence. Because of the abundance of books that dilate upon the various phases of international politics, it seems unfortunate that Professor Ronze has not discussed at length the extent to which the process of Europeanization hitherto carried on among the natives has imbued them, or seems likely to imbue them, with an appreciation of the right and the ability to order their own destinies. To this aspect of the matter, however, he assigns barely a dozen pages of epilogue.

A very convenient index to the problems that have beset the deliberations of the Peace Conference is that furnished by Lothrop Stoddard and Glenn Frank in Stakes of the War (New York, The Century Co., 1918; xiv, 377 pp.). Dividing the geographical field into western, northern and eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Near East, along with appropriate subdivisions devoted to localities treated, it provides in each case a summary of the historical background, statistics of area and population, a survey of social, economic, political and military conditions, an account of the conflicting claims and interests involved, and a statement of the various solutions that have been proposed, as well as an estimate of their possible significance for the future. Serviceable maps and bibliographies also are supplied. An appendix on colonial problems completes the volume. The compilers, certainly, have tried to keep their viewpoint throughout impartial and objective. Their success in this respect, added to the succinct yet suitably comprehensive way in which they have presented their material, makes the book decidedly useful to the general reader.

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A tardy comment on Socialism and War (New York, New Review Publishing Association, 1916; viii, 267 pp.), by Louis B. Boudin, may be justified on the ground that the first half of the title, though submerged by the second half when the volume appeared, has, like the infant that wails resistance to its bath, demonstrated its vitality and staying power by emerging from the ordeal refreshed and more lusty than ever. The author ascribes to economic causes the most important part in bringing about international conflicts and looks to socialism for the remedy. As a socialist, he espouses the class struggle theory of progress. All races are, so he maintains, essentially capable of developing along the lines of civilization. Differences of development are in degree, not in essential kind. As civilization improves, historic differences should disappear in a superior common type, representing a merger of "all national cultural differences in a higher, pan-human culture." In looking to this end, the author assumes, necessarily, that the class struggle differs fundamentally from national struggles in that it fights not for superiority, but for equality, and seeks to destroy, not the entire order, but only certain of its evil attributes. In the present condition of things he holds that the working class of each country is vitally interested in preserving the freedom of that country from alien dominion and that the socialist is ready to go to war to defend that freedom, so that another obstacle may not be placed “in the path of the final emancipation of the entire human race from the inequalities, degradations, and miseries incident to class-society." On the same ground he rejects the theory of neutrality, while suggesting that the practical comparison of probable costs with probable results may dictate abstention in a particular instance, the criterion being always the effects on "the international working class and its struggle for emancipation." On the other hand, he maintains that, by regarding the enemy in any case not as a certain nation but as "a certain government, representing at most the governing class", it would be easier to make a real peace, with resumption of friendly relations and cooperation in peaceful pursuits. Perhaps it is not out of place to remark that the old nationalist conquerors were much in the habit of proclaiming to their enemies that they came not to make war upon the people, but only upon the government", but the distinction did not save the "people", after the "government" was gone, from loss of territory and the imposition of indemnities.

Two years ago Harvard University appointed a committee on economic research, of which Professor Charles J. Bullock was chairman.

It was decided to begin research in the field of economic statistics, and Professor Warren M. Persons undertook, for the committee, a study of present methods of gathering and interpreting such data. As a result of these investigations the committee has issued the first number of the Review of Economic Statistics (January, 1919), a quarterly publication, under the editorial supervision of Professor Persons. The purpose of the Review is to promote the collection, criticism, and interpretation of economic statistics, with a view to making them more accurate and valuable than they are at present for business and scientific purposes." It is not the primary object of the committee to collect first-hand data, but rather to devote its resources to scientific criticism and interpretation of existing facts, by developing the application of modern methods of statistical analysis to economic statistics. Sources of information will be investigated and tests of accuracy established for existing data. It is not the purpose of the Review to duplicate the work of existing governmental and commercial agencies devoted to the collection and publication of economic facts, but to cooperate in a constructive manner with these enterprises. The committee will deal at first chiefly with industrial, commercial and financial data which serve as a basis for judgments concerning fundamental business conditions. As resources permit, other types of economic statistics will be included. It is the final purpose of the committee to make a contribution to the general progress of economic science, which depends to an increasing extent upon the development of methods of measuring accurately and interpreting correctly the complex phenomena with which it deals. Such purposes as are outlined in this first number of the Review are recognized as fundamental by those who are interested in the science of economics, and the publication is a welcome departure in a very timely and fertile field of research.

The last ten years have seen the publication of an enormous mass of governmental reports on the conditions of labor. These inquiries have usually been undertaken for a specific practical purpose and each has dealt only with those aspects of the subject which were related to the main interests of the particular inquiry. Naturally, the information so obtained is difficult to put together in such a manner as to yield sound and profitable generalizations. Students of labor problems owe, therefore, a debt of gratitude to W. Jett Lauck and Edgar Sydenstricker for the volume on Conditions of Labor in American Industries (New York, Funk and Wagnalls, 1917; xi, 403 pp.), in which is attempted a summarization of the results of recent in

vestigations. The authors have shown a proper reserve in dealing with the material, and their conclusions are marked by caution. The value of the book is enhanced by a useful bibliography of the investigations used. Apart from its usefulness as a summary, the book should contribute to the better planning of future investigations.

From a statement made by Dr. Frank Wesley Pitman in the Preface to The Development of the British West Indies-1700-1763 (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1917; xiv, 495 pp.), it would appear that work on this monograph was begun some years ago. If this assumption is true, Dr. Pitman could not then have foreseen the practical interest that now attaches to his book, arising from developments in tariff politics in Great Britain resulting from the war. Lloyd George and, it would seem, the majority of his supporters in the House of Commons are committed to the safeguarding of basic industies, to legislation against dumping and to a return to preferential treatment in the British tariff of some colonial products. It is not venturing into the realm of British political controversy to recall that under the old commercial system the colonial preferences that cost the people of Great Britain most dearly were those granted to lumber from Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and to sugar long produced by slave labor in the British West Indies. In the present volume, Dr. Pitman is concerned in detail only with the period from 1700 to 1763. But the preferential system of 1763-1846 was not, in its working, greatly dissimilar from that of 1700-1763. The West India lobby at Westminster was as influential during almost the whole of the later period as Dr. Pitman shows that it had been during the earlier. As long, moreover, as the system of preferences survived, false clearing-house papers, used for the purpose of securing preferential treatment in British ports for produce that was not of British colonial origin, were nearly as much in vogue as they had been during the period of which Dr. Pitman writes. Most of the material on which the present informing and admirable study is based has been drawn from documents and papers of the Board of Trade now in the Public Record Office in London. This material, much of which is statistical, has been handled with a skill that has imparted interest to every chapter. A continuation of Dr. Pitman's study, which, unfortunately, he does not appear to contemplate, would be welcome for at least two reasons. In the first place, the West Indies and their trade occupy an important place in the history of the relations of the United States and Great Britain during the half century that followed the American Revolution; and in the second place, slavery