factors in production should receive. On the contrary, he says, following Jevons, "where each is necessary to the other, and all are essential and interdependent, it is impossible to say what the relative contributions are, and to accord differences of degree and precedence" (page 257). This being the case, it might be objected that with or without joint control there will still be a struggle to determine what share of the joint product each is to receive. The difference will be, in the author's view, that with fair recognition of labor's right to an equal voice in the decision, reliance in this struggle will no longer be on force but on reason. Next to outright injustice in labor's bill of grievances, he points out, is lack of recognition. With recognition and a voice in the decision there will come, he believes, the "mutual confidence and constructive goodwill" so much needed.

To make more certain the triumph of reason and justice in the settlement of disputes he urges eloquently the adoption of Canada's plan, of which he was the author, for the compulsory investigation of industrial disputes before strikes or lockouts are permitted to embitter relations between the disputants. The superiority of this plan, with its strong inducement to conciliation, over the Australasian system of compulsory arbitration is explained, and many of the arguments against it are conclusively answered. With it as a check on hasty and illconsidered action and the reports of the investigating boards as guides to public opinion, he thinks that orderly progress would be assured toward a reasonable solution of issues as they arise. How far this solu tion would lead in the direction of the absorption by the community of all unearned incomes, the nationalization of essential monopolistic industries or other fundamental changes, he does not attempt to forecast, but his sympathy is clearly indicated with all progressive changes that promise improvement in the common lot.

In this outline of Dr. King's constructive proposals, scant justice is done to the descriptive and critical portions of his book. In the chapters on "The Principles Underlying Peace", "Work" and " Health" there are penetrating discussions of different plans of conciliation and arbitration, wage-payment and profit-sharing, trade-unionism, industrial copartnership, socialism and syndicalism and social insurance. Those on "Representation and Industry" and "Government in Industry" contain excellent treatments of these topics. Finally, in an appendix, charts are given showing the relation among the different groups and influences which shape industrial society, which attest the thoroughness with which every aspect of the subject has been thought

out. All in all, this is a book that can be warmly commended to all readers interested in the labor problem and that is full of promise of permanent benefit from some of the lessons taught by the war.

HENRY R. SEAGER.

Industrial Justice through Banking Reform. By HENRY MEULEN. London, Richard S. Janes, 1917.-xi, 324 pp.

Mr. Meulen's object in preparing this book was "to show that a paper exchange medium, issued by private bankers, is the natural outcome of a movement which has been proceeding from the earliest days of the division of labor, and that an essential feature of the movement has been the gradual displacement of a commodity exchange medium by a circulating paper evidence of mutual trust." The book begins with an attack on the socialistic theory of economic organization and a statement of the central disadvantage of state socialism, which, the author thinks, is "the unresponsive nature of its mechanism." Mr. Meulen then proceeds to restate the social problem, which, he says, is essentially the excess of labor supply over demand, resulting in a general glut of goods in the hands of producers. The introduction of cheaper credit into an industrial system stimulates consuming power and then tends to use up the productive power of the community which called the credit into existence. Hence any restriction which causes the provision of credit to lag behind the desire to exchange goods already produced tends to raise the price of credit. A supply of credit adequate to the needs of producers enables consumption to keep pace with production.

This general view of the social problem, so called, is followed by a chapter on the principles of exchange, which covers more or less familiar ground but concludes with the general forecast that "the battle of the future will be fought around the question whether the introduction of a commodity medium is necessary to the exchange of goods." The history of exchange is then reviewed, and an outline of the British Bank Act of 1844 and its effects is presented. This brings Mr. Meulen to an examination of present economic symptoms" which he believes to be in part the result of unsatisfactory credit or, as he expresses it, "the fundamental basis of credit restriction." He concludes that there is something wrong with the channel through which labor and capital meet, namely, banking.

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It is not very easy to find out what Mr. Meulen thinks is wrong with banking at the present time except in so far as the difficulty may be

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described in the general expression "restriction of credit", but eventually it appears that the "injection of fresh credit" into the modern industrial system" is an injection of fresh purchasing power", while expensive credit results in unwillingness to use it, so that it will not be thus injected" when needed. Unforeseen withdrawal and exportation of the country's gold reserves causes trouble and leads to credit restriction. Help could be obtained by relieving banks of the necessity of maintaining fixed cash reserves and by developing a greater degree of confidence". An invariable unit of value, it is urged, would likewise be desirable. The credit restrictions which to-day prevent the due utilization of any fresh productive ability, says Mr. Meulen, furnish the key to the problem since banks have been prevented from bringing into commerce the present worth of a future profit. With a flexible credit system any appearance of cheap labor would immediately cause a general increase of industry. All this is decidedly vague, and it would be anything but easy to state expressly how the author would proceed in his elimination of present restrictions on credit.

On the whole, Industrial Justice through Banking Reform is a book which contains some information and many interesting and rather acute observations. The volume is one of a group which has been produced by the present disturbances to credit and which is based on the theory that some artificial means can be found to rectify or improve a state of things essentially due to misuse or abuse of a banking or money mechanism which, if properly treated, would have yielded satisfactory results. The idea of an invariable standard of value, attractive as it is, is not one that is free from objection and certainly not one that can be applied as a substitute for banking and credit soundness. “Industrial justice" is, however, altogether too vague and pointless as an object of public policy, to afford very much danger from the standpoint of immediate results.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

H. PARKER WILLIS.

The Food Problem. By VERNON KELLOGG and ALONZO E. TAYLOR. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1918.—xiii, 213 pp.

This book will continue to be useful for years to come notwithstanding the fact that it was written before the war came to an end. Its value consists in the general discussion of the fundamentals of the food problem in time of international war and in the account of the

plans followed by different nations in the solution of the problem. The general setting of the subject is given as an introduction by Herbert Hoover.

The authors in the first chapter give statistics showing the situation with respect to the food supply among the allied nations. The relative importance of animal and vegetable foods receives attention. The question of food prices comes in for prominent mention, and it is admitted that price control is a problem as yet largely unsolved since commodities are bound to respond to a great extent to economic forces which are not easily guided or checked by government action. It is admitted that prices in the allied countries rose a full hundred per cent. during the first three years of the war, but it is held that food control ought to mean that these prices are not " unnecessarily high", that is to say, that the opportunity which the abnormal times of war offer to the shrewd speculator are limited by action of the government.

The second half of the book has to do with the technology of food use, which is dealt with in a manner that can be understood by nontechnical readers. The physiology and the sociology of nutrition are the main headings used in the treatment of this part of the work. Under the latter of these topics is discussed the effect of food shortage on the nation as a whole. This is viewed from the standpoint of the different groups within the whole. There are many divisions: those based on occupations, as the farmers, the laboring classes, the city people; those based on age, as the children, the aged, the invalids. However, these classes of people are dealt with incidentally under the headings pertaining to the various kinds of food. One after another of the principal foods is viewed from the standpoint of its importance in keeping people well fed and satisfied. Economy in producing foods. and particularly in transporting them is given prominence.

It is not the intention of the authors to prescribe a program for carrying all these principles into effect. Rather it appears to be their aim to impress upon the reader the advisability of adopting the programs which seem feasible in order to produce the desired results, trusting to the patriotism and ingenuity of the people concerned.

The authors have done well in steering clear of misstatements concerning the many phases of foods and food production. Nevertheless, the impression left concerning the sources of dairy feeds is hardly correct, and the lay mind will be slow to agree that margarine is not a substitute for butter. All in all, the authors show a remarkable familiarity with food problems and a keen insight into the social side of the question.

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN.

B. H. HIBBARD.

The Expansion of Europe (1415-1789): A History of the Foundations of the Modern World. By WILBUR CORTEZ ABBOTT. New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1918.-Two volumes: xxi, 512; xiii, 463 pp.

In his preface to these volumes Professor Abbott states that his purpose in writing them was to combine "three elements which need correlation to provide a proper basis for the understanding of what has happened during the past five hundred years, and of the situation which confronts us today." The elements that he has in mind are : "the connection of the social, economic and intellectual development of European peoples with their political affairs"; "the inclusion of the progress of events among the peoples of eastern Europe, and of the activities of Europeans beyond the sea"; and the relation of the past to the present-the way in which the various factors of modern life came into the current of European thought and practice, and how they developed into the forms with which we are familiar."

Whatever the purpose of the author, he has produced substantially a treatise on narrative political history, on what might be called the "self-enlargement" of Europe in those phases of life and thought which are connoted by the word "civilization ", and on the process of European colonization. Through them he has endeavored to trace the origins of the modern world, both European and Europeanized, measuring the successive stages in the growth of civilization in Europe at intervals of approximately half a century. Whether such a conception of the expansion of Europe is tenable or not must depend upon the point of view that is taken. The reviewer himself is unable to accept it.

As commonly used, the word "expansion ", as an historical term applicable to the development of modern Europe, refers to the acquisition of territory and to the diffusion of a type of civilization beyond the physical borders of Europe itself. In this sense it would mean not what went on exclusively within that continent and its adjacent islands but what occurred outside, so far as Europeans were concerned in it. Only by a violent stretch of the imagination can "expansion " be made to connote primarily phenomena peculiar to Europe proper and secondarily those associated with European activities abroad. To intercalate the story of European enterprise overseas into a work devoted very largely to matters more or less extraneous to that theme is permissible enough if the resultant product be given an appropriate designation. But to call what is essentially a process of internal