book takes its place as easily the best available American treatise on the subject.

A rather remarkable work is The Economic Life of a Benga District (Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1916; 158 pp.) by J. C. Jack, of the India Civil Service. It is remarkable because, although the statistics were collected between 1906 and 1910 and took much time and labor to tabulate, the writing of the book itself, as the author tells us in his foreword, occupied just five days, which were all that Mr. Jack had at his disposal before going to the front in the Royal Field Artillery. The accomplishment of such a result is possible only in the case of one who is full of his subject. While the text is interesting, even a tyro will realize at a glance that many of the problems are superficially treated. The sketch, moreover. presents a picture of economic life which appears unduly favorable. When we are told that only four and three-tenths per cent. of the people are "struggling in the grip of want", we must believe that. if the statement is true, the district of Faridpur in Bengal, with a population of over two million people, is in a very exceptional position. Again, we are told, on page 127, that Bengal is more lightly taxed than any other civilized country in the world, and "not only more lightly taxed, but far more lightly taxed"! Taking it all in all, it must be said that this five days' "study" gives a picture of India through the spectacles of an Indian civil servant.

The recent return of France to the system of direct personal taxes lends interest to the study of M. Pierre Edm. Hugues on what he terms an income tax at the time of the revolution, which appears under the title Histoire de la contribution patriotique dans le Baslanguedoc (Paris, Champion, 1919; 330 pp.). This so-called patriotic contribution of 1789 consisted, as is well known, of a twenty-five per cent. income tax, which turned out to be far from successful. M. Hugues studies the reasons for this in detail, as applied in a comparatively small section of France, and presents a clear picture of the reasons why it did not succeed. Neither he nor the ancien ministre, M. Paul Delombre, who contributes a long preface, is favorably inclined to the new fiscal paths upon which France has entered, and both seem to find in the history of the patriotic contribution some justification for their fears. They do not, however, pay sufficient attention to the profound differences, economic, social and political, between the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. As an historical study, however, the work of M. Hugues is important and illuminating.

A contribution well worth making to industrial history is Household Manufactures in the United States, 1640-1860 (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1917; xii, 413 pp.) by Rolla Milton Tryon, associate professor of the teaching of History, University of Chicago. The author has made good use of contemporary accounts, personal recollections, local histories and census returns and has been able to present a clear picture of the development and status of household manufacture. By this term, however, he means only those articles made by members of the family or plantation household from raw material produced chiefly on the farm where the manufacturing was done. He points out clearly the various stages in the development and especially the transition to shop-made and factory-made goods. The chief criticism to be urged is the continual use of the term "family factory ", although in numberless cases the author makes a clear distinction between family-made and factory-made goods. While household manufactures is a thoroughly suitable and accredited term, "family-factory" involves a confusion of thought.

In The Foundations of National Prosperity (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1918; xxix, 378 pp.) Professors Richard T. Ely and Ralph H. Hess of Wisconsin, Thomas. Nixon Carver of Harvard and Charles K. Leith, who occupies a chair of geology at Madison, have contributed some interesting studies on the conservation of permanent national resources. Professor Ely discusses conservation and economic theory, Professor Hess treats of conservation and economic evolution, Professor Leith takes up the conservation of certain mineral resources and Professor Carver deals with the conservation of human resources. One of the most striking contributions is that of Professor Hess in his chapter on conservation and the theory of investment. Professor Carver appears in his now somewhat familiar rôle as an economic moralizer, whose fundamental conception is put into the following language (page 361): "It is to be hoped also that some preacher of righteousness may see that nothing is righteousness except that which economizes and makes productive the energy of the people, and that nothing is sin except that which wastes or dissipates that energy." We can safely leave him to the indignation of the religious and ethical reformer.

An exceptionally good doctor's dissertation is the study in two parts on Legislative Regulation of Railway Finance in England (Urbana, University of Illinois Studies in the Social Sciences, 1918; 196 pp.) by Ching Chun Wang, Director of the Kin-han Railway in China and sometime honorary Fellow in Economics. Mr. Wang

has made the first detailed investigation into the English control of railway securities and the regulation of railway accounts and has collected in detail a mass of interesting and valuable information. The book, moreover, is written in an English style so admirable as not to betray the nationality of the author.

Among the many books dealing with the recent reform of French public finance and especially with the income tax, perhaps the most authoritative is that of M. Lucien Bocquet, a prominent tax official of Paris, entitled L'Impôt sur le revenu cédulaire et général (Librairie Recueil Sirey, Paris, 1918; 620 pp.). After a short introductory historical sketch, M. Bocquet takes up in detail each of the different schedules into which the new income tax is divided and gives a clear picture of the detailed problems in each case. The volume contains the texts of the various laws together with the interpretation put upon them by the administrative authorities and the courts. A recently published supplement covers the changes made by the law of June, 1918.

The general condemnation visited in France and elsewhere not only on the present-day German Socialists but especially upon Karl Marx, as the alleged founder of Pan-Germanism, has led the wellknown socialist leader, M. Jean Longuet, to take up the cudgels in an interesting volume entitled La Politique Internationale du Marxisme (Paris, Librairie Félix Alcan, 1918; 293 pp.). M. Longuet draws much of his material from the recently published correspondence between Marx and Engels and finds no difficulty in showing that the accusations are entirely unfounded and that Marx, like Lenine today, was a thorough internationalist. This point of view emerges with especial clearness during the period of the FrancoPrussian war when Marx, while indeed in favor of German unity, showed himself thoroughly opposed to anything that savored of military nationalism or imperial capitalism.

Among the many economic studies that have been evoked by the war in France, a prominent place must be accorded to the book of M. Georges Renard, Professor at the Collège de France, entitled Les Répercussions Economiques de la Guerre Actuelle sur la France (Paris, Librairie Félix Alcan, 1917; 516 pp.). Although the account. is continued only to the end of 1917, Professor Renard was so sure of ultimate victory, with a large indemnity from Germany, that he was able to frame some important conclusions. The major part of the book deals with the history of the economic conditions of the war, divided into three parts: circulation, including commerce and

transportation; production, both industrial and agricultural; and consumption, including high prices and public finance. In each case, Professor Renard deals with the post bellum outlook, and it is significant that he is far from being a pessimist with reference to France's economic future. What he especially emphasizes, however, is the rôle that education must play in the economic progress of

the country.

Students of the railway problem have long been familiar with the authoritative work on the French railways in six volumes, of which the first edition appeared as long ago as 1887, by M. Alfred Picard, a member of the Institute and Director General of Bridges and Highways. M. Picard was engaged in preparing a definitive edition of his treatise at the time of his death, in 1913, but had completed only a small part of the revision. The Ministry of Public Works in France decided to publish as a memorial volume a part of this revision, which has now appeared under the title of Les Chemins de Fer (Paris, H. Dunod et E. Pinat, 1918; xiv, 856 pp.). The volume contains an historical sketch of French railways, a study of the economic results of railway transportation and a discussion of competition among railways and between the rail and water transportation. While most of the material is taken from France, not a little attention is paid to other countries, including the United States. The work will be found valuable to students of the recent history of French railway transportation.

In American Railway Accounting (New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1918; x, 465 pp.) Professor H. C. Adams gives a brief and simple discussion of the fundamental principles of railroad accounting and shows how they have been applied or misapplied by the Interstate Commerce Commission. His comments on such controversial topics as the division of costs of labor and materials, valuation of real estate, discounts of securities, depreciation, taxes and improvements are both interesting and illuminating. The appendices contain the voluminous text of the revised accounting rules and regulations issued by the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1914. The book should be of value to students of transportation and to practical accountants who desire a knowledge of the principles of railroad accounting.

During January and February of 1918 the Ligue du libre-éxchange conducted at the École des hautes-études sociales a series of six conferences on the general subject of international free trade. The conferences were addressed by Yves-Guyot, Germain Paturel, G.

Schelle, J. Pierson and Frederic Mathews, and the lectures are published under the title Le Libre-éxchange International (Paris, Librairie Félix Alcan, 1918; iv, 228 pp.). For the most part the addresses, as was perhaps inevitable, consist of repetitions of the familiar classical arguments for free trade and of protests against any tendency to make permanent the government control of commerce brought about by the war. M. Pierson, a nephew of the wellknown economist of the same name, compresses within brief space, however, a considerable body of too little known facts concerning the progress of Dutch industry and commerce under free trade, and M. Yves-Guyot offers some sensible observations on the maintenance of the blockade during the transition from war to peace. It is a pity that the allied diplomats did not have the wisdom to heed his suggestions more promptly. In addition to the lectures, the little book contains the statutes of the league and a letter addressed to the members of that organization in 1915 by its president, Yves-Guyot, and its indefatigable secretary, Daniel Bellet, since unhappily deceased.

Breaches of Anglo-American Treaties (New York, Sturgis and Walton Company, 1917; xi, 248 pp.) by John Bigelow, Major U. S. Army, retired, is devoted principally to a discussion of the controversies between Great Britain and the United States over the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and the Central American Question. Although the volume appeared during the war, the author states that, except for some revision and amplification, it was finished before the war began, so that it was not written with a view to influence opinion on any phase of the great conflict. The author seems to have been impelled to undertake the work by reflections on the United States made in certain English publications. Among these he quotes the Saturday Review as having abandoned the expectation that President Taft (nota bene, not ex-President Taft) could "act like a gentleman", and as declaring that it would be a delusion to imagine that "American politicians would be bound by any feeling of honor or respect for treaties"; the Morning Post as suggesting that "Americans might ask themselves if it is really good foreign policy to lower the value of their written word in such way as to make negotiations with other powers difficult or impossible"; and Sir Harry Johnstone, in Common Sense in Foreign Policy, as declaring that "treaties in fact only bind the policy of the United States as long as they are convenient" and are not really worth the paper they are written on ". The author, as the result of his