which the officers of the government work in their relations to the spoils system, and is a specific discussion of the question: Do the people wish civil service reform? To this question he reaches the answer: "Yes, they wish it; but very much as they wish virtue and the rights of man." This article is probably a more effective contribution to reform than would have been written if the author had appeared as an advocate. He comes before us as an impartial searcher after truth; yet he does not attempt to disguise the fact that the truth which interests him most is that which makes for political righteousness.

Quite similar in tone and spirit is the article upon "The Exercise of the Suffrage." Here we are told how we have been acting, as voters, since the formation of the government. All our faults and all our virtues are traced out and recorded. The specific question of compulsory voting is raised, and decided adversely. We are told that our boasted Australian ballot may itself introduce a new and most subtle form of corruption. That is, the briber will simply keep his victim away from the polls. While the essay is not in form a treatise upon the duties of the voter, it is fitted to have the practical effect of such a treatise. Again, under the title, "The Chilean Controversy" (the one essay which has not before been published), we are read some very wholesome lessons upon American diplomacy. It is in the main a description of what did take place in our recent dealings with Chile, yet we are not left in doubt as to what ought to have been done. Another article contains a catalogue of all the sins we have ever committed in disposing of our public lands. Notwithstanding the immense value of the lands owned and disposed of by the federal government, they have been, except for the brief period from 1830 to 1840, a drain upon the treasury of the United States. They have cost the government one hundred and twentysix millions of dollars more than all the receipts from the sales. In the "Biography of a River and Harbor Bill" Mr. Hart makes known another method of exploiting the treasury of the government.

One fruitful source of defective Congressional action is the lack

of a responsible coördinating power. Each house goes its own way, and each committee in each house enters into competition with every other committee for a portion of the attention of the house. In the paper on "The Speaker as Premier," Professor Hart suggests a possible way out of this difficulty. The Speaker has already become the chief of a small group of party leaders, who direct the order of business in the House. This tendency is likely to increase, and it

may readily happen that when both houses are controlled by the same political party, "some junto, of which the Speaker is the leading member, will arrange a program of legislation for both houses."

It is a sign of better things for our country that just criticism is becoming more and more acceptable to an ever-widening circle of our citizens. It is theoretically possible for men to learn from the experience of others; yet in practice political wisdom has been gained chiefly through actual suffering. Professor Hart shows himself a true historian when, in discussing the indifference of the people to the waste of the spoils system, he looks forward to a time when the conditions of life will be different. "Eventually, as population increases and virgin soil and virgin forests are exhausted, the conditions of life will be more severe, and Americans will feel the cost of government as they do that of overcoats or of butcher's meat." Of course it is utterly contrary to reason that people should actually have to feel the hand of government pressing heavily upon them before they can be induced to attend to elementary political duties. But this is true history. If the sort of literature which is collected in Professor Hart's book should come to be the popular political literature of the country, then it would not be necessary to postpone the gaining of political wisdom to a time when the "conditions of life will be more severe."

UNIVERSITY OF IOWA.

JESSE MACY.

Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Kaufmannsgilden des Mittelalters. Ein Beitrag zur Wirtschafts-, Social- und Verfassungsgeschichte der Mittelalterlichen Städte. Von Dr. ALFRED Doren. Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot, 1893. xii, 220 pp.

Contributions to the history of medieval gilds and municipalities continue to multiply. We have scarcely digested Hegel's Städte und Gilden when we are confronted by such works as von Below's Ursprung der Stadtverfassung, Köhne's Hansgrafenamt, Pirenne's Origine des Constitutions Urbaines and Doren's Kaufmannsgilden. Doren's book, like Hegel's, has a wide scope; he deals with the merchant gilds of Western Europe in general. Within his field his generalizations are even broader than Hegel's, and he lays more stress upon the economic and social factors which played a part in the development of gilds. While these features add to the value of the book, they also lead the author at times into a theorizing vein which is fraught with peril. A good example of this will be found on page 59, where he ascribes the wide prevalence of English gilds

after the Norman Conquest to the old freedom of the Vikings which the Normans transplanted to England.

The same dangerous tendency is displayed in his account of the origin of the gild merchant. Like Lamprecht, he finds its germ in early mercantile caravans. But we look in vain for any solid facts at the basis of this theory. The few stray references, in later documents, to the foreign trade of members of the gild merchant, may merely indicate accretions to the original functions of the fraternity. He presents no evidence to show that the later regulations for the protection of gildsmen abroad are not a mere corollary of earlier enactments protecting the home trade of gildsmen in their native towns; much less does he prove that those regulations are survivals from the caravan period of mercantile life. It is strange, to say the least, that Dr. Doren should cite in support of his theory the records of later societies established expressly for foreign trade (pages 164-165). On page 186 he admits, moreover, that local trade or the home market was the chief concern of the medieval merchant. On page 39 he also confesses that it will always be impossible to demonstrate the origin of merchant gilds. That is certainly true if we try to seek their germ in some antecedent institution, as he does. The origin of the gild merchant requires no artificial or elaborate explanation. The development of trade, the merchant's need of protection and the mediaval tendency toward aggregation or fraternal union suffice to explain why this institution came into existence. The caravan theory will probably not find much favor. A priori it seems quite improbable that an institution like the gild, which is preeminently characterized by the elements of permanency, stability and local solidarity, should have its origin in transient or temporary mercantile expeditions.

He

But these strictures apply only to a small portion of Dr. Doren's monograph. In the main his work is excellent, and most of his conclusions may be accepted without hesitation. His two opening chapters deal briefly with the origin of gilds and municipalities in general, and with the rise of a merchant class (pages 1-38). then devotes a chapter to the history of certain typical merchant gilds in Flanders, France and Germany, considering each town separately (pages 39-129). He does this because, as he justly observes, there was great diversity of development even in one and the same country.

In separate sections of chapter iii (pages 130-157) he also examines Nitzsch's views concerning the gilds of North Germany,

He is

and gives some account of the gild merchant of England. right in rejecting Nitzsch's sharp separation of Gilde and Innung, but his interpretation of the latter's views regarding the relations of the gild merchant to the craftsmen seems to be untenable. His defense of Nitzsch is timely and just. Even if Nitzsch's main results regarding the development of gilds are not worthy of acceptance, he deserves praise for having been one of the first to investigate the subject in a scholarly way, and for having inspired others to follow his example. His remarkable power of historical combination - his ability to divine almost intuitively the hidden currents of history— will always make his essays on gilds stimulating and instructive. Dr. Doren's account of the English gild merchant is also excellent, though it contains no new results of great importance. He throws some light on the economic aspects of the subject by turning to account and interpreting recently published records. His comparisons of the development in England and Germany are particularly interesting. Here, as in most parts of his book, his investigations display much critical insight and sound common sense. He goes astray, however, in some matters of detail; for example, when he says, on page 152, that firma burgi was a commutation of royal taxes, and when he states, on page 157, that the English gilds as such were individually responsible for the payment of taxes.

In the last chapter he considers the general development of the gild merchant in Western Europe, its relations to the craft fraternities, and the forces that led to its downfall; and finally he examines its political or constitutional influence. The arguments against the old gild theory regarding the origin of municipalities are clearly and fully stated. He holds that the merchant gild was not the germ of the municipal constitution, though it was an important factor in the development of the civic polity. In some towns its influence was greater than in others. These conclusions are now widely accepted, and there can be little doubt regarding their correctness.

As already stated, the author throughout his book strongly emphasizes the economic and social factors in the development of gilds. Though economics and history have much common ground, an economist like Dr. Doren and an historian like Professor Hegel approach a subject of this sort in quite different ways. The work of the one supplements that of the other. CHARLES GROSS.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

Les Grandes Compagnies de Commerce. By PIERRE BONNASSIEUX. Paris, E. Plon, Nourrit et Cie., 1892. —iv, 563 pp.

In 1880 L'Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques offered a prize for the best monograph on the great commercial companies. Of the five essays submitted, two were selected as worthy of the prize, and of these one was by the author before us. In view of the increased interest in colonial policy, M. Pierre Bonnassieux has deemed it wise to publish his work, though in a revised form. In the revision the author adopted some of the critical suggestions of M. Courcelle-Seneuil and M. Levasseur. In the first form the companies of each state were arranged alphabetically; in this volume - they are grouped along national, geographical and chronological lines. Thus the companies of each state are placed together, and these groups are subdivided according as the scene of their commercial activity was in Asia, in Africa or in America, the companies in each subdivision being discussed in chronological order. The former purely mechanical arrangement is thus displaced by one more scientific and philosophical.

After carefully distinguishing between the commercial associations for mutual protection (such as the medieval guilds and the Hanseatic League) and the commercial companies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, M. Bonnassieux describes the companies of Holland. Of the numerous Dutch companies, one is of paramount interest to the American student, the Dutch West India Company. The author points out a fact which many of our historians have ignored, that the colonization of New York was not the main, but only a minor object of this company, and that the sources upon which it relied for financial success were pillage and war upon the rich colonies of Spain and its subject state, Portugal. The center of its operations was not North America, but Brazil, and of the conflict there he gives many interesting and valuable statistics. It was thus natural that when once peace was concluded, the ascendency of the Dutch in the regions between New England and Maryland should come to a close.

After narrating the history of the Dutch companies, M. Bonnassieux takes up those of England. He calls attention to one distinguishing characteristic of the English companies. In England the foundation of these corporations was due solely to private enterprise and initiative, while in other countries the government always played an active part in either their foundation or their administration, and frequently in both. The author gives an excellent account