they will agree that here is a notable contribution to the literature of the subject, and an attempt at a restatement of its principles that deserves, at the least, a very respectful hearing.

As to the success of the attempt, time and trial must be given before a final verdict can be rendered. I confess to an initial doubt whether this will prove to be, on the whole, that boon much desired by all teachers of economics - a satisfactory exposition of the body of doctrine which, in essentials, we all accept. It is no disparagement of Professor Nicholson's mode of presentation that it suffers in comparison with that of a master of style like Mill. Professor Nicholson writes with force and ease; but he has not the eloquent swing, the art of gradually unfolding a difficult train of reasoning, the faculty of illustrating and repeating without redundancy, which did so much to give Mill's book its commanding place. Further and here we touch a more serious difficulty - there is the question whether it is advantageous for the learner or for the general reader, to retain so completely the traditional sequence of the different topics. In this regard, much more radical changes seem to me to be called for than are attempted by Professor Nicholson. Following Mill, he proceeds, after a few introductory chapters on utility, production, nature and labor, to an early consideration of capital, the law of diminishing returns, the principle of population. Distribution then follows in the next book, presented again, in the main, with Mill's order; while exchange and money are left entirely for a second volume. It would be a gain for the reader, fresh to the subject, if some consideration of money and exchange were introduced at an earlier point. The division of labor, as Adam Smith's example shows, leads naturally to the description of exchange, money, price and the whole mechanism of industrial societies. A considerable amount of descriptive matter may here be advantageously introduced, disposing of many of the cruder popular notions, and easing the way for the more complex questions of production and distribution. The details of the theory of money and prices may, indeed, be postponed to a later stage; but those who have been called on to expound economics to beginners will probably agree that the complete omission of this topic in the introductory chapters is a mistake. Similarly, it seems to be a mistake in the book on distribution, to treat first of private property at large, of inheritance and of property in land, and thereafter of wages, profits and rent. For the trained thinker this may be the more philosophic and satisfactory arrangement; but for the beginner and the general

reader matters are simplified if distribution, as it takes place under a régime of private property, is first analyzed, and its justification and probable future are reserved for later treatment. Professor Nicholson, indeed, recognizes this in some degree by putting his discussion of socialism, not where Mill put it, at the beginning of the book on distribution, but at the very end; a shift which leaves a wide gap between the discussions of closely related fundamental questions.

So much as to presentation and arrangement. As to substance, the opinions of economists on Professor Nicholson's views must vary as widely as their own conclusions vary or appear to vary. To the present writer, he seems to have been more successful in his first book than in his second. Indeed, the first book seems to be more carefully worked over, both in manner and in matter, than the second. The chapters in the former on labor, diminishing returns, population, are excellent. The chapter on capital is perhaps less satisfactory, and might gain by a further infusion of those old ideas in new dress which the Austrians present in their doctrines as to productive and consumptive goods, or future goods and present goods. The chapter on consumption gives reasons for not accepting Professor Marshall's views on the significance of consumer's rent, but hardly succeeds in doing more than direct attention to limitations in the applications of that principle which Professor Marshall himself cannot be said to have neglected.1

In the second book, the introductory chapters (apart from the possible mistake in making them introductory) and the chapters on the history of custom, feudalism and land tenure, are again good; though a doubt might be raised here also as to whether the historical matter is introduced in the most advantageous order. On the deep-reaching question of the principles of ideal distribution, there will inevitably be difference of opinion; and it would certainly seem that Professor Nicholson lays undue stress on the efficient organization of production as the dominant aim of distribution. On the crucial and much-debated topics of general wages and profits, the exposition seems to the present writer least satisfactory of all. We have a rejection of the wages-fund doctrine in its bearing on general wages, with yet some implication that it has a basis of truth as to the dealings of particular groups of laborers with their employers. In fact, any basis of truth (and there is a substantial amount of it)

1 In the Economic Journal for March, 1894, Professor Edgeworth presents some effective criticism on the objections raised by Professor Nicholson to the doctrine of consumer's rent.

which may underlie the wages-fund version of the relation of capital to labor, seems to the present writer to apply to general wages only, and not to the wages of particular groups. As to differences of wages, again, there is in Professor Nicholson's chapter no sufficiently emphatic distinction between the differences which represent the equalizing effect of competition and those which are due to the the absence of effective competition: a distinction on which hinge the most perplexing problems of distribution and exchange. And as to general profits and interest, the exposition again seems vague and unsatisfactory. In passing, it may be remarked on the discussion of interest that Professor Nicholson, in accepting the term "waiting" in place of the old-fashioned term "abstinence," ascribes the innovation to Professor Marshall, who himself has been careful to credit it to the real author, Professor Macvane.

In the present stage of economic theory, comment on a book like this must largely represent the opinion of the individual critic, rather than judgment from the point of view of accepted scientific truth, and difference is not inconsistent with respect for the author's methods and conclusions. Whatever the views of the student of political science, he will extend a cordial welcome to such a volume, and will await with interest the next instalment, in which Professor Nicholson, already known for his capable treatment of monetary subjects, may be expected to complete his book by the discussion of exchange, money, finance and the functions of government.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

F. W. TAUSSIG.

Les Bourses du Travail. Par G. DE MOLINARI. Paris, Guillaumin et Cie., 1893. —xii, 325 pp.

The position maintained by the editor of the Journal des Économistes in this book is that, since labor is a commodity of exchange, it cannot secure a fair chance for itself in the market till it makes use of the machinery by which the exchange of other commodities of a like wide demand is effected. Wages to-day do not represent a fair price for labor, because of the greater exigencies of the laborer's needs. While the capitalist can place his capital to the best advantage, regardless of time and place, the laborer must sell his labor at once and at the place where he lives. In other words, the laborer is still dependent on the conditions of the local market. The institutions of slavery, serfdom and the guilds of the middle ages attempted to give the laborer greater security, but they have proved

inadequate. On the other hand, in the case of the great staples of commerce, an enormous extension of the market, an easy movement of the supply to meet the demand, and the fixing of a market price independent of local conditions, have been effected by a class of middlemen and speculators and through organized bourses or exchanges. The application of the same machinery to the labor market, and the consequent publicity in regard to the demand for labor in different localities, would give results of equal value. The complete transferability of labor would be at last effected, demand and supply would balance with accuracy, and an impersonal and just market price for labor would be established; then wages would rise and the labor problem would vanish.

This clear and vigorous argument by M. de Molinari only emphasizes once more, and more strongly than would a less able work, the futility of disregarding the real differences between labor and commodities. And even if labor be treated as a commodity, the author has not sufficiently tested its availability for speculative transactions through the medium of exchanges, which he advocates as the solution of the problem. In the first place, he overlooks the fact that the non-transferability of labor is due, not so much to the lack of adequate machinery of exchange or to ignorance of the foreign (non-local) demand, as to a more fundamental cause, namely, the will of the laborer himself. The laborer is after all a man. He has a wife and children, and desires a fixed habitat for them. He himself refuses to have his household moved hither and thither at every fluctuation in demand. Again, the extension of the market through exchanges has only been possible in the case of representative (fungible) goods. But labor, even if it can be graded like wheat or cotton, is seen not to be a good of this kind at all, when we consider that a man's capacity for work is a constantly varying quantity and dependent on numberless conditions. But furthermore, labor is something which is continually "spoiling." Its use (consumption) cannot be delayed. Every idle day is a net loss. While at the same time the cost of holding it back involves the enormous cost of maintaining the laborer. He cannot provide this support himself, nor can the middleman provide it. He is still at the mercy of the capitalist. Suppose holding back wheat meant a daily shrinkage of the stocks held and a continuous large outlay to keep them from becoming altogether worthless, how long would a class of middlemen be found to handle such a commodity, or how long would its price remain independent of local conditions?

Considerations of this kind show that the dependence of labor on a local market is a necessity of its nature, and that a world market cannot be created for it by the extension of any system of exchange. H. C. EMERY.

COLUMBIA COLLEGE.

Women Wage-Earners: their Past, their Present and their Future. By HELEN CAMPBELL. Boston, Roberts Brothers, 1893. — viii, 313 PP.

This book is an attempt to collect all the facts concerning workingwomen in a convenient and readable form. The author's purpose, as stated in the introduction, is to "aid all other women in their struggle, . . . to define the nature, the necessities and the limits of such struggle," and "to discover, through such light as past and present may cast, the future for women workers the world over."

Mrs. Campbell's opening chapter, on the condition of women from primitive times to the latter part of the eighteenth century, is quite unsatisfactory, and has little relation to the rest of the book. The following chapters, which show the employments for women during colonial times and during the early period of the factory system, the rise and growth of trades, the relation of labor bureaus to women, the present rates of wages in the United States, the general conditions for English, continental and American workers, and the evils and abuses attendant thereon, contain much information in an available form for the popular reader.

It is unfortunate, however, that the statistics are frequently so inaccurate as to render the book untrustworthy. For example, the table on page 108 is said to have been "copied with minute care from that given in the last census; and while it shows one or two deficiencies, the writer is in no sense responsible for them, its accuracy, as a whole, not being affected by the slight discrepancy referred to." It is perplexing to find, after this, that the percentage of males employed in book-binding is given as 4,831; of females, 4,553; of children, 616. In the table of the census report from which these figures are copied, the corresponding percentages are 48.31, 45.53 and 6.16. "Minute care," in statistics, involves attention even to decimal points. Neglect of this fact has rendered the author's table worthless.

Again, let us test the accuracy of the following paragraph:

In 1865 women operatives in the factories of Massachusetts were 32,239, or nineteen per cent of men operatives. In 1875 they were 83,207, or