in democratic communities. As Professor Bryce has put it, the belief in the rights of the majority lies very near to the belief that the majority must be right.

Now, the question is precisely whether the legal recognition of the right of minorities to proportionate representation would not disestablish this superstition and do away with the weakness. Mr. Ritchie never suspects the existence of this phase of the question. That is the fatal weakness of his paper.

One praise can be bestowed unqualifiedly on the whole book. It has the first quality of all reading matter: it is readable.

Wм. J. ECKOff.

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO.

BOOK NOTES.

THE translation of Rousseau's Contrat Social by Rose M. Harrington (Putnams, 1893) is not likely to become a standard rendering from either the literary or the philosophical point of view. The French is followed too closely for graceful English, and the translator's acquaintance with political theory is at times quite unequal to the task of catching her author's precise meaning. For example: Rousseau's profound conclusion that the sovereign (the general will) is never wrong can hardly be detected in this: "The sovereign by the fact alone that it is is always what it must be" (ce qu'il doit être). Again, the characteristically clever passage in which Rousseau demonstrates the inalienability of sovereignty is made hopelessly feeble by the use of the verb "desire" instead of "will" "The sovereign may say, 'I desire now what such a man desires,' . . . but he cannot say, 'What this man will desire tomorrow I shall still desire.'" The translation contains rather too many such faults to be useful to the careful reader. Professor Walter's introduction and notes are slight but sound.

The most useful part of Joyce's Short History of Ireland (Longmans, 1893) is that dealing with the manners, customs and institutions of the ancient Irish. In this is given a faithful and concise summary of the knowledge on these points which has been extracted by recent scientific investigators from a chaos of undigested material. Incidentally the author aids readers who are uninitiated into the mysteries of Hibernian linguistics, by indicating the pronunciation of the old Celtic words. But no light is thrown on the origin or general principles of that system of transliteration which paralyzes the reasoning powers with such results as these : Biatad, pronounced "beeha"; faithche, pronounced "faha "; seanchaidhe, pronounced "shanachy"; side, pronounced "shee." The narrative part of Dr. Joyce's work, which is brought from the earliest times to the end of Elizabeth's reign, exhibits no characteristics that distinguish it from the better class of books dealing with the matter on a like scale. It is sufficiently impartial as between the English and the Irish, but it hardly glows with the light of historical or political philosophy.

In a useful little compilation, Industrial Arbitration and Conciliation (Putnams, 1893), Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell has brought together an account of some recent experiments to promote industrial peace. In addition to reprints from familiar works of Crompton and Watson, the book contains a description of the Belgian troubles and of a number of recent occurrences in various parts of the United States. The record of the American attempts, which occupies almost one half of the book, will serve to supplement the accounts given by Mr. Joseph D. Weeks in his book on Labor Differences.

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Mr. Grover Pease Osborne has written a book with a suggestive sub-title Principles of Economics, the Satisfaction of Human Wants in so far as their Satisfaction depends on Material Resources (Cincinnati, Robert Clarke & Co., 1893). It is a temperate and wellconstructed volume, which shows an acquaintance with the main principles of the science. The author has rearranged, without greatly modifying, the general outlines as sketched by the classical economists. He does not profess to dig deeper, and the reader who expects to find a profound psychology of human desires will be disappointed. But the book puts in a clear and elementary way some results of recent thought. In most cases only the slightest sketch of the subject is given and the writer occasionally lapses into errors, as eg. the labor theory of property and the unproductiveness of speculation.

A few years ago the late Elizabeth Lamond wrote an article on the celebrated economic tract, A Discourse of the Common Weal of this Realm of England, printed in 1581. It had commonly been attributed to W. S. (William Stafford), and, perhaps because of these initials, had been reprinted in a small edition by the new Shakespeare Society. Miss Lamond collected a mass of evidence tending to show that the work was written by John Hales, several decades previously. She worked for several years on a new edition based on the Lambarde MS., but died before its completion. Professor Cunningham has now edited the work (Cambridge, University Press, 1893) from her manuscript. It contains, in addition to the carefully collated text, an introduction discussing the whole subject of the authorship, and giving some interesting details as to the enclosures and the dearth of the sixteenth century. Almost a third of the volume is taken up with scholarly notes to the text. In its present

form it will be an invaluable aid to the economic historian.

Almost up to the very day of his death, the distinguished French economist, Henri Baudrillart, amid a mass of other duties, continued his travels and investigations among the rural communes of his

native country. The third volume of his remarkable study, Les Populations Agricoles de la France (Paris, Guillaumin, 1893), has just been edited by his son Alfred, and is wholly devoted to the southern departments. It is marked by the same scrupulous exactitude of fact and limpidity of style that immediately won so favorable a reception for his earlier volumes. Although primarily an economic history, it contains many details of interest to a wider circle of students of general social development.

Several months ago attention was called (POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY, VIII, 355) to the work by Professor Cossa on the theory and history of economics. The promised English translation, by Louis Dyer, of Balliol College, has recently appeared under the title, An Introduction to the Study of Political Economy (Macmillan, 1893). The translator has compiled an index of subjects, has enlarged the index of authors and has added a list of sources. its present shape the book is undoubtedly the best history of political economy in the English language.

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Macmillan has also brought out another translation for which the American student has long been impatiently waiting. It is the important work on Natural Value, by Professor Friedrich von Wieser, of the University of Prague, which was reviewed in this QUARTERLY shortly after its appearance in 1888 (IV, 681). The translation is by Christian A. Malloch, a former pupil of Mr. William Smart. Mr. Smart himself has supervised the work, and has added an analysis and a preface, in which he succeeds in putting the whole subject in the clearest possible light. The work is bound to become an economic classic, worthy of being ranked in the same category as the admirable translations of Böhm-Bawerk.

Not satisfied with the existing compilations and encyclopædias of political economy, Mr. Kuno Frankenstein has announced a scheme of such colossal scope as to exceed by far anything hitherto attempted. He has planned, under the title of Hand- und Lehrbuch der Staatswissenschaften, in selbstständigen Bänden, a series of works, written so as to form a homogeneous whole, which are to include the entire field of pure and practical economics, economic administration, finance, statistics and history of economic theory. There are to be about thirty-five large volumes, each undertaken by a separate author, to appear at the rate of five or six volumes a year. What the longsuffering German public will say to this is doubtful; but we shrink from contemplating the fate of this stupendous series at the hands of the general scientific world. The first volume, however, has just

appeared, and really deserves serious consideration. It is written by Professor Lehr of Munich, and is entitled Grundbegriffe und Grundlagen der Volkswirthschaft (Leipzig, C. S. Hirschfeld, 1893). It is devoted in great part to the subjects of value and price, and is interesting as an attempt to show the connection of the newer Austrian theories with the older classical conceptions. The author's views are on the whole moderate. The mathematical illustrations, in which he is an expert, are for the most part relegated to the notes. A feature of each volume in the series is to be a bibliography, written in some cases by the librarian of the Prussian statistical bureau, and in others by the editor. In the present work the bibliography covers twenty-eight large pages.

Under the direction of Professor Conrad, of Halle, Mr. Leo S. Rowe has published Die Gemeindefinanzen von Berlin und Paris (Jena, Fischer, 1893). It is a praiseworthy attempt to give in a wholly unprejudiced manner the actual facts of their fiscal systems, and will not be without interest to the student of American municipal finance. The monograph, we believe, will soon be made available to American readers.

Several important documents on the currency problem have recently been published by the national government. The first in order is the Report on the International Monetary Conference held at Brussels; the second is a reprint of the English blue-books containing the Herschell Report on the Indian Currency, with all the accompanying correspondence and testimony; the third is a translation of the work on The Future of Silver, by Süss, which was noticed in this QUARTERLY, VIII, 365 (June, 1893).

Six new essays appear in a second edition of Professor J. S. Nicholson's Treatise on Money and Essays on Monetary Problems (London, A. & C. Black, 1893). As in the former edition, the whole discussion turns about bimetallism, of which the author is an enthusiastic supporter. The new essays contain timely discussions of Mr. Giffen's recent attack on M. de Rothschild's proposal to the Monetary Conference and of the new Indian currency experiment. The work is written in a popular and engaging style.

It cannot be said that The Life and Times of C. G. Memminger, by Henry C. Capers (Richmond, Everett Waddey Co., 1893), is an ideal biography. It is ill-proportioned, diffuse and poorly written. But it will none the less be of very great interest to the student of Confederate finance. Mr. Memminger was secretary of the treasury of the Confederate States from their inception almost to