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and human exertion. The last is divisible into labor and ability. "Labor is mainly muscular exertion. . . . History shows us that it is not progressive except within very narrow limits, that were reached, at all events, by the end of the last century." "Ability, on the other hand, is essentially mental or moral exertion capable of affecting simultaneously the labor of an indefinite number of individuals.” Its inventions, enterprise, persistence and powers of organization make possible increased production and the accumulation of capital. Wage capital enables men to complete the longer and more profitable undertakings and permits the exceptional qualities of a few men "so to animate, to organize and direct the average physical exertions of the many as to improve, multiply or to hasten the results of that exertion without increasing its quantity."

What part ability has had in the increase of the national income of the United Kingdom during the last hundred years from £140,000,000 to £1,300,000,000 is now easily reckoned. The population in 1800 was 10,000,000; the population now is 38,000,000. Average production was then £14 per head; it is now £35 per head. Premising always that labor is not progressive, and assuming that even in 1800 labor produced the whole of that income, eight hundred millions of the present income must be credited to ability. Labor, however, is taken to bear the same numerical proportion to ability as the portion of the male population over sixteen years old, gainfully employed and exempt from the income tax, bears to that portion paying the tax on £150 or more. This ratio is 94 6. That is, six per cent of the industrial population produces over two-thirds of the national income. But labor's reward has constantly increased. In 1800, 10,000,000 laborers received £70,000,000; in 1860, £160,000,000; to-day, £200,000,000 per annum. The present annual income of the British laboring classes is estimated at £660,000,000, or £47,000,000 a year more, in proportion to their numbers, than the entire national income in 1843.

Mr. Mallock does not fail to emphasize the significance of this remarkable progress, and to show how much more the existing system has done and is doing than the most sanguine socialist ever promised. Then by the help of Mr. Giffen's statistics, the author indicates how labor, and not rents or interest, has gained. more than any other factor of production from the last half century of economic progress. The causes of this progress are found in man's pursuit of his individual interest, e.g., in increasing the return from a given effort, and in his deliberate and concerted action under

taken for the advantage of a class, e.g., trade unions and so called "socialistic" legislation. The cause of labor's greater gain is in the competition of ability with ability for the services of laborers, and in the fall of the rate of interest. But the increase of labor's share has its limit at the point where the productive powers of ability end and the effective inducement to the exertion of ability vanishes. Within this limit the just hope of labor is yet enormous so great, indeed, that within thirty years, thinks Mr. Mallock, labor will enjoy some £1,300,000,000 a year, a sum equal to the whole of the present national income.

It is well that the reader is warned in the preface of the necessity of qualifying and adding to the propositions laid down in these pages. A work such as this, intended to be popular, if read as "popular" books usually are, is liable to cause as many misconceptions as it removes, particularly when the arguments on a broad question are so compressed and based to so great an extent upon statistics. The premise that labor is unprogressive that its productivity, unsupplemented, is stationary — is specious, but will seem to many unjustified by the facts. Nor can one accept all of Mr. Mallock's theoretical statements, though here, of course, their very conciseness may cause the difficulty. Generally, however, the reasoning is very clear, the arrangement logical and the literary treatment charming for its interest and animation.

COLUMBIA COLLEGE.

ROELIFF M. BRECKENRIDGE.

The Organization of Charities; being a Report of the Sixth Section of the International Congress of Charities, Corrections and Philanthropy, Chicago, June, 1893. Edited with an Introduction by DANIEL C. GILMAN, LL.D. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1894.-8vo, xxxii, 400 pp.

The committee which had charge of the section on charity organization at the Congress of Charities in 1893 determined to utilize the occasion to make a collection of papers from the best informed persons, which should present the actual status of charity work in the different countries of the world at the present time. A permanent service has thus been rendered to all interested in the subject, more useful, perhaps, than the meeting of the congress itself. The present volume contains these essays, nine from the United States, fifteen from England and Scotland, six from Germany and one each from France, Italy and Russia. There are, in

addition, an introduction by President Gilman, an essay on "The Problem of Charity," by Dr. Francis G. Peabody, and an excellent report of the debates and discussions.

The keynote of all the papers as well as of the discussions is naturally enough the necessity of organized charity. Mr. Kellogg emphasizes the well-known principles of charity organization in giving the history of such societies in the United States. The history as a whole is one of steady progress, of intelligent experimenting and of healthy diversity of development according to local needs and personal influences. The chief features of systematic charitable work are further emphasized by special papers on Labor Tests, Friendly Visiting, Registration, Coöperation of Public with Private Charitable Organizations and State Charities Aid Societies. Taken together they form an excellent survey of charity methods in the United States.

Of equal interest and even greater completeness are the papers from Great Britain. They were brought together by Mr. C. S. Loch, secretary of the Charity Organization Society of London, and were especially planned to present all the phases of charity work. Thus we have papers on charity relief from four different sections of London - the West End, the East End, Islington and St. Olave's. We have the experience in a small agricultural union, Bradfield, an industrial town, Rochdale, a great city, Manchester, and a Scotch town, Aberdeen. The problem, the methods of work, the character of the organization and resources differ in these examples, so that we have a fair presentation of difficulties and of ways of meeting them. Other papers deal with certain peculiarities of English charity work, especially with public poor relief.

In Germany, again, we have the general and the particular phases, such as the Elberfeld system, brought out in a systematic way. Dr. Victor Böhmert of Dresden, in particular, discusses the general principles of charity organization and the growth of the system in Germany with admirable thoroughness and sympathy. Three papers present the advantages and the weak side of the Elberfeld system which has attracted so much attention.

On the whole, although this volume has not the advantages of a systematic treatise, yet it is a very excellent collection of original material, which will be full of interest for persons engaged in active work or in study in connection with one of the most pressing problems of practical sociology. RICHMOND MAYO-SMITH.

Wirthschaftliche Fragen und Probleme der Gegenwart. Studien zu einem Systeme der Reinen und Technischen Oekonomik. Von Dr. EMANUEL HERRMANN. Leipzig, C. F. Winter, 1893. —vi, 480 pp.

This volume follows one by the same author entitled, Technische Fragen und Probleme, and is to be followed by one dealing with pure economics. Its title might have been Progress and Poverty, or Das Kapital, since it treats broadly the development of industrial society, and gives the author's views on the three specific subjects included in the titles mentioned. The conclusions, however, are diametrically opposed to those of George and Marx. "At the beginning of the world was labor, and at the end thereof will be capital," might be an appropriate conclusion, Dr. Herrmann thinks, to a comparative study of economic history. He says that the first threequarters of the present century were given up to improvements in the technical processes in industry, and that the last quarter seems likely to witness the reorganization of industrial society itself. "We live in a time of industrial reformation." The centralization of industry is taking place through three agencies- organization of labor, organization of capital and the extension of the functions of the state. His treatment of these much-talked-about phenomena does not add very much to what has been said on the subject. He is especially careful, however, to note all the ways in which the state is assuming power in industry; and as he has special knowledge of the facts of recent industrial history in Austria, this part of his preliminary sketch has considerable interest. He dwells particularly on the strict control exercised by the government over those industries which are subject to the internal revenue tax, mentions the nonchalance with which the state proceeds to tax natural monopolies under private management, and concludes that taxes, customs and other, act as a form of compulsory propaganda for the nationalizing of industries. He says that some private industries are still permitted to exist, but only to serve as cows which the state milks by means of taxes. He shows that the policy often resorted to by private corporations, of breaking down a rival by fierce competition preparatory to buying him out, has been followed by Austria in the acquisition of railroads.

Notwithstanding the heavy drift towards the complete nationalization of industry, he does not believe that this is to be the final form of industrial organization. He is a professor in a technological school; and while he admits that, where the technical processes

have been quite thoroughly perfected or are essentially simple, the state can carry on the industry, he yet holds that under state management the processes must deteriorate and improvement cease. Examples are given of improvements rejected in the manufacturing of tobacco, which is carried on as a state monopoly (pages 55-57). The bad and the common survive.

In trying to find some way in which industry may be saved from the danger of governmental domination, the author enters into an analysis of exchange, and finally of labor. The latter will be to many the most interesting part of the book; for his knowledge of technical processes enables him to show how and why labor has been displaced by machinery. Up to the present the machine is the most energetic schoolmaster for laborers, since it takes away from men only the work that is unworthy of them, while it opens up better forms of occupation. The laborers are ill-advised that resist technical improvements, since where the latter have not been introduced the suffering is greatest (page 381). Snow shoveling, for instance, is the final refuge of the unemployed. It could be as well done by horse-power; but as the employment of men involves no initial. outlay and no risk of capital, since the men are fitted for nothing else that needs doing and the contractor can consequently reckon on getting them to work for low wages, they are commonly employed, especially by the municipal governments. The street-car companies more commonly use horse-plows. To pass on to the better process may be hard for the incapable individuals who can do nothing but. shovel snow, but in the end it is a benefit to the race by obliging men to fit themselves for something better than shoveling.

Human strength as a source of mechanical energy is an unsatisfactory and very costly industrial agent. It is rapidly being replaced by something more reliable and more economical. A rise in wages without a corresponding increase in efficiency is the surest way of compelling the entrepreneur to dispense with human labor as far as possible (page 437). For all mechanical purposes the machine must finally displace the man, because it can be made to occupy less space, to cost less for repair, to work more continuously, and finally, to do more exact and uniform work.

He

The author divides laborers into several classes, according as the element of drudgery does or does not enter into their work. has the newer view of the evolutionary economist, who regards man as something essentially mutable, and he shows that drudgery is not only unpleasant but is fatal. Modern industry requires intelligence,