the nature of the money function. All our financial legislation since 1862 legal-tender acts, national-banking system, Bland and Sherman bills has been mistaken. The Canadian banking system is held up as a model. There is little new in the book, but it is a clear presentation of the laissez-faire theory of money and banking.

Mr. Charles W. Smith, who writes "after thirty years' experience in the commercial world," has published a work with the somewhat startling title: Commercial Gambling the Principal Cause of Depression in Agriculture and Trade (London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1893). Mr. Smith maintains that the present low price of all commodities and the consequent depression of trade are due to speculative or "short" sales of grain, provisions and cotton. He attributes seventy-five per cent of the fall in the price of most commodities in the last fifteen years to this cause alone. At the same time he maintains that buying in to cover such sales does not raise prices, because the sellers for the most part hold actual produce against other sales, and are therefore not forced to buy, or in other words they are not "short" sellers at all. The remedy advocated is the enactment of laws on the lines of the Hatch and Washburn bills.

Professors Brentano, of Munich, and Lester, of Heidelberg, have begun the publication of a series of reprints and translations of important German and foreign works, under the title: Sammlung Älterer und Neuerer Staatswissenschaftlicher Schriften des In- und Auslandes (Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot). The first number is a translation of Beatrice Potter's work on coöperation. More interesting to foreigners are the two following numbers containing reprints of (1) "Die drei Flugschriften über den Münzstreit der Sächsischen Albertiner und Ernestiner um 1530," edited by Professor Lotz; and (2) the monograph on "Liquidation und Restitution der Deutschen Volkswirtschaft nach dem Dreissigjährigen Kriege," edited by Dr. Gotheim. The first of these works has long been famous as containing perhaps the most remarkable discussion of currency matters in Germany, and has been much quoted by German writers. It is printed both in the original text and in a modern German version, and will be welcome to students of economic history. The second work is of more particular interest to investigators of German history and economics, and is for Germany very much what the dialogue of Stafford or Hales is for England. The fourth number in the series is a translation of some of the pamphlets by James Anderson on "Land and the Corn Laws," which have become exceedingly rare in

the original. It is very much to be hoped that the American and the British Economic Association will soon begin to carry out their promises and do for their respective countries what these two professors are doing for Germany.

The first volume of the Dictionary of Political Economy, edited by Mr. Inglis Palgrave, the separate instalments of which have been noticed from time to time in this QUARTERLY, has now been published by Macmillan. It has been edited on the whole with consummate skill, and is far superior to the unwieldy German. Handwörterbuch, as well as to the rather one-sided and often superficial French Dictionnaire. The editor has been very catholic in his choice of collaborators, who comprise men of the most divergent schools and interests. Special attention is given to the bibliography and to the history of economic institutions and doctrines, without at all neglecting the positive theory of actual industrial life. of the definitions are models of brevity. The articles on the whole are just and impartial, although we find occasional lapses, as in the article on "Betterment." It goes without saying that the dictionary will be absolutely indispensable to all serious students. The present volume finishes the letter E. The work will be published hereafter, not in instalments, but in complete volumes.

Many

Swan Sonnenschein & Co. have recently issued a translation by the Rev. Arthur Lloyd of the learned work on Agriculture Insurance, by Prof. P. Mayet. This is a volume originally written for official use in Japan, and is devoted to a discussion of the Japanese agricultural distress and the best means of relieving it. The author, through his semi-official position, has acquired a thorough acquaintance with Japanese conditions. He attempts to effect the elevation of the peasantry by introducing institutions such as savings banks, agricultural credit offices, and others which have already proved their utility on the European continent. The new feature of the book, however, is the great extension given to the idea of compulsory insurance, which the author thinks should be applied not only in the case of fire, but also for all serious injuries that can affect agriculture, such as hail, floods, insects, plant diseases, typhoons, earthquakes, etc. He recommends, in short, a complete system of house, cattle and crop insurance. In view of the fact that the land tax in Japan amounts to seventy-six per cent of the total revenues, and to about one-third of the net produce of the land, the importance of the problem becomes apparent. Incidentally, a complete sketch of the history and condition of Japanese public finance

is given. From the Japanese point of view it would seem that Professor Mayet's plan has much to recommend it. Some of his previous propositions have already been adopted by the Japanese government. Whatever may be the fate of the present project, his work will be found to be most suggestive. A series of important tables in the appendix contain detailed statements of the "Agricultural Distress Funds" as applied in recent years in Japan.

A long-felt want has been partially satisfied by J. J. O'Meara's Municipal Taxation at Home and Abroad (London, Cassell, 1894). It may safely be said that not a single work on public finance in general has given any adequate attention to the subject of municipal revenue. The present volume is interesting and valuable chiefly in that it contains full information about pretty much every country in Europe on the subject of local taxation. The chapter on Switzerland is very inadequate, and that on the United States is exceedingly fragmentary. The weakness of the book for scientific purposes is the complete absence of any citation or reference to authorities. The author, who describes himself as a Dublin solicitor, makes out a very strong case for the relative injustice of the British local system. The proposed remedies-the municipal probate duty and the local income tax- are not apt to commend themselves to the good judgment of British reformers. But as a convenient and fairly accurate statement of the European facts the book will receive a hearty welcome from students of finance.

In consequence of the renewed interest taken in the temperance legislation in Great Britain, an English member of Parliament, Mr. W. Rathbone, commissioned Mr. E. L. Fanshawe to visit this country in order to study our system. The result of the extended investigation has now appeared under the title: Liquor Legislation in the United States and Canada (London, Cassell, 1894). The investigation covers all the important states in this country, with a chapter on Canada, and it is beyond all doubt the fullest and most valuable report that has ever yet been printed on the subject. Prohibition, local option, high license and state dispensaries are all treated in turn with most interesting detail, based upon personal observation. Mr. Fanshawe shows the faculty of a trained observer, and is clearly endowed with a sane judgment. His work is in every respect an admirable production.

In Social Peace, a Study of the Trade- Union Movement in England (London, Swan Sonnenschein & Co., imported by Scribners, 1893), Dr. G. von Schulze-Gaevernitz issues a somewhat abridged English

version of his two-volume work which was reviewed in the POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY, VI, 348 (June, 1891). He now adds an introduction which throws a somewhat amusing light on the condition of the labor question in Germany. The work is an excellent one. It is translated by Mr. C. W. Wicksteed and edited by Mr. Graham Wallas.

The Handbook of Sociological Information, with especial reference to New York City, which was prepared for the City Vigilance League by Dr. William Howe Tolman and Dr. William I. Hull, has passed to a second edition, which contains as much again matter as the first. The new matter is valuable. It includes a description of the institutions and associations in New York City which are designed to modify and ameliorate social conditions, and which are said to be representatives of "applied sociology." Each institution is described by a writer who knows his subject at first hand and signs his name. Such work has been needed, and will call forth the thanks of every sociological student and of every philanthropic worker. The first and older part of the book, purporting to be a bibliography of sociology, is unsatisfactory as a whole, though possessing many good features. In making it up the editors do not seem to have been guided by any definite conception as to what sociology is and what it is not. This part can only be described as a partial list of books and magazine articles on sociology, political economy, political science, charity, criminology and penology, social ethics, temperance, womanhood, university settlements, the Salvation Army, and many other important subjects.

Louis Paoli's Le Code Pénal d'Italie et son Système Pénal is a historical, descriptive and critical examination of the code of June 30, 1889. The author concludes that that code is "a treatise on penal philosophy." It has held in the main to the older views of criminal responsibility, but not without regard to the doctrines of criminal anthropology, especially in its dealing with the criminal insane. The questions of penitentiary methods, of conditional liberation, of the indeterminate sentence and of recidivism have been considered, he thinks, with great care. The abolition of capital punishment truly reflects Italian opinion. In short, to M. Paoli "the theoretical value of the new code seems undeniable; its practical value time will determine."

POLITICAL SCIENCE

QUARTERLY.

THE TARIFF ACT OF 1894.

OW that the tariff act of 1894 has passed into history

Now

and the clamor of campaign abuse and praise has come to an end for a space, it may be well to review briefly the history and the provisions of the measure, and to consider what place it has in the development of our tariff legislation. Current events pass rapidly into history, and details which were familiar when fresh are easily forgotten as new happenings press their claims to immediate attention. Some account of the act of 1894 deserves to be put on record before it is relegated to that past which is so recent as not yet to have a place in the pages of history.

measure.

I.

First, briefly to recall the events which led up to the new It may be traced directly to President Cleveland's tariff message of 1887, which committed his party, till then but half-hearted, to an unreserved declaration in favor of free raw materials and lower duties on manufactures. On the issue thus raised, the campaign of 1888 brought a victory for the Republicans, followed in due time by the tariff act of 1890 — a measure which, it is safe to say, would never have been brought forward had it not been for the accentuation of party differences on the tariff that followed President Cleveland's bold stand for lower duties. The Republicans, not discouraged by their severe defeat in the Congressional elections of 1890, held