Historical Society, treated of the colonial currency exclusively; and, although his subject brought him in touch with the transactions of the New London Society, he made no effort to analyze its affairs in detail.*

It is more than probable that materials may be found in Connecticut for a more complete history of this interesting experiment. The authorities for the foregoing account are practically confined to the colonial records and the Talcott papers in the publications of the Connecticut Historical Society. No person can rise from the perusal of these documents without feeling respect for the colonial government of Connecticut. The wisdom with which they treated the New London Society, whether we have regard to its peremptory closure or to the aid extended to its members in the performance of the duty imposed upon them to withdraw the circulation, is in marked contrast with the proceedings in Massachusetts under the arbitrary act of Parliament.

ANDREW MACFARLAND Davis.

* Historical Account of the Connecticut Currency, by Henry Bronson, M.D., New Haven Historical Society Papers, vol. i., following p. 170, with a pagination of its own. See the notes, pp. 42, 43, of the separate pagination.

LEVASSEUR'S "L'OUVRIER AMÉRICAIN."*

ECONOMISTS need no assurance that M. Émile Levasseur's recently published treatise on the American Workman gives evidence of painstaking, exhaustive, and scholarly research; of this the author's great repute is in itself ample guarantee. No work in English is at all comparable to this able, statistically descriptive presentation of economic and social conditions in the United States; the work has been left for a foreigner to do, in a foreign tongue, under the direction of two foreign institutions of learning in the interests of a foreign constituency; and, except for the same author's threevolume study of the French population, the work is indeed unique.

Avowedly a study of the American workman in his environment, these two volumes comprehend a full account of the development of American industries, a statement of the material resources of the United States, a forecast of probable economic progress during the next twenty or thirty years, a comprehensive discussion of labor conditions and problems, of social dogmas and of political tendencies. The scope of the author's investigations may be gathered from the following selection of chapter titles: Food of Workmen, Clothing, Lodging, Loan and Building Associations, Savings and Insurance, Real Wages and the Workingman's Budget of Income and Expenditure, The Accumulation of Fortunes and American Democracy, Tariff, Poor Relief, Conciliation and Arbitration, Socialism, Labor Laws, Labor Organizations, Wages of Men, Wages of Women and Children, Sweating, Immigration, Strikes, Crises. These subjects are treated at length, as they concern the social and material welfare of American workmen. In contrast with some more pretentious compilations, supposed to be descriptive of American character and conditions, M. Levasseur's work gives evidence of a more courteous and sympathetic, as it is a more scholarly, consideration

* L'Ouvrier au Travail. L'Ouvrier chez lui. Les Questions Ouvrières. É. Levasseur. Paris, 1898.

of traits and institutions peculiarly American; and of the author's freedom from national prejudice - one had almost said egotism which not infrequently characterizes the writings of those foreigners who have attempted to "do" the country in a few weeks' sojourn. The author briefly sets forth the character of the work which he has accomplished, as follows: "In the chapters of this work, I have presented in their several aspects the material and moral conditions which surround the American workman: first, as he appears in the workshop at work; and, secondly, as he appears in the home. I have set forth the relations existing between him and his employers and his hopes of social amelioration; and I have attempted to make of him a character study, which, if it is not complete, has at least been done in all sincerity."

In estimating the development of American industries during this century, more especially during the last fifty years, the economist is face to face with one of the most perplexing statistical problems. The rise of new industries the exploitation of new sources of power, the adoption of new processes of production, the reorganization of industry and the instability of values are variables tending to vitiate comparative statistical estimates of material resources, past and present. Even within any single industry permanently operating during the entire period considered, changes in processes and in organization make comparative estimates misleading. It is with a full appreciation of these difficulties that M. Levasseur has undertaken his account of the industrial development of the United States; and these difficulties he has overcome, where they are not insuperable. In the hands of a less skilful writer, so compendious an undertaking must have assumed the form of a compilation such as German scholars are more accustomed to undertake. It is a peculiar excellence in M. Levasseur's work that he has succeeded, in spite of the immense mass of detailed statistical and descriptive data brought together, in giving to it a form and character which once for all removes it from the category of mechanical compilations. The reader is made to feel that the material has been so handled and synthesized as to compose a real treatise on the American workman at work, at home, as a citizen; and

he is made to feel, further, that the author has indeed "chosen impartially," that he has not been blinded by a "national vanity" which might have led him to "misjudge unfamiliar manners and customs of living and thinking."

The American employer M. Levasseur finds energetic, disposed to fulfil the conditions of contracts entered into with his workmen and exacting a like fulfilment of contracts from them, somewhat self-centred, "profoundly individualistic," and disposed to regard his duties to his employees performed and his responsibility for their welfare ended with the payment of stipulated wages. "Socially, it results from this individualism that the relations existing between employer and employed do not extend beyond the factory door." M. Levasseur urges upon American workmen, employers and employed alike, the necessity of coming to a fuller mutual understanding of each other's needs and aspirations, and of cultivating reciprocal toleration. "It is to be hoped," he observes, "that employers may become less absolute in formulating their demands, and more generally conciliatory in dealing with their employed." And, on the other hand, "that labor organizations may manifest less defiance towards employers, and less hostility to propositions brought forward for the advantage of workmen." M. Levasseur, however, is too well aware of the new conditions in modern industrial organization which have complicated the relations of employer to employed to look for a "solution" of the labor problem, as some American sociologists are disposed to do, in a moral regeneration of the parties engaged in production. These writers, who insist upon such regeneration, insinuate more or less directly that there has been a moral degeneration; and the animus of the individual writer usually manifests itself in fastening this degeneration upon one or another employing or employedclass, according to personal prejudice.

Such an animus is manifest in the observation attributed to an American writer, that laborers are defiant because they are defying a class which has opposed every reform beneficial to them. It is altogether improbable that the reorganization of industry during this century, more particularly during the last quarter of the century,- obviously occasioned by the ex

ploitation of new natural forces, the differentiation of employments, and the intenser capitalization of industry,- has been accompanied by any marked moral degeneration; and it is no more likely that a "solution" of the labor problem, in so far as that problem is peculiar to our present industrial organization, lies in the propagandic inculcation of "toleration and benevolence," or other virtues. The labor problem is inherent in the complexity of modern industrial conditions,- a complexity which defies simplification in the adjustment of individual interests. The problem is to bring some sort of harmony out of the conflict, real or apparent, of these interests; and no permanent harmony can or ought to depend upon forbearance and toleration. For, while there may be individuals in a community willing to sacrifice self-interests, there certainly are not industrial groups willing, as groups, to make such sacrifices. There is no organized industrial group in society to-day- whether of employers or employed, in industry, agriculture, or trade — which does not proclaim that it is receiving less than its dues, no group which manifests the least disposition to take a farthing less than the utmost it can exact from society. Each group is bound to seek its own interest, and, in a large sense, may be said to be right in doing so; and is bound to exploit less efficient industrial groups. That the "solution" of the labor problem, or composite of labor problems, does not devolve upon altruistic forbearance is sufficiently obvious when it is reflected that that solution is actually accomplished from day to day; that from day to day contracts for the employment of labor and capital are made, and the product of labor and capital is distributed in accordance with certain accepted principles of repartition. The higher co-operative organization of industry complicates the adjustment of individual claims; but some adjustment is accomplished, and the "solution" of the labor problem is effected by those actually engaged in the production of wealth.

Further, it is inconceivable that any of the parties concerned in this production should be materially influenced by would-be social reformers to forego any considerable share in the product of industry now apportioned to them in open com