diminished, and there has been an "enormous increase" in the number of women working in agriculture for wages. This

last fact is, as the author says, most remarkable. He thinks it shows "that there is no longer any room in German agriculture for the small man, working either as an independent farmer or even as a labourer. He drifts into towns, leaving the women to take his place. Protection, which has promised so many blessings to the small farmer and the labourer, has tremendously increased the process of rural depopulation so far as the menyounger sons of the small farmer for the most part-are concerned." "Those in our own countryside," says the writer, "who are inclined to listen to the specious promises of the Tariff Reformers on the subject of agricultural revival through peasant proprietorship, would do well to think twice, and three times, before they give them a favourable reply." The pamphlet certainly seems to justify the forebodings of English Free Traders with regard to the probable effects of the duties which Tariff Reformers propose to levy on imported agricultural products. HENRY S. FURNISS

Economic Prejudices. By YVES GUYOT. Translated by FRED ROTHWELL. (Social Science Series.) (London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co., 1910. Pp. x+166. 2s. 6d.)

THE greater part of this book is written in the form of dialogues, in which "economic science is championed by M. Faubert. As the name implies . . . he is the mop, or swab a sailor uses, when washing down and cleaning a ship's deck " (p. vii.). He is, to say the least, a somewhat old-fashioned economist. He takes a decidedly optimistic view of existing economic conditions, and is very much the sort of man that some of the members of the orthodox school of economists were supposed to be by unfriendly critics. He is irritatingly cocksure and aggressively dogmatic, while his antagonists in the various discussions are mere puppets of straw, who appear to be quite incapable of defending their position, even when they are given a chance of doing so, which is not very often. The dialogue form has been adopted, the author says, "as being the quickest method of setting affirmations and objections over against each other. In the language of fencing, this is the "give and take method" (p. vii.). Our principal objection to the book is that there is not enough "give and take" about it. M. Faubert, naturally, always has the last word, but it is

unfortunately by no means the last word that can be said upon most of the subjects discussed. The arguments are much too one-sided, and we never feel that M. Faubert's antagonists are allowed to state their case to the best possible advantage.

Many popular fallacies, however, are cleverly refuted; such, e.g., as the notion that orthodox economy is bankrupt, and the idea that economic science may be true in theory, but false in practice. The criticism of the use made by Protectionists and Socialists of the law of supply and demand is good, and the excess of English imports is clearly, but rather heavily, explained by John Bull.

The Colbertist puts the case for Protection so badly that M. Faubert has very little difficulty in making it appear ridiculous. His opponent attempts little more than the mere statement of propositions like the following: Everything is too cheap England is a Protectionist country, though she pretends to have adopted Free Trade: France ought to provide for herself: In international trade it is nations, not individuals, that exchange goods and We must make the foreigner pay for a portion of our taxes.

With the aspirations of the Socialists, M. Faubert has no sympathy at all, and he is quite uncompromising in his criticism of their proposals, which are, like those of the Protectionists, most feebly defended. The following is the whole of Chapter vii., of Book VII., entitled, "The Workman should own the Instruments of his Trade" (p. 143). We quote it as an example of the author's method.

THE SOCIALIST. Evidently, since the workman does not own his tools, it is our object to put down the whole of the capitalistic system.

M. FAUBERT. Do you think that the Lyons silk-weaver, in spite of his skill, his long training and a perfect mastery of his trade, is as well paid as a workman who has nothing to do beyond attending to a turning or planing machine?

THE SOCIALIST. No.

M. FAUBERT. Well, the Lyons silk-weaver is the possessor of his own loom.

We cannot help thinking that a Socialist who knew his business would have a good deal more to say on this subject, and that he would not be likely to let the argument drop here.

The objects and methods of Trade Unions also come under M. Faubert's condemnation, but his criticism of these bodies is anything but convincing. For instance, Mr. Faubert is made to

point out that women's wages have risen without the aid of strikes and Trade Unions faster than the wages of men in certain trades where these weapons have been employed. This is supposed to prove that Trade Unions are not needed in order to induce masters to raise wages (pp. 117-9). Again, it is hardly fair to say that Mr. Henderson, the late Chairman of the Labour Party, "would like to encourage" unemployment because he advocated shorter hours, the suppression of work on Saturdays, and the non-employment of youths before the age of eighteen (pp. 95-6). In Book VI., chapter iii., entitled "Machinery lowers Wages," M. Faubert dogmatically asserts that machinery raises wages. He makes scarcely any attempt to distinguish between its short-run and long-run effects, and altogether glosses over the fact that its introduction, while bringing permanent benefits to the community as a whole, may involve great hardships to individuals.

Some well-known criticisms of the Socialists, and especially of the Marxians, are very clearly and concisely stated in Book VII., and the author, we think, does well to insist on the fact that critics of the existing order of things are too apt to lay stress on the distribution of wealth, to the neglect of production (Book IX., ch. i.). "The earth's surface," he says, "does not supply sufficient material to feed, clothe, and house decently the 1,600,000,000 inhabitants existing thereon. The problem to solve is how are we to increase production?" The next statement, viz., that "this latter [the increase of production] alone will diminish privation and poverty" (p. 158), is, however, more open to question.

Book VIII. of the volume is occupied with a discussion of taxation. Upon this subject M. Faubert's views are almost entirely negative. Of course, he will have nothing to do with protective duties, nor does he like progressive taxation, and he objects to an income tax on the somewhat curious ground "that there is no fixed income; for if," he says, "the capital that produces it varies in value, the income increases or diminishes. accordingly. Income is nothing more than a slice of the capital" (p. 150). The taxation of the increment value of land is also abhorrent to him, and in a dialogue with Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Harold Cox, he re-states some of the arguments against the new Increment Value Duty of which we have lately heard so much. Mr. Harold Cox, by the way, is made to overlook the fact that, with regard to the Increment Value Duty, the first 10 per cent. of increment goes free, a point which is often forgotten.

The book would, we think, have been improved if it had not been subdivided into so many little books and chapters. The volume, which only consists of 166 small pages, is divided into no less than nine books, which contain altogether sixty-two chapters. This will give some idea of the length of the chapters. These numerous subdivisions break up the argument too much, and make the treatment of some of the subjects very scrappy.

The book is very inferior to Bastiat's Sophismes Economiques, upon which it is, according to the author (p. v.), to some extent modelled. It is, on the whole, disappointing, but we have not seen the French original, and cannot help thinking that the book has greatly suffered in the translation. The English is often bad, and sentences here and there are almost unintelligible. We have also noticed several misprints.

HENRY S. FURNISS

The King's Customs. (Vol. II.) An Account of Maritime Revenue, Contraband Traffic, the Introduction of Free Trade, and the Abolition of the Navigation and Corn Laws from 1801 to 1855. By HENRY ATTON and HENRY HURST HOLLAND, with Preface by F. S. Parry, C.B. (London:

John Murray. 10s. 6d. net.)

IN a notice of the first volume of this work, which brought the subject dealt with down to the year 1800, published in the ECONOMIC JOURNAL of September, 1909, we had occasion to point out the disappointment which awaited the student of economic history when he came to peruse the pages of the book. The shortcomings of Volume I. are repeated in Volume II., although, perhaps, to a rather less degree. The authors say they have had access to "accounts of the practical working of the revenue, navigation, slave, corn, fishery, and copyright laws preserved in a room at the Custom House, London," and record the discovery of "the 'Plantation Papers' relating to colonial Customs matters from 1814. . . to the termination of the British Customs Board's control of colonial revenue." Such material might have been made the basis of a monograph peculiarly relevant to the present time. Instead we have a mere scrap book, and a scrap book that is but ill-arranged.

There is matter in the volume to suit all tastes. For the casual reader there are sanguinary conflicts between smugglers and revenue men, and smugglers' devices innumerable, while at intervals the shades of various picturesque ruffians and official

scoundrels flit in and out. In fact, there is in the book enough raw material for half a dozen novels of a type now enjoying considerable vogue. Also, given a little patience and industry, the student of economic history may here and there happen upon pieces of information that will interest him. He will, for instance, catch glimpses of the Navigation Acts in operation and the legal procedure by which the Customs Acts, and such halfforgotten Statutes as that forbidding the export of coin of the realm were enforced. Entertainment, too, he may find in some of the official correspondence so extensively quoted. The dreadful discovery reported to the Board by the inspector of Waterguard at Liverpool, in 1840, that several of his officers had become Socialists, is an example. An examination of the new doctrines by the worthy inspector led to the further discovery that the officers in question had given their adhesion to "doctrines as blasphemous as they are inimical to the constitution of this country," and which, moreover, were "contrary in spirit to the Queen's proclamation against vice and immorality, contrary in spirit to the Treasury Minute of March 18th, 1836, which goes to inculcate good order in Society." From the Board the matter went to the Treasury, and "My Lords learn with the sincerest regret that any officers of H.M. Service have connected themselves with a Society so subversive of morality and religion."

Although the avowed intention of the "treatise," as the authors term it, is to be "mainly annalistic," they occasionally venture on opinions of their own, expressed in a style of language which is also their own. For example, the Navigation Laws fell into disrepute by reason of "a brace of causes." One was "the inherent villainy of many of the administering officials"; the other "the greed of certain ship-owners, who, improving upon the growing desire for cheaper commodities, wished to cheapen manhood, and to substitute for the sturdy breed, by nature and training fitted to hand, reef, and steer, and to wield boardingpike and rammer, bandy-legged Lascars, frowsy niggers, and squinting Mongols." Moreover they devote a dozen or so pages towards the end of the volume to "a few bald remarks upon method, &c.," which, for the elucidation of the present-day tariff problem, "may be of more immediate service than the most profound reasoning." They are armed for the task, after the manner dear to the typical "practical man," with a supreme contempt for authority and absolute indifference to mere learning. The "doctrinal flounderings" of Adam Smith annoy the men who do practical work as Customs officers; while