with Mr. Sidney Ball, who writes (Economic Review, October, 1899) in a similar strain about general principles. Socialism, says Mr. Ball, is "an idea which has the capacity to organize life as a whole." Socialism, says Mr. Bernstein, is "a movement in favour of a co-operative order of society" (84). It is to be "Democratic," in the most important modern sense of Democracy, its opposition to class-government and privilege (122). It certainly does not aim at government by mere majorities for their own benefit, but rather at government for the benefit of all. The progress of Democracy has been actually tending as it is to give better and not worse security for the rights of the minorities (124). We must not talk of finality, and we need not set up an ideal (169, 171). It is almost implied that the nationalizing of the means of production is a pious opinion of some, not a postulate of all (170). The various questions of State, even as to military service and colonial policy, are handled so temperately that the ordinary nonSocialistic Democrat will feel at once at his ease.

But among our political parties in this country there are timid people who will take heart perhaps too readily from discovering Mr. Bernstein's movement within a movement. They may be reminded that if Mr. Bernstein had carried the Congress with him the Social Democratic party might well be deemed to have rather strengthened than weakened itself. There is vitality in a nation when it can afford to be its own severest critic; and there would be vitality in a party if its supporters were among the first to discover the faults in its own logic. The Social Democratic party would have become more formidable, because it would have joined forces with the ordinary Democrats.

But would it have lost its distinctive features? That is a question which the Congress has answered in the affirmative, it must be confessed with some reason. The principles of Mr. Bernstein, in fact, seem to give us not Social Democracy, but Democracy without Socialism, without what has hitherto passed for Socialism in Germany or even (Protean as it has been) in our own country. "We are all Socialists," Mr. Bernstein not less than the most of us, and not much

more.

L'Euvre Économique de Charles Dunoyer.

J. BONAR Par EDMOND

VILLEY, Professeur d'Économie Politique à l'Université de Caen. (Paris: Larose. 1899.)

DUNOYER is considered by many Frenchmen to be one of their great names in political economy. He is known to English economists chiefly by Mill's reference (in Pol. Ec., Bk. I., ch. II., § 3).

In the present book, which gained a prize from the Institute, we have an interesting attempt to gauge the value of Dunoyer's work. Though Professor Villey is perhaps more enthusiastic than a stranger would be in face of the facts before him, his laudation is mingled with grains of good criticism.

Dunoyer was a Paris lawyer, born in 1786. In 1814 he joined. No. 36.-VOL. IX.

Charles Comte in editing the Censeur, to uphold constitutional monarchy, and, when the paper was killed by a monarchy that was not constitutional, it revived again (1817-8) under the name Censeur Européen. At the end of its short life, the two men turned from politics to political economy. Dunoyer's first economic treatise appeared in 1825, "L'industrie et la morale considérées dans leur rapport avec la liberté." It is, however, his second book on liberty," De la liberté du travail, ou simple exposé des conditions dans lesquelles les forces humaines s'exercent avec le plus de puissance," that contains his economic system in full. It appeared in 1845 in three volumes.

Professor Villey claims for him the merit of having shown the true scope of political economy, (not material wealth, but "man labouring for the satisfaction of his wants,") and of having studied the physical, social, and mental conditions affecting the quality and efficiency of labour without therewith exaggerating political economy into universal science (316, 317). He claims for his hero also the merit of having marked out better than his predecessors the subdivisions of his subject. He was the first to put the " extractive industries" in a separate class, and give them a name of their own (166, 180).

Yet he was far from faultless. After reproaching his brethren for failing to distinguish between commerce and the carrying trade, and for sinking the latter in the former, he himself proceeds to sink the former in the latter;-the great loans to South America and the speculations in cotton goods in 1835-6 are described as mistakes of the carrying-trade (196)-not of commerce, for Dunoyer considers commerce, not as a separate branch of industry, but as a common feature of all industries (167, 168). He thinks too little of the influence of environment on the character of races (31). He is a Malthusian, nay, even a Neo-Malthusian (151, 152, cf. 245). With Professor Villey's help, we could give many other instances where Dunoyer falls short of a later standard of orthodoxy.

A more broad and general shortcoming is Dunoyer's love of system (202, &c.). It not only spoils his style by leading him into repetitions, but injures his thought. He fancies he is building up science by observation alone, while all the time he is construing (if not constructing) facts à priori (318-9). Reporting, for example, on the interference of the State with labour in England (1855), he records the increase of the interference, and then draws the conclusion that it will vanish everywhere (319), his principle being that "in proportion as he becomes civilized, man has less and less need of Government" (332). He has the passion for non-intervention usually attributed to the Manchester School, and carries it far beyond Adam Smith. His friend Bastiat was not more blind in his optimism than Dunoyer; and Professor Villey heightens the impression of the optimistic passages by a running parallel with the contrary views of Frédéric Le Play (54, 84, &c.).

Dunoyer was a strong man in his generation; but the generation has passed away. J. BONAR

Outline of Practical Sociology.

With special reference to American conditions. By CARROLL D. WRIGHT, LL.D., United States Commissioner of Labour. American Citizen Series. (New York: Longmans, Green & Co. 1899.)

THIS book affords a view of the present position of social science, and provides for students a very useful summary of the ascertained facts of sociology, so far as they have reference to the United States, with a clear explanation of the more elementary of the methods employed in researches relating to the cardinal facts of social and economic conditions. As regards American figures, it may be compared with Sir R. Giffen's essays on "The Utility of Common. Statistics," for we are again and again brought to the bed-rock of elementary facts to confute popular misapprehensions and establish simple numerical relations. For the general student not the least valuable part of the book will be found in the extended list of authorities prefixed to each division to indicate the sources of the information used, to afford a means of criticising the writer's opinions, and to make easy further research on the same or cognate subjects; and these references make us more willing to submit to the brevity of the treatment of many important subjects, when we recognise that Mr. Carroll D. Wright's book is of the nature of an introduction, or even an index, to the vast and growing library of sociological science. For English readers his exposition of American methods, and his careful explanation of the American constitution, so far as it affects geographical and political divisions, will be most welcome. His masterly handling of the Census figures, on which he bases most of his numerical studies, will counteract to some extent the bad impression which readers of the Critical Essays (reviewed in September) will be apt to obtain. The business of the writers of those essays was to criticise, not to praise; while Mr. Wright's work, on the other hand, has been to make the best possible use of existing material.

We may premise that, except for the compactness of its arrangement and the careful grouping of authorities, the book will not be of great use to advanced students, for whom, indeed, it is not primarily intended, for the niceties of statistical calculation are only alluded to in distant terms; technical terms and mathematical calculations, methods of smoothing, interpolating, and averaging are passed by; and problems are sometimes left unsolved in a tantalising way, with mere indications of their difficulties.

In a book dealing to so great an extent with method, it is a pity that the shaded cartograms on pages 48 and 52, should have been so printed that it is not at all easy either to distinguish the different markings or connect them with the legend, especially as most of the graphical illustrations in the Census volume, from which they are taken, are models of lucidity.

In treating a book which deals with so many subjects, from "The

Science of the Social Relation" to "The Effect of Ugliness," all the reviewer can do is to select a few points and deal with them seriatim. We can from Chap. IV. obtain a very clear view of the building up the American race, and the distribution of immigrants in various states, which should be compared with Dr. Longstaff's paper on the same subject (in Studies in Statistics). In Chap. II. we find an interesting use of the returns of the distribution of population, criticised by Mr. Ripley. We find the population "mode" is a life in the Atlantic Plain at from 100 to 1000 feet above sea level, in an average temperature between 45° and 55°, with a rainfall between 30 and 50 inches; an environment strongly suggestive of England. In Chap. VII. we have a very useful discussion of the ultimate employment of immigrants; more than one-half of the immigrants who survived in 1890 were engaged in gainful occupations; in 1890 one-eighth of those engaged in agriculture in the States were immigrants, while one-third engaged in manufactures and over one-half of the miners were also of foreign birth.

Some interesting statements are given in Chap. VIII. as to the gradual relief in New York of the congestion of the slums; we learn that, as in London, the rise in the value of the central districts for business purposes is forcing the inhabitants more and more to the outlying districts, and realise again that the chief problem for city life is one of transportation, of rapid and cheap access to the centre; but we are left in an uneasy doubt as to whether the erection of warehouses does not force that part of the population, which from necessity or choice remains central, into more circumscribed quarters at a continually rising rent.

The review of the distribution by age and sex of the population brings again to the front the very exceptional circumstances of the States, the excess of the males in the whole country being attributable to the immigration of men followed at a later interval by their families, and the continual westward stream of the more energetic and discontented of the dwellers in the Eastern States having a similar effect on the figures relating to the Far West.

The most interesting phase of this book is the well-grounded optimism underlying many of the conclusions. This is sufficiently illustrated by the following quotations, which need little comment. "As men have stepped out of their old employments invention has opened paths for new occupations." "The American girl . . . was formerly found in the textile factories. She gave place to the English girl, and the English girl in turn to the Irish operative. The Irish operative has gradually given place to the French-Canadian, and many Swedes are now taking their places at the looms and before the spinning frames. Successively each has stepped up in the scale of civilisation and in the improved conditions of her environment." (Italics are mine.) "The factory system has enabled employers to bring into active productive work people of a low grade of intelligence. It has

never degraded skilled labour to the ranks of unskilled labour, but it has constantly lifted unskilled labour into the ranks of skilled labour." "A larger proportion of the people are employed than in countries where mechanical industries do not prevail. This could not be the case if the introduction of machinery has deprived men of labour.” "The ranks of skilled labour, which are constantly being increased, are drawn from the ranks of unskilled labour; for the proportion of common labour of every kind remains nearly stationary." If this is the deliberate opinion of a competent statistician, with almost unequalled opportunities of observation, then the era of machinery is shown to have afforded to the human race inestimable gifts without the drawbacks which it has been the custom to attribute to it. A. L. BOWLEY

Statistics and Economics. By RICHMOND MAYO-SMITH, Ph.D. (London: Macmillan & Co. 1899.)

In a previous number of the ECONOMIC JOURNAL we noticed the first volume of the work, of which the second is now before us. In that volume, published some four years ago, Professor Mayo-Smith dealt, under the title of Statistics and Sociology, with what are generally known, and might perhaps indeed have been more appropriately described, as Population Statistics. In the second volume, which completes the work, he handles by the same admirable methods the remaining statistics, which fall within the province of the economist ;. and he thus completes a treatise on the "Science of Statistics," which, we venture to think, will occupy a high place among the scanty textbooks on the subject to be found in the English, or indeed in any, language. Detached writings on particular points of the theory or practice of statistics, and compilations of statistical material, exist in considerable abundance; but we do not know of any general treatise in the English language which covers the ground included in Professor Mayo-Smith's volumes, and there are not many works of foreign writers which can be compared with this.

We may differ from the author in some of the conclusions which he draws from the material he examines, and this is notably the case with his deductions from index-numbers; but of his competence for the work he has undertaken no reader of this or the preceding volume can entertain serious doubt. His bibliographies seem to us to afford an admirable illustration of his combined erudition and judgment. The student is effectually started on the right road to useful knowledge; and, what is perhaps more important, he receives just the hints, which are calculated to prevent him from going astray further on, when walking by his own unaided efforts. For the book is animated throughout by that wise caution, which is the supreme quality of the honest and capable statistician; and the reader is more often reminded of the inferences, which he may not draw, than encouraged to indulge