not be answered in any argumentative way within the limits of this notice. The abstract that we have given must, of necessity, fail to do full justice to the book, which itself is highly condensed. The mere enumeration of a few important points is enough to suggest where issue will be taken with the argument. A question that all readers will raise is, Can any work prove as much as this undertakes to do? It is not an argument for the temporary protection of infant industries, nor for compensating duties that will recoup the manufacturer for the high cost of materials and for the high rate of wages that he must pay. It maintains that dynamic nations need definitive isolation from static ones, at least in so far as many articles of commerce are concerned. The Trans-Mississippi civilization would, as we may infer, be richer and higher if it were isolated from the Eastern and Middle States. Can it possibly be true that free trade vitiates distribution, and pours its benefits into the landlords' coffers? Do wages go down because the margin of agricultural tillage is extended into relatively unfruitful regions? Are the wages to be estimated in wheat or in value? If it be true that the wageearner can get more by raising root crops for home consumption than he can do by raising wheat for the English market, would not a full analysis show that he will raise such crops under free trade? Is not the entrepreneur rather than the landlord the master of the situation, and does not an entrepreneur find it for his interest to place labor where it will do the most good? Can free trade lead American wages to the point determined by the worker, who is under the greatest disadvantages in the entire circle of nations having active dealings with us? With no immigration from China, must the tiller of land in the Mississippi Valley accept what a Chinaman can get by cultivating a garden on a raft, or by making fire-crackers for our national celebration? Does the placing of workmen in trades that minister to wants of low intensity reduce their wages? Is there not a question involved as to

the wealth of the men who employ them? Does the millionaire pay little to the man who gratifies his caprices? These and other questions demand the fullest discussion. It will be easy to reply to the book as an advocate might do, with a view merely to producing an adverse popular impression. A reply that will satisfy a candid student must take the same level of thought that the author takes, and must argue the questions at issue at even greater length and with more completeness than he has done. The work is tantalizingly incomplete at some most important points. Cavillers will say that it comes by leaps to its chief conclusions. It should be-I venture to record the opinion that it can be-answered in full; and the author should make a later and more complete statement of his own position. By such means may we arrive at a completer knowledge of the working of protection than economic science has thus far afforded.

Northampton, Mass.

J. B. CLARK.

JOHN JAY. BY GEORGE PELLEW. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. vi and 374. 1890.

This is the twenty-first biography in the "American Statesmen Series," and appropriately appears in the centennial year of the establishment of the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Pellew has carefully studied the "Jay MSS." and a digest of the "Stevens MSS." of diplomatic correspondence, besides other official documents relating to foreign affairs and the existing lives of Jay. He has also had the invaluable assistance of his uncle, John Jay, of New York, the grandson of the first chief justice. He has endeavored to accurately set forth the part that Jay took in public life, and to give a more extended account of his private life than is contained in any existing biography. As a result, we have a very instructive and readable book, less brilliant in its rhetoric than some volumes of the series, but not surpassed in its

spirit of impartiality, careful statement and fullness of references to authorities. In the thirteen chapters the author gives us an account of Jay in his youth, as a conservative Whig leader, revolutionary leader, constructive statesman and Judge, President of Congress, Minister to Spain, negotiator of peace in 1782, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Chief Justice of the United States, special envoy to Great Britain in 1794, Governor of New York, and Jay in retirement from 1801 to 1829, the year of his death. Among the most important chapters are the two devoted to the peace negotiations of 1782. New information, never before contained in any biography of Jay, has been used to prove that Jay was correct in his suspicions of Vergennes' hostility to the interests of the United States in the negotiations for peace. Here Mr. Pellew has had the valuable assistance of John Jay, the author of the chapter on this subject in "Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America," and he has ably sustained what Morse has admitted in his "Life of Franklin," that "the vital merit in the conduct of this difficult negotiation rests with Jay." While vindicating Jay's right to this honor, he has been entirely fair to the merits of the other negotiators, and, indeed, throughout the volume his fairness to others has been a marked characteristic.

To all those whose knowledge of John Jay obtained at school is summed up in the two facts of his having been the first Chief Justice and the negotiator of a peace of 1794, this book will be of great service and in the nature of a revelation. Whether as politician, diplomatist, justice, administrator or private citizen, Jay's character was such an exceptional one in its purity, serenity and firmness, as to deserve the careful study of all who wish to elevate our public morals and believe in the power of example. WM. P. HOLCOMB.

Swarthmore College.

MISCELLANY.

THE AUSTRIAN ZONE TARIFF SYSTEM.

Communication to the Academy from the Austrian Ministry of

Commerce.

VIENNA, SEPT. 24TH, 1890.

To the AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE, Philadelphia:

In reply to your letter of August 13th, addressed to the Ministry of Commerce, I take pleasure in sending you a copy of our Rates for Passengers and Baggage, issued June 16th, and also a short account of the principles of the new tariff and its workings.1 C. WESSELY, General Traffic Manager

THE KREUTZER ZONE TARIFF OF THE AUSTRIAN STATE

RAILROADS.

The reform of passenger rates has long been the subject of careful investigation by the General Management of the Austrian State Railroads, and though Hungary has taken the lead in the matter, the reason may be found in the greater difficulties which in Austria stood in the way of such a reform. Hungary has a well-united and consolidated system of state railroads, which has already reached its maximum extension in a linear direction; that is to say, reaching from one boundary of the country to the other. On the contrary, Austria is obliged to keep separate accounts of the forty roads which it operates, and, besides this, must take into consideration the probable exten

1 We hope to present a fuller account of the Austrian Zone Tariff System at an early date. In the meantime, this communication from the General Management of the Austrian Railroads will not be without interest to students of railroad affairs -EDS.

sion of its system, which, sooner or later, is bound to occur through the absorption of other important railroad lines.

As compared with Hungary-whose passenger rates had hitherto been almost prohibitory, and whose reduction had become an imperative necessity—the question in Austria, whose state roads had lower rates than all other Austrian and most foreign roads, was, on the one hand, so to reduce the rates that, without imperilling the equilibrium of the budget, the economic and social needs of the population should be duly considered; and, on the other hand, that a just and equal treatment of all classes of travelers should be combined with the most radical simplification in the system of rates and tickets.

These requisites express, as it were, the tendency and fundamental principles of the new system of rates, in which the problem seems to have been happily and harmoniously solved.

According to the carefully-considered plan which forms the basis of our regulations, the rate per kilometer was materially lowered, thus effecting a general reduction in the price of passenger transportation. The rates per kilometer on the Austrian State Railroads, before June 16th, 1890, the date of the introduction of the new system, were, for the various classes, as follows:

The rate for the III Class on ordinary trains, one kreutzer-the smallest monetary unit of the country—is, it will be seen, the basis of the whole system, the rate for the II Class being just double, for the I Class triple this sum; while the rates for express trains are 50 per cent. higher than for the ordinary trains. As compared with the old