Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre (Collected Economic (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck

Essays). By MAX WEBER.

publ. 1922. Pp. 579, 8vo.)

MAX WEBER, who died some years ago after succeeding Lujo Brentano in Munich, was undoubtedly considered in Germany as the greatest contemporary sociologist and economist. The scope of his erudition was unquestionably immense; but to read his works requires no common knowledge on the part of the reader. His collected essays treat of abstract problems, and are mainly critical and controversial. He has also the tendency to enter minutely into questions of detail. His style and manner of expression aim primarily at the achievement of surpassing precision and accordingly often lacks plasticity. There can be no doubt that Professor Max Weber possessed a great reconstructive imagination for social and historical events, but his presentation is rather laboured.

EUGENE SCHWIEDLAND

Die Arbeiterfrage (The Social Question). By HEINRICH HERKNER. Two volumes. (Berlin: De Gruyter & Co. 1923. Eighth edition. Pp. 600 and 630, 8vo.)

THESE two large volumes by Professor Herkner of the University at Berlin are generally considered as the standard German work on "Sozialpolitik," the name given in German science to the theory of industrial social reform. Volume I deals with general principles of this practical science, Volume II with its special theories and with the points of view taken up by various political parties. The author's style and his manner of exposition are always lucid and pleasant, and the numerous references to other works are useful. It is, however, a pity that Professor Herkner did not decide to rewrite certain portions of this work for its newest edition. Owing to this, the work appears in some respects slightly antiquated. For instance, it treats mainly of social policy carried out in Germany, and even there only of the questions of factory legislation. Neither the problems of sweated industries nor of farm workers are treated here. Certain other aspects of social development, such as the question of "closed shops," are also not adequately presented. Perhaps in a future edition the author will shorten those chapters, where the material is already old-fashioned, and lengthen others, where newer problems are treated. This would greatly add to the value of this justly renowned work.

EUGENE SCHWIEDLAND

L'Impérialisme économique et les relations internationales pendant le dernier demi-siècle (1870-1920). Par A. VIALLATÉ, professeur à l'École des Sciences politiqués. Un vol. in. 181. (Librairie Arnaud Colin, 103, Boulevard St. Michel, Paris), broché. 8 fr. English translation: Economic Imperialism and International Relations during the last Fifty Years. The Institute of Politics Publications, Williams College, Williamstown, Mass. (New York: The Macmillan Co. 1923. Pp. 180.)

THERE is not much literature on this subject, and students of international politics are therefore grateful to the author for this penetrating analysis of international relationships during the last fifty years. Only a bare outline, of course, is attempted in this volume, and there is room for further research into the problem of the contribution of economic Imperialism to war. Mr. L. S. Woolf has gone into the history of Africa, one or two minor writers have sketched briefly the influence of Oil on international politics, and Mr. E. D. Morel and Mr. H. N. Brailsford have also produced some valuable material, but they have covered only a small part of the whole field. The great need is for further constructive suggestions that will enable statesmen to control the competing interests and clashing ambitions of the Great Powers and the rival groups within them. All these writers agree that there lies ahead nothing but chaos, unless some form of economic internationalism supplants very soon the strife and jealousy that exist at present. Prof. Viallaté stresses this particularly in his survey of the post-war developments in European affairs. The League of Nations appears on the surface to have made provision for this need, but it is much too curtailed by the fears and greed of the victorious Powers-if, indeed, any can be said to be suchwho framed its constitution, to be of much effective assistance. Its mandatory clauses are especially weak and allow of much exploitation of backward peoples.

There is an excellent introduction to this volume, showing how the Industrial Revolution and progress in the means of transportation altered the character of international relationships, and how, during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the industrialisation of Western and Central Europe proceeded. The need for securing raw materials from abroad, and of finding outlets for surplus population and wealth is seen to have been a pressing one for all the large countries. Like Mr. Keynes, the author seems to have grasped the importance of the population question.

The colonial policies and expansions of the Great Powers are

Social Aspects of Industrial Problems. By GERTRUDE WILLIAMS, B.A. (London: P. S. King & Son, 1923. Pp. xii + 260. Price 6s.)

THIS is a well-written book which will be useful to many students and teachers, as bringing together within one binding much that is scattered over rather a wide field. It does not offer anything very new, nor is its title a fair guide to what it contains; for, except perhaps in the first chapter, Mrs. Williams confines herself to a descriptive statement of some of the chief industrial problems of the day, with an analysis of their probable causes and of any measures that are or might be taken to deal with them. There is not, however, any special reference to the "social aspects" of these problems.

Mrs. Williams gives us at the outset as good a statement as perhaps any that has yet been written of the chief limitations to the doctrine that the equilibrium of individual demand and supply is the point of maximum social satisfaction. She then proceeds to sketch the principal features of the modern organisation of industry, describing the rise of the Joint-stock Company and the Trust movement under the head of Capital. To Labour she devotes more space, giving an excellent survey of the more important changes in the Trade Union world which have occurred in the last few years, and describing the circumstances that led up to the Whitley Reports, the Councils which have resulted from these, and joint organisations of employers and employed generally.

A chapter on unemployment (which contains a great deal of matter ranging from the provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Acts to Mr. J. A. Hobson's views on under-consumption, for which, incidentally, Mrs. Williams has an heretical affection) is followed by one on Women in Industry, which grapples admirably with problems of equal pay for equal work, and family endowment and the like. The book ends with a chapter on Government and Industry which attempts the impossible and had better have been omitted.

There are a few minor blemishes on an otherwise meritorious volume. On p. 44 it is unwise to suggest that the pace of the combination movement will not slacken "even though the special circumstances of the war no longer exist," when in point of fact it has slackened. On p. 51 the name of the Imperial Tobacco Company is wrongly stated, and the date of the Royal Commission on Labour given on p. 77 is also incorrect.

The

Match industry's unemployment insurance scheme referred to on p. 122 is a supplementary, not a special, scheme under the Act of 1920, and is therefore not held up by the suspension of special schemes. On p. 107 "the Strike Committee " is referred to as though we knew all about it, whereas no strike has yet been mentioned; and on p. 121 some industries are described as belonging to group (b) when nothing labelled (a) or (b) has preceded.

I do not know whether Mrs. Williams thinks her book impartial; but I am sure that those who do not share her point of view will not scruple to call it biassed.

BARBARA WOOTTON

Trade, Tariffs, and Transport in India. By K. T. SHAH. (London: P. S. King and Son, Ltd., 1923. Pp. 450.)

THE author is Professor of Economics in the University of Bombay. An earlier work of his on Fifty Years of Indian Finance was reviewed in a recent number of the JOURNAL.

Mr. Shah's political opinions are only important here in so far as they affect his views on economic questions. He is a strong Nationalist, though too well instructed to profess any belief in Mr. Ghandi's" Back to the Handloom" policy. He regards the existing Government as alien and unsympathetic, and the ally of the British manufacturers in exploiting a helpless dependency. In discussing his scheme to replace private enterprise by State industries he holds the main difficulty to be "the unavoidable suspicion which hangs upon a foreign Government with the antecedents of the Government of India," and the reluctance of the people to commit fresh responsibilities to "a proved traitor" (p. 193). In his evidence before the Mercantile Marine Commission he took up the same point, and expressed his own distrust of the British Administration "as regards the personnel, the motives, and the qualifications " (p. 434).

In Economics Mr. Shah is an advanced Socialist, who desires at the earliest possible moment to put an end to Capitalism, which he abhors. As a half-way house he would accept co-operative production, though he admits that "the history of such attempts in countries more advanced than our own makes very distressing reading to the co-operative enthusiast." But his real aim is collectivism, and he seems to believe that the advent of a purely Indian Government will produce all the conditions necessary to ensure its success. The ideal to be aimed at is a self-contained

India, fed, warmed, clad, and carried by the products of its own soil, and using up in its own State workshops and factories all the raw materials required. For moral reasons he is not anxious that India should attempt to sell largely in foreign markets. Foreign trade in his view is, as now conducted, the seed-bed of international strife. Ultimately, when all the backward countries have developed their own industries, such international exchange as continues to be really beneficial will be conducted by State agency under international agreements.

In support of his plea for State industries Mr. Shah adduces the fact that the Indian Government already conducts big industrial enterprises, such as the post office and to a large extent the railways. Railways and posts are public services in which the operations required can be in a great measure standardised. An honest bureaucracy can run them with success, and Mr. Shah can legitimately appeal to the experience of some European countries. But he never really faces the difficulties that beset State productive enterprises generally. He is not himself an admirer of the Indian railway administration, which he condemns as extravagant and careless as regards the development of Indian industries. In this connection he contrasts the failure of a Government "gravely interested in the financial success of the railways and so unable to adopt a (proper) railway rate-making policy," with the achievements in the same line "of a railway genius like the late Mr. Vanderbilt, who liquidated and reorganised the New York Central railroad into one of the richest and busiest lines of the world, if not quite the cheapest." Apparently all that is required is to substitute Indian for English agency to produce the organising ability, honesty, and enterprise needed to make State management of railways in India a great success. The Bombay Government and Municipality have recently embarked on a vast land reclamation and housing scheme, the latter being intended to supply mill hands with decent homes. But they have failed to produce sanitary houses that can be let at an economic rent, and this "is due partly to the department, which has yet to learn the lesson of rendering public service absolutely free from any search for private gain."

Foreign capital to a large amount is invested in India. Englishmen and Scotchmen own nearly all the mines and jute-mills, and conduct most of the banking business. Mr. Shah proposes to get rid of the foreign capitalist entirely, and to substitute Indian for British capital except in so far as it may still be necessary to borrow money from English investors. The latter is a legitimate ambition,