Their ideas, however, are not fully systematised to this extent, but the native does systematically apply the principle that a No. x if lent for a few days requires the return of a No. (x + 1)—if lent for a rather longer period the borrower will be required to repay a No. (x+2), and so on.

Now, if a large number of commodities are priced in terms of a small number of commodities, it will hardly be legitimate to call these latter commodities money, unless they also are systematically related to each other. This type of pseudo-money is all that occurs in the neighbouring Massim area, where, except by a complicated and forced process of calculation, no single commodity can be said to be worth, for instance, x sapi-sapi beads of best quality. The Massim are far removed from having any commodity whose main function is to act as a standard of value and medium of exchange. A statement of this kind can, however, be made with far more directness in the case of Rossel Island, even though in this case commodities are priced in terms of particular Dap and Kö, and not in terms of any Dap and Kö which add up to the required figure. (This, of course, would require a knowledge of the number of units of value in each number Dap and Kö, which is lacking.) The way this comes about is as follows.

Suppose an individual A wishes to buy a commodity whose price is Dap No. x. A may possess Dap coins, more or less in value than No. x, but not any No. x. He, therefore, borrows a No. x from B and pays for the commodity with this. During the time which elapses before repaying B, he becomes successively liable to No. (x + 1), No. (x+2), and so on. If he have one of these values he repays B and all is square. Whether he borrows for a long or a short period does not really make any difference to A so long as he has at the time of borrowing at least as much money as he borrows, either in his possession or preferably lent out with interest, for A's opportunities for lending are presumably as great as B's opportunities-that which makes it necessary for A to borrow from B equally makes it necessary for X to borrow from A in the long run. Owing to the peculiar value-relationships of the Rossel money, money must change hands very many more times in order to effect a single purchase than is necessitated by any of the more usual monetary systems. Given this mobility then we can say that a commodity which is priced in terms of a particular value of Dap is indirectly priced in terms of any Number of the series.

It would be well to elaborate further my earlier implication

that there can be said to be a unit of value in the case of Dap and Kö, even though it be impossible to say that a No. x is k times a No. y. If we assume that time is priced, then, of course, the problem is simple-if the interest for unit time, i.e. for x to become x + 1, is taken as 5 per cent., for example, then, in terms of No. 1, No. 2 is No. 1 + 1/20 No. 2, No. 3 is No. 1 + 1/10 No. 11/400 No. 1, and so on, in the compound interest series. But, on the whole, it distorts the facts to say that there is a definite rate of interest. It is better, therefore, to substitute for the statement that x is k times a No. 1 the statement that x is a No. 1 of so many months ago, which brings in a second unit of value, time. The common denomination being understood, then the price of any commodity or service might be put in terms of time, e.g. a wife costs a year, a house two years, a basket of taro a week, and so on." This does, I believe, express the native point of view more clearly than to imagine a more or less evaluated rate of interest.

Since there are very few of the high-value coins on the island, and since there are important commodities and services that must be paid for by means of these high-value coins, they move about a good deal (though there is an exception in the case of the highest two or three values). The borrowing and lending of coins is, in fact, so important that there exists a special class of persons who act as agents for these transactions; they are denoted by a special name, which may be translated by the term " broker without much change of sense. These brokers derive their income by keeping their capital in motion and by a process somewhat analogous to the activities of a London bill-broker-by borrowing at a lower rate of interest and discounting at a higher— and practise a magic by means of which they claim to act on the minds of their debtors, making them repay within the customary time, while the minds of their creditors are affected in the reverse direction.

Since the series of values is finite, the question naturally arises as to what happens in the case of the loan of a high-value coin. Since there are only a few of these coins-seven each of the three highest values-many loans are liable to overreach, by the ordinary mechanism, repayment-value No. 22. It is found that the normal method of repayment of loans of Nos. 18 and above is of a special kind. If, for instance, a No. 18 be borrowed, security is given, generally a stone axe of the type used as money on Sudest. This security is returned on repayment of the loan; but instead of the repayment of a higher value

Dap at the end of the required period, a payment of low-value Dap, known as "Döndap," is made at the beginning of the period of the loan, and the Original No. 18 is repaid at the end of the period instead of a No. 19 or higher value. The Döndap for a short-period loan of a No. 18 is generally a series of one each of Nos. 1 to 10; for a longer period there will be two or three each perhaps of Nos. 7 to 9 or 10. For a No. 19 the Döndap will end at No. 11 or perhaps No. 12. If the loan be for several years, as it is occasionally, there will be three or four repetitions of these interest-payments. A good deal of ceremonial attends such payments of interest and it is generally the occasion for some feasting and dancing. An important part of such interest-feasts, or "Dogo," as they are called, is the handling of the money by a number of people, this apparently confirming the transaction. Such feasts are also the occasion for other monetary transactions; for, even when a single low-value coin is borrowed, it must be touched by a number of people, who, as witnesses, act as a safeguard to the lender.

Security was referred to above, which generally takes the form of a ceremonial stone axe of the Massim type; sometimes, however, and this seems rather anomalous, security takes the form of a higher value Dap than that for which it is acting as security. This may be because there is little use for values 19 to 22 at the present day; it seems to be very rare now for there to be any transactions involving payments greater than No. 18. A few years ago, however, No. 20 had an important use as compensation for ritual murder. The death of a chief used to involve the eating of at least one victim, frequently drawn from a neighbouring friendly village. The compensation of the relatives of these victims involved payments whose ramifications are said to have extended over ten years or more. At the present day, No. 18, of which there are twenty coins on the island, is involved in payments for wives, for "ptyilibi" (polyandric wives) and pigs. When a No. 18 passes from person to person, it is handled with great reverence, and a crouching attitude is maintained. Nos. 19 to 22 are so sacred that they are always kept enclosed and are not supposed to see the light of day. Apparently they have little or no work to do now, except as security, and are owned only by chiefs. No. 22, of which there are seven coins, is inherited in the male line; and, apparently, the chiefs who own these are the most important on the island.

It would be impossible within the limits of this paper to describe the details of the financial ritual in connection with payments

for wives and pigs, as they are very complicated. In the case of a polyandric wife, bought by five or six men, the method of payment of the No. 18 is ingenious. If there are five husbands, A pays the girl's father a No. 18, B pays A a No. 17, C pays B a No. 16, D pays C a No. 15, and E pays D a No. 14; but, apparently, A does not pay E a No. 13, and B A a No. 12, and so on, as we should expect. It is, of course, an unequal division of the cost, for D pays less than C, B and A, and E pays the most, provided No. 14 is more valuable than the difference between No. 18 and No. 17.

In conclusion, it may be pointed out that Rossel Island money is money in the strict sense of the term. It serves as a medium of exchange and a standard of value, and it is not desired for its utility for other purposes, even for ornament or display. Indeed it is even considered "bad form " to make any sort of display of one's wealth of Dap and Kö. How such a peculiar monetary system came into being it is difficult even to conjecture. The conception of "interest" is rare in Melanesia and New Guinea, though it occurs in simple form in parts of the Bismarck Archipelago. This would point to some exceptional cultural influence which reached the island of Rossel but no other part of this extensive region, unless we suppose that a "higher culture, containing the germs of the peculiar features of Rossel, once extended over a large area, throughout which it has since degenerated, leaving a vestige on Rossel in the shape of its present fantastic monetary system.

W. E. ARMSTRONG

REVIEWS

The Mathematical Groundwork of Economics: An introductory treatise. By A. L. BOWLEY, F.B.A., Professor of Statistics

in the University of London. (Oxford: Clarendon Press. Pp. 98.)

A LONG-FELT want is satisfied by this clear, concise and correct statement of the leading propositions and methods which mathematics contributes to Political Economy. A saving knowledge of that doctrine may be acquired here more readily than in any other treatise, English or foreign, with which we are acquainted. The learner is led from the simplest species of transaction on to "multiple exchange," and thence to dealings in products and the factors of production. By steps that are neither violently abrupt nor tediously circuitious he reaches the heights from which the mutual dependence of all economic quantities can best be contemplated. At those heights, too, are observed some curiosities of theory, like Alpine flowers, found only at great altitudes.

The treatise is not merely introductory. The maturer student will be edified by it. He will be confirmed in the belief that his study is worth pursuing. The authorship of the treatise guarantees the importance of the subject. The author is a statistician of the hard-headed English type, who walks in the way of Tooke and Newmarch and Giffen; applying ascertained facts to important practical problems. Measuring the growth of wages and the proportions in which the national income is distributed, he has contributed more than most economists to the formation of intelligent opinion about popular schemes for the reconstruction of industry. It is not to be supposed that such a man would turn from investigations of national importance to formulate the mathematical theory of economics if with the literary economists he regarded that theory as moonshine. If challenged to show what fruit our branch of science bears we can at least reply that it is assiduously cultivated by one who knows what good fruit is, having produced it in great quantities.

The importance of particular theorems as well as of the general theory is enhanced by Professor Bowley's work. Several