exchanges on a national scale, to prevent congestion of the unemployed among the ordinary regular workers; and they appointed a committee early in 1906 on unskilled labour, which covered class 3 and part of class 4.

The report of this committee, which is the third volume on our list, is extremely disappointing. The evidence is full of human interest, and throws great light on the methods of employment and the character of the unskilled labourer (and his employer) in London. It should be read by everyone interested in practical economics. But after receiving this evidence, and having much other accessible information, the committee were unable to agree to any but a colourless report of thirty lines, deprecating the irregularity of labour, and recommending that employers should consider how to decasualize it! They further recommend the extension of mutual thrift and the improvement of industrial training. This report was not published till a year and a-half after the taking of evidence was complete.

The report proper is, however, introduced by a long, thoughtful, and very valuable essay by Mr. C. J. Hamilton, dealing analytically with the whole matter, probing the causes, showing what progress has been made in organisation, and analysing the conditions of

success.

All the reports contain tables showing the ages, occupations, and other details relating to persons who applied for, and to those who obtained, work. These are so limited by their conditions, and apply to such restricted groups and areas, that it would be dangerous to quote them, except in full, and with a long context. None the less, they are full of meaning to those who will be at the trouble to study them. A.L.B.

7. Statistik der Streiks und Aussperrungen im In- und Auslande. Von Dr. Maximilian Meyer. 253 pp. and two diagrams, 8vo. Leipzig: Duncker and Humblot, 1907.

The best part of this work is the chapter on method, where the conditions of the measurement of strikes are discussed analytically. If the author had been convinced by his own writing he would hardly have pursued the subject further. The importance of strikes is not measured by their number, nor by the number of strikers, nor by the number of working days or the amount of wages lost, nor even by a combination of all these. There is no exact means of measuring the dislocation of industry and the net loss of productiveness; when one part of one industry stops, the disturbance spreads to allied parts, to the producers of the raw materials, to the workers-up of finished goods and to the agents of transport, and also to the tradesmen and their employees who in normal times provide the strikers with commodities. Even if the statistics of the measurable part of strike statistics were exact and similar in all the countries dealt with, still the figures would be merely descriptive, no useful comparison could be made. The author establishes some relationships between the length of a strike, the number concerned, and its success; but they are of a tentative and inconclusive character.

The following table, based on statistics given in the book, shows how extremely variable a phenomenon is in question:

*Computed from the Abstract of Labour Statistics [CA-3690] on the same basis as that used by Dr. Meyer for previous years. The figures used are for "those directly affected by disputes."

It is rather surprising to find that on the basis of these figures, but omitting lock-outs in Germany and taking the years 1900-04 only, it is stated that "in none of the countries compared is the number of strikers per 1000 of those employed so low as in Germany. Next to Germany comes England." This conclusion is not supported; but with numbers varying from 6 to 49 in four years and an artificial denominator ("number employed"), it is not possible to make any useful comparisons.

We cannot reconcile the statistics on pp. 41 and 236 with each other or with the diagram. On p. 41 we read that there were 2,448 strikes and 263 lock-outs in Germany in 1905, on p. 236 we find 2,403 strikes, and in the diagram 2,567 strikes and lock-outs together. A.L.B.

8. La participation aux bénéfices en Allemagne, en Autriche et en Suisse. Traduit de l'Allemand, avec l'autorisation de l'auteur (Dr. Victor Böhmert), par Albert Trombert, Secrétaire de la Société pour l'Étude de la Participation aux Bénéfices. 160 pp.,

Svo. Paris Chaix, 1908.

The original work, of which this is a translation, contains information up to the end of the year 1900 as to profit-sharing in 30 industrial establishments, employing 26,386 persons; 6 commercial establishments, employing more than 235; 4 agricultural undertakings, employing 289; 1 insurance company, employing 41;

and I steam-shipping company, employing 464; together, 42 concerns, having more than 27,415 employees and workmen, in Germany; I manufactory in Austria, employing from 250 to 270 persons; and 12 in Switzerland, employing more than 3,215. To this the translator has added a supplement, bringing down the information to 1906, when he addressed a circular to the several establishments asking for more recent information. He obtained 39 answers from the 55 firms. The general tenour of these answers is, that the system of profit-sharing continues in full operation, and that its benefits have increased with the increase of the business. In one case in the first group they have been somewhat restricted in the interval between 1900 and 1906, and in one case in Switzerland the system of profit-sharing has been discontinued. M. Trombert adds to the list of German establishments furnished by the author the names of 3 in Alsace, where profit-sharing has been carried on since 1874, and 1 in Baden, where the system was adopted in 1903. Dr. Böhmert's observations on the moral qualities, on the part of both workman and employer, that conduce to the success of any scheme for sharing profit between them are worthy of careful consideration.

Fortunes et revenus privés.

E.B.

9. La richesse de la France. Par A. de Lavergne et Paul Henry. xiv + 216 pp. Paris: Librairie Marcel Rivière, 1908. Price 6 frs.

It is difficult to say whether the conclusions or the methods of this admirable study of the wealth of France are of greater interest. The question of method is perhaps the more instructive for English students, especially in regard to the valuation of capital. Here the authors proceed both by the direct and indirect methods. In the case of land, built on or not built on, they capitalize the annual value as shown by the land tax valuation; and in the case of personalty they analyse the stock exchange lists of securities; and by this method they arrive at a total of 9,080 million £ for the wealth in private hands. This result does not correspond with that given by the indirect method of valuation by means of the annuité successorale-a method which was suggested, and has been elaborated, by French statisticians, such as MM. de Foville, Besson and Turquan. The authors, basing themselves, among other things, on the length of the reigns in seven European royal houses, incline to a multiplier at something like the figure suggested by the calculations in the Paper on this subject in the March number of this Journal. They naturally hesitate to apply this multiplier to the French statistics, but the lowest of the multipliers assumed in their calculations, viz., 28, brings out private fortunes at 7,080 million £ only. The writers point out clearly (p. 73) the defects of each method of calculation, and indicate their opinion that the indirect method is the most trustworthy of the two, or would be so if a correct multiplier could be arrived at, and the extent of fraud and of gifts inter vivos correctly estimated.

As regards income, French investigators are at a great disadvantage as compared with English inquirers, owing to the absence

VOL. LXXI. PART IV.

3 B

of income-tax statistics. They, therefore, have recourse to statistics of agricultural and industrial production, derived in part from indication given by such taxes as the contribution mobilière. The total comes out at about 900 million £; but the authors describe these calculations as very problematical, and fall back on a "more scientific" plan of valuation of incomes (1) from capital, (2) from capital and labour combined, and (3) from labour. The proportions which their ingenious and careful investigations bring out, viz., 316 per cent., 228 per cent., and 256 per cent., respectively, are worth remarking; but they do not claim more than a partial and hypothetical authority for their total of 28 milliards of franes, or 1,120 million £, a figure, it may be observed, notably below that usually claimed (1,800 million £) as the national income of the United Kingdom. We have no space in which to give the results of a most interesting chapter on the apportionment of fortunes and income among the different classes, but we cannot conclude without congratulating the authors upon a very full and learned contribution to the study of a question which should be of supreme importance to all concerned in the raising of public revenues. It is much to be desired that some similar work, continuing labours like those of Sir Robert Giffen, and summarising and comparing the various recent sources of information and their results, might be undertaken in this country.

B.M.

10. La progression des budgets en France du treizième siècle à nos jours: ses causes et ses remèdes. Par Joseph Jacob. 180 pp., 8vo. Lyon: Imprimeries Réunies, 1908.

In this monograph the author has addressed his attention to an interesting and important topic. His readers may perhaps feel that he has been more successful in furnishing the means for making at any rate an approximate measurement of successive stages in the past growth of a movement, with the results of which they must be tolerably familiar at the present time, and in indicating the chief causes of this persistent accelerating tendency, than he can be pronounced encouraging in suggesting the possibility or likelihood in the future of any comprehensive effective remedy. For, as he shows in his final chapter, if old causes of increasing expenditure by the State have now disappeared, or have been curtailed, new demands and fresh opportunities have arisen, which may well overtake or outstrip the increase of national wealth which has actually occurred, however laudable, or even in the broader sense remunerative, may be the purposes they are intended to fulfil. He has indeed little difficulty in pointing out the reasons for the large increase which has been the dominant characteristic of preceding times. The growth of population, for example, has undoubtedly been by itself a promoting influence, bringing, however, in some degree its appropriate remedy in an augmentation of the total sum of taxable wealth. An advance in the rates of wages and of salaries paid has been another "economic" factor. In the "social" sphere, similarly, the enlargement of the rôle assigned to the State in modern life has exercised a marked effect, while, in the "political"

order, the development of military establishments has not been unaccompanied by leakage and by other deficiencies of public administration, such as the unnecessary multiplication of officials. These tendencies to increased expense have more than counterbalanced the economies produced, most notably perhaps in the diminution of the interest payable on debt, and in the decentralisation in France of functions previously devolving on the State.

The statistician will be more interested to see that Dr. Jacob is careful to note in this portion of his work the possibility of an apparent as distinguished from a real increase, due to changes made in the detailed arrangements of a budget, including at a later period items omitted at an earlier date, or to alterations in the value of money. The latter factor is one of which our author attempts, as he should, to take due account in the earlier historical section of his treatise, and he reviews the chief considerations which have been observed and examined by economists and statisticians in this particular connection with a fulness of knowledge (of which the bibliography appended to his brochure affords confirming testimony) and a discrimination of judgment which appear to us to be deserving of great praise. He himself follows as his main authorities Leber and Natalis de Wailly, supplemented by reference to M. D'Avenel's monumental writings on the history of prices, in adjusting the figures of the past centuries to a standard of comparison with those of the nineteenth. And he thus contrasts in successive chapters certain budgets, beginning in his first with the Middle Ages, at the time of Philip Augustus, St. Louis, and Philip the Fair, proceeding in his second to the period from 1547 to 1580, dealing in his third with the period from Henry the Fourth to the Revolution, in the fourth with the Revolution, and in the fifth and last chapter with the nineteenth century. His general conclusion is that the French budget of 1900 was nearly four hundred times as large as that of seven hundred years before, and nearly thrice as great as the highest budget of the ancien régime. Such a movement, he adds, is not however confined to France. It has been common to all civilised nations and every form of government, and he quotes illustrative figures for the nineteenth century from England, Russia, the United States, and Japan. L.L.P.

11. Hungary: a sketch of the country, its people, and its conditions. By Julius de Vargha, D.Jur. Budapest: Office of the Athenæum, 1908.

The recent Hungarian Exhibition held in London has prompted the distinguished Director of the Central Statistical Office of the Kingdom of Hungary, Dr. de Vargha, to place before English readers a useful pamphlet, which is both historical and statistical, and which deals alike with the development and the present commercial and economic conditions of the State. With a kindly recognition of his friendly relations to his statistical colleagues here, Dr. de Vargha, who is one of the Hon. Fellows of this Society, has placed at the disposal of the Council a number of copies of this publication. These will be found to be of convenient reference on the many points on