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picture of the present situation, but does not need any discussion in this place. Finally the chapters on public credit contain an admirable historical survey, but in matters of principle do not afford us anything which cannot be found at least equally well said in Professor Adams' recent work.

It is otherwise with the discussion of the general principles of finance. Cohn's treatment of the various kinds of public contributions (Die Arten des öffentlichen Entgeltes) marks a distinct advance. His theoretical separation of fees, assessments, taxes, etc. is based upon an analysis of comparative private and public benefits, and he thus attains a satisfactory solution of a problem that has always caused the German scientists much trouble. His description of the historical development of public economy is clearer than that of Roscher, and traces the chief lines of development with a master-hand. His short discussion of the principles of local finance is a veritable relief when compared to the laborious and confused chapters to be found in other treatises.

Most striking is the treatment of the equities of taxation. Cohn shows that just as the accepted ideas of justice are a product of historical evolution, so the conception of just taxation has assumed a different form in every stage of human progress. He gives an interesting historical sketch of the different ideas that swayed the public mind at various epochs, and then devotes himself in particular to a consideration of proportional versus progressive taxation. The result of the long discussion is the adoption of the principle of progression, not for Wagner's sociopolitical reasons, but simply because under modern conditions proportional taxation no longer corresponds to taxable capacity. Cohn seeks to define and limit the principles of progression, and in connection with this gives a stimulating history of the doctrine of the "minimum of existence."

This is not the place to attempt a criticism in detail. That must be reserved for another time and place. Weak points are not lacking, as e.g. in the discussion of the incidence and diffusion of taxation and in the treatment of the property tax. It will have served our purpose to call attention to the subjects in which Cohn's book marks a distinct advance on its predecessors. Wagner, Roscher and Cohn supplement one another. Wagner is more radical and audacious in his suggestions and illustrates his theories by a wealth of statistical material; Roscher is weak in theory but strong in history; Cohn seeks to keep the golden mean. But in two respects Cohn's finance is superior to all others—in clearness of style and in philosophic breadth of view. We welcome this new accession to economic literature as one of the most important works of the decade. EDWIN R. A. SELIGMAN.

A History of the Ancient Working People, from the Earliest Known Period to the Adoption of Christianity by Constantine. By C. OSBORNE WARD, Translator and Librarian, U. S. Department of Labor. W. H. Lowdermilk & Co., Washington, 1889.

This is the first considerable attempt, so far as I know, to set forth in English a history of the producing classes of antiquity. Mr. Ward has encountered the difficulties of such pioneer work with courage and zeal, but he has not all the qualifications for entire success.

His spirit, in

the main, is admirable, but it is dashed with a vein of enthusiasm which not infrequently finds expression in a vague and mystical rhetoric. His scholarship is extensive but undisciplined; one misses the exercise of a trained critical judgment. With remarkable industry he has brought together a mass of information not accessible in our histories, but it is not carefully sifted and one finds much hasty generalization and dubious philosophy. A very serious defect in the book is its lack of systematic arrangement. It professes to cover a very long period, but the author seems to have no adequate sense of time. This appears chiefly in his marshalling of the evidence in regard to the ancient labor organizations. It is derived from all ages and is often applied as if the organizations were the same at all times. There was a notable increase of collegia under the favoring legislation of the Antonines, but Mr. Ward is so convinced of the prevalence of trade unions in prehistoric times that he does not give sufficient attention to the stages of their development in historical times. Critical attention to chronology would have greatly improved his chapters. With Mr. Ward, Numa is as historical as Julius Cæsar, and the legislation of Lycurgus is as authentic as that of Solon.

The first one hundred pages is the least valuable portion of the book. It is pervaded by a most distorted view of ancient society, which seems to have come from a misapprehension of Fustel de Coulanges. Mr. Ward thinks that the vast mass of Roman slaves consisted of the younger children of the free citizens! The first-born succeeded his father, the rest of the children became his slaves! Pages 133-332 are devoted to a history of ancient slave insurrections, which, on the whole, deserves praise. It is based on the original sources and German monographs, and the narrative is lighted up by a deep sympathy with the oppressed. The last third of the volume deals with the ancient organizations of free laborers and is derived from a thorough study of the inscriptions and of Mommsen's essay De collegiis et sodaliciis Romanorum. The defects in arrangement and the lack of chronological detail have been referred to, but Mr. Ward's zeal and industry in elucidating a very obscure subject deserve warm recognition. Mr. Ward, however, rather overestimates

the completeness with which he has canvassed the existing literature of the subject. He does not mention Levasseur's Histoire des classes ouvrières en France, Wallon's Histoire de l'esclavage dans l'antiquité, or Dureau de la Malle's Économie politique des Romains. Levasseur's work would have given him a model as regards arrangement and method. The article of Mr. W. A. Brown in the POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY for September, 1887, would have given him light on the relation of the state to labor in the latter part of his period.

Chapter XXII is an attempt to show that historically the red flag has always been the peaceful standard of labor, and that consequently squeamish people should not object to processions of anarchists flying "the incalculably aged flag of labor." The case is hardly made out, but many interesting facts are mentioned. No light at all is thrown on what the red flag means to its modern bearer, which is the essential point. The corner stone of the theory, as is not infrequently the case, is a false etymology. The last chapter is a good specimen of the author's vague and mystical philosophy of history.

Some of Mr. Ward's theories are unique. He found Diodorus a valuable source, but was embarrassed by the losses his work has suffered. Diodorus evidently told too much truth. "We, in consequence, as students of sociology, must charge against that slave-holding aristocracy all mutilation of his history . . . A large portion of the details . . . has apparently been sequestered through the vandalism of contemporaneous censorship." He adds: “A similar outrage has been perpetrated upon Livy's history of Spartacus, proved by the epitomes or chapter headings xv, xvi, xvii, which have survived the wreck." Sallust was similarly tampered with. (Page 211, and note 51.) The desire to be realistic and vivid leads Mr. Ward too far in the application of modern terms to ancient things. Slaves are "workingmen," and slave insurrections "strikes"; the cruel slaveholder Damophilus is termed a "millionnaire." It is a sore temptation with ardent reformers to conceal an argument in every epithet, and Mr. Ward often yields to it. His notion of a workingman is certainly comprehensive, for it embraces not only the slaves but such men as Phidias. Mr. Ward's fervor leads him into some errors of interpretation, a few of which may be noted. On page 277 he says: "Often young children were driven naked into the arena, given knives, and forced, for the amusement of these truculent nobles, to struggle in the awful qualms of danger and death until the little innocents, one or more, fell dying in their bath of blood." What is the proof? The statement of Nicolas of Damascus that a certain man once left a provision in his will for such a contest, but that the people, horrified at the cruelty, frustrated the design. Mr. Ward's statement is not supported by this evidence. On page 154 he says: 'It was ordered

that the Carthaginian hostages be degraded to the condition of slaves to work for private individuals." What Livy says is: "Ut et obsides in privato servarentur." (Page 151, note 18.) On page 355 the sense is entirely missed by rendering "dolus malus" "pain."

The proof-reading is very carelessly done. The attempt to read the Greek or Latin notes is an admirable exercise in textual emendation. An analytical table of contents ill supplies the lack of an index in a volume containing such a variety of matter.

EDWARD G. BOURNE.

Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by G. BERNARD SHAW. Published by the Fabian Society, London, 1889.-233 PP.

This book contains a course of eight lectures, delivered in 1888, by members of the Fabian Society. They set forth in part at least the theory and programme which the members of that society hope gradually to induce the Liberal party to adopt, and with its help to embody in English law. The authors deal almost wholly with English conditions. and problems. The writers to whom they refer as authorities or antagonists are English, or those whose works exist in English translations. The result is that the errors of the Manchester school are again exploited for the benefit of social democracy, and much well-beaten straw is threshed again in the hope of finding grain.

The first part of the book is devoted to a criticism of existing social institutions in England. They are studied from the economic, the historical, and the moral standpoints, with the purpose of showing that they have failed to secure national health, and that tendencies are now at work which will overthrow them and prepare the way for the socialistic state. In the second part the organization of property and industry under the socialistic state is described. Finally the method of transition to the new order and the prospects of the movement are outlined. We are told by the editor in the preface that the work, both in its form and substance, is "a sample of the propaganda carried on by voluntary lecturers in the workingmen's clubs and political associations of London." Though the scientific value of the lectures may be lessened thereby, the interest attaching to them as results of a persistent attempt to influence English opinion is increased.

Within the limits of this review it is impossible to glance even at the contents of all the essays. The writer will state what seems to be some of the leading features of the book.

That the question of land and rent should occupy a prominent place is natural. Mr. Shaw opens the discussion with a paper in which he generalizes Ricardo's law of rent in such a way as to account a priori

for the existence of an unproductive landlord class, over-population and starvation wages. He sums up his analysis as follows:

Incomes derived from private property consist partly of economic rent; partly of pensions, also called rent, obtained by the subletting of tenant rights; and partly of a form of rent called interest, obtained by special adaptations of land to production by the application of capital; all these being finally paid out of the difference between the produce of the workers' labor and the price of that labor sold in the open market for wages, salary, fees, or profits.

The conclusion is that economic rent should be appropriated for the good of the community, and the other forms of rent no longer exacted. The method of treatment is essentially the same as that by which Bastiat reached the opposite conclusions. The one is no more convincing than the other.

Mr. Clarke traces the growth of capitalistic production till it has culminated in the trust and annihilated free competition. Mr. Webb shows how the theory of laissez faire had to be abandoned, and the state was forced to interfere to check the evils which developed during the first half of this century in the English factories and mines. That interference has gone on till now a large number of industries are controlled to a greater or less extent by the state or municipality. This, it is argued, is an evidence and a result of the growth of the democratic spirit. With that has arisen the true organic conception of society. With the triumph of democracy in England, which is regarded as certain, will come the overthrow of individualism and the establishment of a socialistic régime. Industries organized under the form of the trust are ready for absorption by the state.

Several of the writers declare themselves opposed to the construction of ideal commonwealths. They say that this was an amiable weakness of the older socialists, but that experience and the study of evolutionary philosophy have shown it to be unscientific and useless. It will be sufficient, they say, to proclaim our destructive criticism of the present social order, and to aid the progress of those measures of reform the object of which is to improve the machinery of government and make it more serviceable to the masses. But the socialist must have an ideal, whether for tactical purposes he conceals it or not. Hence we find that Mr. Wallas and Mrs. Besant have sketched the future social state, and its outlines will be familiar to all students of social-democratic theories. Some statements in the last article, by Mr. Herbert Bland, together with a few passages occurring elsewhere in the book, would indicate that the members of the society are not fully agreed as to the methods of their propaganda and the probable result of the movement. The policy of force all emphatically reject. Mr. Bland has very rational doubts as to the possibility of leavening the Radical and Liberal parties with socialistic

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