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sugar, first, the effect on production, second, the effect on prices.

The Cuban crop of 1917-18, which was the first crop produced under an agreement with the Food Administration was 3,446,0831 long tons or 422,363 tons greater than the preceding Cuban crop which was the largest crop up to that year, and the present year's crop produced under agreement with the United States Sugar Equalization Board is estimated at 4,000,000 long tons, or about 554,000 tons greater than even the previous record crop.

The beet sugar crop of the United States of 1917-18, the beets of which were planted in the spring of 1917 before Food Administration activities began, was 765,207 short tons, representing a decline of 55,450 tons from the previous year's high record but 49,000 tons above the pre-war average. The beet sugar crop of 1918-19 which was produced under direct encouragement of the Food Administration as explained above was 765,063 tons, practically equivalent to the preceding crop. The Louisiana cane crop was 243,600 short tons in 1917 as against 303,900 short tons in 1916 and a prewar average of 229,000 tons, but in 1918 it rose to 263,450 short tons. The Porto Rican and Hawaiian crops show slight decreases for the last two years. The combined production in those sources of supply affected by government control increased 206,000 long tons in 1917-18 over 1916-17, and 1,301,000 tons over the prewar average, and in 1918-19 increased 586,000 tons over the 1916-17 and 1,867,000 tons over the pre-war average. Whether or not the Food Administration was responsible for all of this increase, it is difficult to determine,

1 Figures for Cuban production from Willett and Gray's Weekly Statistical Sugar Journal, June 12, 1919, p. 268.

Crop Reporter, April, 1919.

Ibid., January, 1919.

but it certainly cannot be seriously maintained in view of these statistics that the Food Administration policies tended to discourage production.

The facts as to prices are no less significant. In order to obtain this larger production, was the American consumer forced to pay an abnormally high price? The retail price of sugar increased from an average of 8 cents per pound in the year 1916 to 9.3 cents per pound in 1917 and 9.7 in 1918. Since the per capita consumption of sugar in the United States was about 79, 78 and 73 pounds in 1916, 1917, and 1918 respectively, including sugar used in all manufactured articles, the per capita cost of sugar amounted to $6.32 in 1916, $7.25 in 1917 and $7.08 in 1918, an increase of 14.7 per cent in 1917 over 1916 and 12 per cent in 1918 over 1916. The total sugar consumption of the United States for these three years amounted to about 3,658,607 tons, 3,683,599 tons and 3,495,606 tons so that the sugar bill of the nation was about $665,622,000 in 1916, $767,367,000 in 1917 and $759,525,000 in 1918.

Yet altho the retail price of sugar increased only 21 per cent and the per capita cost only 12 per cent from 1916 to 1918, the beet farmers of the United States received an average price of $10.00 per ton for beets in 1918 as against $6.12 in 1916,2 an increase of 63 per cent, while beet sugar manufacturers received an average of $8.12 per 100 pounds in 1918 as compared with $6.98 in 1916, an increase of 16 per cent. Similar increases were obtained by the American refiners, the Louisiana sugar producers, the Cubans, Hawaiians, and Porto Ricans in accordance with their increasing respective costs.

3

1 In long tons from Willett and Gray's Weekly Statistical Sugar Journal.
Crop Reporter, April, 1919.

Calculated from figures of Truman G. Palmer, "Concerning Sugar," p. 48.

The statistical evidence at hand indicates, therefore, that the American consumer did not pay for all the increase in costs of production of sugar, nor did he pay a premium for the increased production that resulted during government control. The general conclusion, to be drawn, both from the viewpoint of production and the viewpoint of prices, is that government control of sugar during the war was a decided success.

JOSHUA BERNHARDT.

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.

REVIEW

WALSH'S THE CLIMAX OF CIVILIZATION:
SOCIALISM; AND FEMINISM 1

THESE three books may not improperly be called volumes I, II, and III, of the same work. In the preface to volume I the author says:

Standing by itself, the present work is offered as a new exposition of the cyclical theory in the philosophy of history. It attempts to describe the course which all civilisations naturally run, and to locate our position in the cycle of our civilisation. This position is shown to be one near the top, or climax, and to contain premonitions of disintegration and decline. The purpose of the work is to point out these germs of decay, and to emphasize the need of guarding against fomenting and cherishing them. The two most comprehensive sources of trouble are the subjects of the two succeeding works.

The symptoms of our near approach to the climax, or of our having already passed it, the author observes from seven points of view, namely: (1) the military art; (2) economics; (3) population; (4) morality; (5) the fine arts, literature and jurisprudence; (6) religion, and (7) government. In each field of activity he observes, at least among peoples who have amounted to anything, a regular cycle from the strenuous, heroic, and masculine virtues of primitive life, up through conditions of power and prosperity, followed by the feminine virtues of softness, gentleness, sympathy and elegance, and then downward through enervation, ease, unwillingness to endure hardship, overconsumption, and decay.

In the field of economics, his cycle reminds one of E. V. Robinson's remark that when production exceeds consumption, there is progress; when consumption exceeds produc

1 The Climax of Civilization, pp. 150, $1.25; Socialism, pp. 169, $1.50; Feminism, pp. 393, $2.50. By Correa Moylan Walsh. New York, Sturgis and Walton. 1917.

tion, there is retrogression; tho he goes more into detail. In the field of morals he says, page 31 of volume I:

Because of the need at first of contention, the virtues most dwelt upon, when intelligent observation was turned toward them, were the masculine virtues of fortitude, temperance, wisdom, and justice. But with the advent of the long peace and the coming into prominence of women, taking the place of those stern virtues another set of mild ones come to the fore the feminine virtues of patience, purity, faith, and affection.

Again, on pages 32 and 33:

By now the old intuitive morality has given way before a rationalising science of ethics, which, rejecting the old stand-bys as too rough, experiments with all sorts of new theories, and even with many which experience has long ago disproved. More attention is paid to the welfare of individuals than to the welfare of the whole society or race, and still less to its perpetuation, especially if each individual believes himself immortal. . . . Accompanying this change come new ideas about a general equality of the sexes; for women are equal to men in the point of view now emphasized - the capacity to enjoy and to consume. . . . With the breaking down of competition, there is less striving within each state as well as between states, until at last, with the diminution of production, especially if accompanied by exhaustion of the sources, a new period of hard times sets in, which generates strife again, but finds the more civilised peoples mostly unfit for it, and most likely to give way before the less civilised.

The author finds that feminism is only a part of socialism, tho he says that: "Feminism may be advocated without socialism without the whole of which it is a part."

The significance of these volumes, however, is not to be found in the views they set forth, but in the wealth of learning and the discriminating judgment which they display. The author shows himself to be a real student, with a penetrating mind which can see through the ordinary claptrap of popular philosophy which has, unfortunately, sometimes been imported into the proceedings of learned societies.

The appearance of a cycle of growth and decay in national as in the individual life has long been a puzzle. There seems

1 Cf. "War and Economics," Political Science Quarterly, vol. xv, p. 581.

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