In reading the remainder of the first volume it is expedient to bear in mind that the conclusions and recommendations of the majority differ from those of the minority, the minority report appearing in the third volume. It is noteworthy that all the commissioners agree on certain main positions: (1) a great mass of misery exists, which (2) the exist ing poor laws have failed to relieve, and (3) the hopes entertained by the men of the nineteenth century relating to the poor laws of 1834 have not been realized. Both groups agree as to the need for important changes; but while the majority declares that modifications of the existing system will suffice, the minority demands radical changes. The majority would leave the administration for the most part in the hands of the present authorities; the minority would institute entirely new organs. The recommendations of the majority may be summarized as follows: Substitute the term "public assistance" for poor law, as the latter term is opprobrious. Revise the laws, issue a handbook, get better inspection and give the central body "a more direct position of guidance and initiative in regard to the local authorities." Abolish the powers of the magistrates, and let local boards be made up of public-spirited men and women. Improve the quality of local agents by securing trained persons and by establishing a graded public assistance service. Enlarge the areas of administration. Give larger powers of detention in institutions, particularly for the class known as " ins and outs." Arrange for frequent visits to every institution, and make the life of the aged inmates as comfortable and cheerful as possible. Grant outdoor relief only when applicants are living in decent houses. Give authority to move neglected persons to institutions. Give special attention to widows, and rarely grant relief in desertion cases unless the husband has been gone a year. Investigate; adopt case records; coöperate with private societies. Take better care of the aged; build them separate cottages; and if relief is given out of institutions, see that the relief is adequate and visit the recipients frequently. Extend the system of boarding-out children and place it under effective supervision. Give to the guardians power of supervision over adopted children also, until these have reached the age of twenty-one. Send able-bodied paupers to detention homes. Make the labor of the inmates of institutions more productive; deal more stringently with rounders. (At this point there is interjected a very poor chapter on "Causes of Poverty.") Improve the institutions for the sick, and organize at once "a satisfactory system of nursing or attendance" for the outdoor sick poor. Coöperate with other agencies, particularly in regard to the medical care of school children. Attach no disfranchisement to the receipt of medical assistance. Systematize medical relief. Unskilled labor, irregularly employed, is increasing. The "normal condition of under-employment" requires special machinery for its relief. All encouragement of casual labor must cease. The Unemployed Workmen's Act should be repealed. The commission evidently felt that this was one of the most important subjects, for it devotes 55 pages to its recommendations on this point, under three heads: (1) permanent preventive measures of a social or industrial character; (2) the permanent system of public assistance for the able-bodied; and (3) transitional measures. (1) Establish national labor exchanges to secure information regarding unemployment and to increase the mobility of labor. Keep boys in school to the age of fifteen. Improve devices for technical training and introduce physical education. "The education in our public schools should be much less literary and more practical." Let the public departments plan for the continuous employment of labor, undertaking special work when the general labor demand is weak. vise some plan of insurance against unemployment. De (2) Establish in every district four organizations: (a) an organization against unemployment; (b) a labor exchange; (c) a voluntary aid committee; (d) a public assistance authority, using public funds when necessary. Assist at homes, in labor colonies, in industrial or agricultural institutions, in detention colonies or by emigration. (3) During the period of transition: (a) introduce special plans of public work; (b) borrow money, if necessary, to conduct them; (c) carry out the special works on an ordinary business basis; (d) pay customary wages. The second volume is a sort of appendix to the majority report. The first hundred pages are devoted to a study of private charities. The commission believes that there should be separate committees, one for public assistance with relief furnished by the rates and one for voluntary assistance. The various charities would thus be brought into close relation with each other and would deal particularly with the "at home" cases. Public outdoor relief should be carefully and strictly limited. The voluntary aid committees would have jurisdiction over the areas of the present unions. These suggestions are most interesting; but one wonders how many of the commission dared hope to see them realized. The minority report, in the third volume, is signed by four persons, all from London: Mrs. Sidney Webb; Rev. Prebendary H. Russell Wakefield, alderman and ex-mayor of the borough of St. Marylebone and chairman of the Central Unemployed Body for London; Mr. Francis Chandler, secretary to the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners and ex-chairman of the Chorlton board of guardians; and Mr. George Lansbury, member of the borough council and board of guardians for Poplar and of the Central Unemployed Body for London. Their conclusions may be summarized as follows: Everyone condemns the universally existent mixed workhouse. It exists largely because the public agencies are "destitution authorities charged with the relief, not the prevention, of distress. While the abolition of outdoor relief is impracticable, the present system is open to the gravest criticisms. It is unsystematic, indiscriminate, inadequate. The boards of guardians are unable to prevent the procreation of feeble-minded in the workhouses; the treatment of maternity cases is inadequate, and infant mortality is too high. The powers of the local health authority should be greatly enlarged. Poor children suffer from divided responsibility. The destitution authorities cannot care for the 237,000 children of school age maintained in whole or part by the state. In Great Britain there are three or four thousand children, and in Ireland as many more, who are being brought up in mixed workhouses. The number of children fed by the school authorities indicates the failure of the other agencies. The remedy lies in giving the education authorities the entire control of children of school age. The sick, too, are handled by rival authorities, the poor law and public health agencies. These overlap and lack coördination. The solution is to unify medical service under the public health boards. The mentally defective should be removed from the workhouses, as recommended by the special commission, and should be put under the charge of a separate department, with a minister responsible to Parliament at its head. The aged, also, should be taken from the workhouses and granted pensions. At the same time restraint should be exercised in case of necessity (contagious diseases etc.). The existing laws of settlement and removal should be repealed; and there should be "identical and reciprocal rights as between England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland." There should be better auditing and better supervision by the national government. The general scheme of reform advocated by the minority is as follows: Repeal the old poor law and abolish the boards of guardians, transferring their property and powers to the borough councils. Make separate provision for the able-bodied and the non-able-bodied. As regards the latter class, put children of school age under an education committee; infants, the sick, the incapacitated and the aged who need institutions under a health committee; the mentally defective under an asylums committee; and the aged who do not need institutions under a pensions committee. Appoint registrars of public assistance who shall (1) keep registers; (2) assess rates; (3) approve grants of outdoor relief made by the proper committee. Pages 436 to 690 are devoted to a discussion of the needs of the able-bodied; the remaining pages to a recapitulation. The uniformity sought in 1834 has never been achieved nor has the labor test been applied. Apparently between 30,000 and 40,000 able-bodied men are aided yearly without any work being required of them. Some 10,000 such men are now in the workhouses, and in large towns the number seems to be increasing. This is likewise true in Scotland and in Ireland. The present poor law is therefore a failure, so far as the ablebodied are concerned. The relief furnished by various shelters and missions is only transient, touches only the fringe of the problem and is open to severe criticism on several grounds. The Unemployed Workman's Act has not produced satisfactory results. The Local Government Board has not furthered farm colonies as it might have done, and it has ignored the mandatory provision for labor exchanges. Local authorities have thus been hampered in their efforts to carry out the law. It has been of some value, however, and the recommendation of the majority, to throw the unemployed back under the poor law, is not approved. Under-employment is chronic; the loss in earnings and in character is self-evident. Some better means of knowing the labor market should be devised. While men are under-employed, the number of women and children engaged in industry increases. Only the national government can cope with such conditions. Accordingly, national labor exchanges should be created, under the direction of a minister responsible to Parliament. There should be six subdivisions: (1) a national labor exchange, to ascertain the labor market, to save time in finding work and to dovetail casual employments; (2) a trade insurance division, to look out for the surplus labor resulting from trade changes etc.; (3) a maintenance and training division, to maintain labor bureaus, register those who fail to provide for themselves and their families and control the detention colonies; (4) an industrial regulation division; (5) an emigration and immigration division; and (6) a statistical division. It is again to be noted, in closing, that as regards the general aspects of the situation there is little dispute. That something should be done is evident. That experiment will show what is best seems likely. As a whole, the report is admirably edited. It is concise and yet readable. It will be of great value, not merely in England, but to all students of the problems of poverty. UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. CARL KELSEY. Das Wesen und der Hauptinhalt der theoretischen Nationalökonomie. By JOSEPH SCHUMPETER. Leipzig, Duncker und Humblot, 1909.-626 pp. This work is both critical and constructive, and in each direction it contributes distinctly to the progress of economic science. One of its purposes is to indicate the weak points in current theories, and to this extent it is controversial; but it aims to reduce the amount of controversy in progress rather than to increase it, and the candor with which it treats other men's work gives ground for hoping that this end may be attained. The work holds aloof from entangling controversies as to method and uses whatever method is best adapted to the purpose at any time in view. As the basis of his general plan of study, Dr. Schumpeter places the distinction between statics and dynamics. Actual life is full of change and progress, but an understanding of its phenomena is best gained by first investigating the forces that would control it if it were entirely unchanging. In studying water in violent movement it is necessary to have at the outset a knowledge of its properties in a state of rest; and it is desirable to proceed in a like way in studying the tumultuous changes in society. The author's conception of the static state is a peculiar one. This term is usually made to designate an economic condition in which wealth may continue indefinitely to be produced and consumed, provided there are no alterations in the modes of production and consumption and no changes in its instruments or its agents. There is nothing to hinder a static state, as thus defined, from continuing for a long period. One generation of men may pass from the scene and another may appear, but the incoming workers merely step into the places from which earlier ones have retired. In like manner instruments of production may wear out and be discarded, but new ones take their places without increase or diminution of number and without alteration of form or interruption of work. In order, however, that |