and is to be respected and listened to, and of course he has no difficulty in disposing of many of his positions. It is something that the Toriesthe worshippers of the Quarterly'-should be told that the socialism of the present day is not a thing to be treated altogether with contempt. But Mr. Mallock, while he effects the role of an arithmetician and careful statistician, with no end of figures at his finger ends, should beware, and should check his results more carefully than he has done; for if he had done this he would have found his main contention completely vitiated. He is one, truly, of those who can make statistics prove anything, and that is a feat worth notice for several reasons. The figures given by Mr. Mallock look very imposing as against the idea of the land being in few hands. But in all these cases the real test is in the comparative numbers. and when we come to put these figures to the proof, we find that less, and considerably less, than one-half of the land is held by small holders, even giving the most favourable view to Mr. Mallock, and allowing him a considerable advantage in the computation. Mr. Mallock tells us the landed aristocracy in total numbers is 5000. He then gives as the number of those whose estates average 700 acres, viz., 4800 owners, 32,000 owners at an average of 200 acres, 25,000 with estates that average 70 acres, 72,000 with estates that average 20 acres. The urban and suburban proprietors, Mr. Mallock says, are 820,000, and he gives the latter four acres and the former a quarter of an acre as their portions. But he does not give their respective numbers. We have counted the whole 820,000 at four acres a computation, as will be seen at a glance, greatly in favour of Mr. Mallock. What, then, do we find? That the total number of what may be called small owners is over 950,000. owning 16,230,000 acres, or an average of over 16 acres each. This looks very nice indeed, but we must look into it a little closer. The total area of England is 37,000,000 acres. Mr. Mallock gives 16,230,000 of these to the small owners, and that leaves over 20,000,000 still to be accounted for. By what class are these held? Mr. Mallock does not definitely tell us, so that we can only conclude that he wishes us to assume that these 20,000,000 acres are held by the 5000 landed aristocracy whom he mentions first. This, then, would show an average to each of 4000 acres—a considerable disparity when compared with the average of the smaller owners of 16 acres. And these deductions, be it observed, we draw from Mr. Mallock's own facts and figures, they are not of our own making, so that our ideas of disparity are strengthened rather than weakened by Mr. Mallock's facts, figures, and arguments. Then, again, what an absurdity it is on Mr. Mallock's part to go on demonstrating that if every family in the country were to get a few acres of land there would not be enough! He has much contempt to pour on those who proceed on the assumptions of men acting against all probabilities and against their own interest, but he wildly violates probabilities himself, and devotes pages to the utterance of nonsense and fallacy. He knows as well as we do that the bulk of the middle-class of the towns would never wish and never ask for land, nor the crowds of successful artizans in the towns to whom it would be a little less than a burden. His utterances in this matter are as ridiculous and confused as are his self-contradicting illustrations of the perverse uses of the word use at p. 162. His charges against Mr. Chamberlain are precisely of the same stamp. But it is something that Mr. Mallock should move so gracefully in the Tory strait-waistcoat; and if he only convinces the stiff country Tories that their old-fashioned style will no longer do, he will verily have done a good work. His book will not achieve much more than this, and in some respects, neither in its facts nor in its arguments, will it bear severe scrutiny-pace the lofty imprimatur editor of the Quarterly.' Profit sharing between Capital and Labour. Six Essays by SEDLEY TAYLOR, M. A., Late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. To which is added a Memorandum on the Industrial Partnership at the Whitwood Collieries (18651874), by ARCHIBALD BRIGGS and the late HENRY CURRER BRIGGS. Together with Remarks on the Memorandum by SEDLEY TAYLOR. Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co. Mr. Sedley Taylor has thoroughly investigated the subject of the form of co-operation which has received the name of Profit-sharing, and here he records, in a very succinct and convincing shape, the facts and impressions which he has derived from the inquiry. Three of the essays appeared in 'The Nineteenth Century,' the others were originally delivered as lectures. He describes in a graphic and interesting manner the process by which M. Leclaire, the distinguished house painter of Paris, was led to adopt the system which he carried to a signal success, as well as the special features of the methods adopted at the Maison Bord and the Maison Chaix in Paris. Profit-sharing in railway enterprise is illustrated by the case of the Paris and Orleans Railway Company, and profit-sharing in agriculture by reference to various farms in Germany, especially to that of Herr von Thunen in Mecklenberg-Schwerin. The famous Magazin Boucicault illustrates the plan as applied to distributive enterprise, and the Messrs. Briggs' establishment as applied to collieries. It is as evident as anything can be, that by profit-sharing the most effective appeal is made to the higher self-interest of the men whose profits will depend upon the care bestowed on tools and machinery, and the energy and care brought to bear on the work. What is noticeable is that education has, in all the cases, been carried to a higher point than could otherwise have been the case, and that various forms of benevolent societies have always been associated. Were the principle extensively adopted in our country, it would speedily effect a great reform; and it is undoubted that the masters do not sacrifice anything, that the shares of the men are covered by enhanced profits due to the closer attention and more active spirit engendered. As Professor Fawcett says, it is a happy means of making men realize their uttmost, and furnishes a great impulse to industry. Let us hope that Mr. Taylor's book may lead many firms to adopt it. The Future Work of Free Trade in English Legislation. Cobden Club Prize Essay. By C. E. TROUP, B.A., Balliol College. T. F. Unwin. This is a very clear and dispassionate discussion of the great question of Free Trade in its possibilities. The direction in which reforms are open are indicated with much discrimination. The difficulties of the financier and the politician are recognized. The book is divided into three sections-I. Financial Reform; II. Free Trade in Land; and III. Free Trade and Monopolies. Under the first Mr. Troup shows how absurd are some of the demands made even by financial reformers; he objects to a heavy increase of income-tax because it would trench on the active capital of the country, and he is in favour of additional taxes on luxuries, and especially on intoxicating drinks, because any reduction in them, by - favouring increasing drinking, would certainly effect a lowering of the productive worth of labour. As to land, Mr. Troup is averse to all form; of confiscation, but he is radical in his ideas of reform, with this grand conclusion, that complete free trade in land is possible only when life estates and estates in tail are entirely prohibited, and all forms of tenure, including some half-obsolete copy hold tenures [Mr. Troup should have included some forms of leaseholds, and especially life leaseholds], are reduced to fee-simple. The direction of present-day legislation is certainly running slowly but surely in this direction. With regard to monopolies, the State's rights in relation to them are strictly defined. On the whole, the little volume adds one more proof of the vitality of the principles with which the name of Cobden is so intimately associatedprinciples which must more and more prevail in a free and progressive country. Parliamentary Procedure and Practice in the Dominion of Canada. By JOHN GEORGE BOURINOT. Montreal: Dawson Brothers. Mr. Bourinot has supplied a distinct want by furnishing an elaborate and exhaustive account of the parliamentary institutions of Canada, These institutions, originally derived from the English Imperial Parliament, have diverged in practice in the course of years, and a great many precedents have arisen, the alterations thus caused calling for a work like the present. Mr. Bourinot has also aimed at making a comparison between the British and the Canadian Constitutions, naturally, perhaps, to the advantage of the latter. As clerk to the Canadian House of Commons, he has an intimate acquaintance with all its procedure, and of this he gives an elaborate account, descending to the minutest details; and adds a list of recent privy council decisions of great use to those concerned. The work is prefixed by a history of the growth of the institutions in the Dominion, only a short summary being given-as indeed is necessary, as the volume extends to nearly eight hundred pages. Whether NO. CLIX. 13 this is not too long for an ordinary handbook is an open question; but that the book will be of immense value to the Canadian lawyer is certain. It will very probably occupy the position of the standard text-book for some time to come. Mr. Bourinot is to be congratulated on the successful issue of what must have been an immense amount of patient labor. Commentaries on (American) Law. By FRANCIS WHARTON, LL.D. Philadelphia: Kaye and Brother. Mr. Wharton has here done for American what Mr. Bourinot has done for Canadian Constitutional Law; but, in addition to this, his book aims to be a commentary on the whole province of law, as it includes chapters on international public and private law, constitutional and statutory law. The author calls his book an exposition of public law for students of all classes. In his introductory chapters on the nature and the source of law, he takes the view that law always must precede and define sovereignty, and that it must be declaratory of existing conditions; a view supported by Bacon and Burke, though opposed by such authorities as Austin and Hobbes. The chapter on International Law' is extremely valuable, both as a compact treatise on a subject which has a peculiarly vague and undefined character, and as representing the views of the Institute of International Law, of which body Mr. Wharton is a member. The section on Private International Law' contains some very curious and interesting information for the general reader. The remaining two chapters are more purely technical, and are supplemented with a table of the cases referred to. The whole work is characterized by great clearness and order, and will doubtless be in much request on the other side of the Atlantic. Life, Function, Health. Studies for Young Men. By H. SINCLAIR PATERSON, M.D. Hodder and Stoughton. These chapters were originally prepared for delivery as lectures to young men connected with the Young Men's Christian Association in Aldersgate Street, and were issued in three separate small volumes. They gain and only gain by being presented in a complete form. It is often urged that ministers are very much to be found fault with in not facing more plainly than they generally do the facts of life as unfolded by physiological science and in speaking directly on that subject. Dr. Paterson, who studied medicine and took his doctor's degree in medicine, certainly does not err in this respect, and whilst he has made his subject SO attractive that Mr. Spurgeon has called his lectures fascinating physiology,' he does not beat about the bush. The lectures are models of what such addresses should be-clear, simple, full of information yet not overweighted with it, and lightened up with lively illustration and now and then with apt anecdote. The chapters on Food and Appetite,' 'A Merry Heart,' and Rest and Sleep,' are especially attractive. Nor should we forget to draw attention to the fresh lights which Dr. Paterson manages to throw on the theory of evolution from his own point of view. Such lectures might well be cited as models for ministers in addresses of the kind; and it would be well if in much larger numbers they devoted themselves to studies of this kind, as thereby they would by becoming more thoroughly acquainted with the wondrous organism of man's body be often all the better able to minister to a mind diseased. The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. By ROBERT W. and R. One is inclined to wonder now at the furore which this book caused in so many quarters on its first appearance in 1844. It is simply a modest plea for evolution or development, qualified by a persistent reserve in favour of law as the process of a personal Creator, and with this view the fields of astronomy, geology, and natural history are in succession canvassed, and the most salient facts that had been fully attested urged in favour of the general position. Most of the main ideas are now wholly accepted, and the very classes who assailed the book as dangerous are now for the most part ready to seek for facts and arguments by which to reconcile the main positions with the reception of Divine revelation. On some minor points, of course, later research modified the opinions first stated, but the author was very careful to keep the text up to date, and went on correcting edition by edition, leaving behind him a revised copy from which the present edition has been produced. The clearness, the breadth, and force of Robert Chambers's mind, as well as his sincere devotion to truth, would be amply atestted by these pages, even if he had not done so much in other departments. A vigorous, unflinching resolu tion to get at the real facts is apparent everywhere, and a jealous carefulness to draw no inference that the facts will not fully warrant, Mr. Ireland, in his introduction, tells us that he is now the one surviving depository of the original secret of authorship, but that he was not bound to any secrecy in the event of his outliving the author. Hence the complete narrative of the facts connected with the matter now fully given, together with many anecdotes illustrating the peculiar positions in which the author and his friends were frequently placed, and the odd assumptions of others to the possession of special knowledge which they could by no means have had. Some, and one of them a lady, even affected to have claims to the authorship. The volume is beautifully illustrated with drawings, and in its present form will no doubt be widely welcomed as one of the very first systematic contributions made in England to an idea which has since in the hands of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Russell Wallace. become so influential and notorious, |