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138-139

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THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM OF THE UNITED KINGDOM 139
BOLIVIA, ITS PEOPLE AND ITS RESOURCES
SOCIALISM AND ECONOMIC THEORY (Principles of
Economics; A Theory of Interest)

THE COLLECTIVIST STATE IN the Making

THE HONOUR OF DENBIGH IN 1334

THE FUTURE OF WORK

THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND ROGER BACON

THE LITERARY

GERMANY

GERMAN FREE CITIES

JESPERSEN'S MODERN ENGLISH GRAMMAR

THE GERMAN YEAR-Book

DIE ENTSTEHUNG DER AENEIS

LEIPZIG, 1813-DAS BEFREIUNGSJAHR 1813

WITH MR. CHAMBERLAIN IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF IRISH PHILOLOGY AND PRINTED LITERATURE

LIFE AND HUMAN NATURE

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140

141

143

AUG 10 1914 THE ATHENEUM

eliminate luxury in order to free capital and energy for the production of necessities. Near the end of the book we get his definition of "luxury" as " anything we anything we can do without without impairing our health of mind and body." In so far as mens sana in corpore sano is necessary to the body politic, this is sound. Unfortunately, mental and physical health, as at present understood, is in the 142 possession of many who are devoid of 142 anything approaching a social conscience. A more helpful definition of "luxury," to our mind, would be "anything which does not help us in the service of our fellows." We do not for a moment imagine that we have provided an infallible spyglass for the detection of what 147 is luxurious; we only suggest the employment, as in chemistry, of a test, the reaction of which will declare a thing a luxury. Our definition at least provides for the fact that what is a luxury in the possession of one person may be a necessity for another. A man may need what is by comparison sumptuous fare; he may recognize the truth of St. Augustine's dictum :

144 144 145 145 145

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The needs of different people vary: the rich are not to be required to use the same food as the poor, but may have such food as their infirmity has made necessary for them, while at the same time they ought to lament the fact that 160 they require this indulgence"; 163 but, judged by our definition, if certain possessions and certain habits enable an individual to render commensurately the services he was made for, these things for him are necessities not luxuries. Another man may possess himself of the good things of life to a more limited extent, and may still indulge himself in luxuryhe may be using more than can be helpful to him in the service of his fellows. The greatest is he who takes least from his fellows, and gives most to them.

Poverty and Waste. By Hartley Withers. Poverty and Waste. By Hartley Withers. (Smith, Elder & Co., 3s. 6d. net.)

NOT unmindful of the evil of exaggeration, we affirm that this is a welcome addition to the books which are helping to recast the social conscience. Mr. Withers is well known as a writer on political economy, and we notice that his book on 'The

Meaning of Money' is one of the few officially_recommended officially recommended at Cambridge for

study. Here his purpose is to arouse the individual to a sense of his social responsibility. Our own pages contain sufficient evidence that, while welcoming legislation and co-operative action, we regard the creation of a higher average ideal as the real necessity. Having thus established the fact that we are in entire accord with Mr. Withers in his main thesis, we shall endeavour to be critically helpful.

To begin with, we suggest that in the next edition (the price of which might be lessened by the partial elimination of wide spacing) a small dictionary of the meaning attached by the author to such words as "progress,' "poverty," "happiness," "luxury," &c., should be furnished. As an instance take "luxury." It is a word which looms large throughout these pages, and which has proved a stumblingblock to more than one person, to our knowledge. Mr. Withers would have us

To Our mind distinguishing attribute of the first is its boundlessness, of the second its limitation to the present material content of the planetary system. To that content nothing is added, from that content nothing is taken away; but the content itself is changing ever. Whensoever and wheresoever the change makes for better spiritual environment there is progress, according to our definition of the term. We await Mr. Withers's definition hopefully, encouraged to do so by the wording in his chapter entitled The Wealth Heap '-chastened nevertheless by his use of the word "destruction" of capital in a case where we should have preferred the expression "wrong conversion." Hope for us lies in the ascendancy of the spiritual over the material. The man who, from a block of wood, fashions an aeroplane contributes something propeller that

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essential to our ultimate purpose of overcoming the obvious limitations imposed by the law of gravity is helping-is, in fact, progressive. fact, progressive. The man who, out of as good a block of wood, fashions an ornate coffin, which, after being seen for a short space under disadvanis tageous circumstances, forthwith buried in the earth, where it merely retards without overcoming the processes of disintegration, is, to our mind, a reactionary.

We find we have been only discussing yet another idea, i.e. responsibility, while all this time Mr. Withers's book has been lying by our side, annotated, but unnoticed in detail. As briefly as we can we must refer to a few points. In places, to our mind, he is too pessimistic. He thinks there is no material progress towards happiness. We must admit that the progress is infinitesimal in comparison with what it ought to have been, had we advanced spiritually as we have materially. The author thinks art and philosophy can afford to wait; we say that they cannot. He speaks of a natural craving for more. Such a craving is, to our mind, essentially unwholesome; it must be replaced by a craving to use better what one has. Mr. Withers thinks that the average rich man would be delighted to see the hand workers of the country properly recompensed, but fears an economic upset. the bogy of their own discomfort which We rather suspect it is session-i.e. ownership-will not of itself stands in the way of the rich. Again, poscause discomfort, though useless possession may to an awakened consciousness. gauge the wealth of the world by the speed and quality of production is misleading, unless under quality we include usefulness. We wish that the moral responsibility for investments had been more emphasized. So long as it is not considered a disgrace for a man not only to pocket money he does not earn, but also to remain ignorant of how it is earned, trading companies will be industrially unhealthy. The present system has been well stigmatized by Mrs. Billington Greig in her book The Consumer in Revolt as "profiteering," and those who support it as" profiteers."

We may also question whether the author can justify the putting by of money for an old age which may never be reached while the aged at our doors are in need. If our contention is right as against the author's words on p. 25, this does not apply to mutual insurance, should be at present regarded as an which in the case of professional men should be at present regarded as economic necessity.

We wish we shared the author's high opinion of the captains of industry today and the intellectual flower of our Universities. Have the former really "simple tastes"? Of the latter, it is true that they go into the professions and literature, but mainly in search of the places most profitable to themselves. In his chapter on The Claims of Capital' the author reiterates his

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contention that capital arises solely out of saving. The definition may have been good enough in early days, but to give it as universally applicable to-day is like praising a boy on the verge of being sick for leaving a morsel of cake on a dish. We should prefer to congratulate a parent (? the State) on removing the dish from the face of gluttony, with a view to placing it at the disposal of others in need. With studied moderation Mr. Withers sets out in chap. vi. the change that has taken place from the earliest form of capitalism. He is not prepared to adopt the Socialist formula

From each according to ability, to each according to need," nor do we advocate

the adoption of the principle except where to supply the need is to enable the individual to make the best possible return to the community. Some attention is bestowed on expedients suggested by many reformers, such as profit-sharing, co-operative concerns, &c.; but little

satisfaction is obtainable from these efforts, for the most part because the spirit is lacking-as, indeed, the letter also often is, in spite of the statements It is better to face the fact on p. 118. that the economic system now in force is quite good enough for present needs if it be only freed from some of its worst

abuses and abusers.

to

In the chapter devoted The Workers' we find much to criticize. Mr. Withers gives us cause to regret his lack of ideal when he suggests that the workers are wise in adopting the system of "ca' canny as things now are. The self-respect of the worker-grounded in the knowledge that he is doing his duty and keeping his contract to work so many hours a day for so much moneyis an asset making for a happiness out of all comparison with the enjoyment got out of material wealth. Over and above that consideration, the workers may well realize that to him who fights with clean heart and hands is the joy of battle. Mr. Withers fears the possibility of members of the middle classes, well enough able to pick up a knack of work quickly, turning the tables on the workers in some industrial emerIf the middle classes do take gency. upon themselves to sample manual drudgery, as they did in the Swedish strike of 1909, they must, we think, learn one of two things: either that the sharing with others of such work is for the health of their souls, or that it is so

disagreeable to them that they will prefer, in future, to pay a fair price to somebody else to do it for them. No doubt it is difficult to get many people to sympathize with workers taking three days' holiday out of every seven, because such people not only fail to realize the comparative monotony of the wage-earner's lot, but also probably themselves take a good deal more time" off." Monotony (with the consequent desire for holidays) plays, in our opinion, no small part in the readiness with which the sympathetic strike is taken up, though the more potent reason

a

THE first of the two books we notice here together is The Great Society: Wallas. Readers of the papers by Miss Psychological Analysis,' by Mr. Graham recent issues of The Athenæum will not Hoskyns-Abrahall which appeared in need to be told that modern psychological science is making a revolution, of which in the outlook of social and political rewe do not as yet realize the limits, formers. The old formulæ are being overhauled, the old Utopias are being abandoned. When, during the eighties, the newly born modern Socialist movepolitical thought, an outburst of specument introduced a fresh idealism into lative writing took place; Utopias were invented, and had a currency which recalled the credulous days of Robert Owen's middle period. But now a new spontaneous effort to reconstruct political thought is taking place. Whether we look at the symposia of Mr. Lowes Dickinson, the collection of papers edited by Mr. H. G. Wells, and published with the title The Great State,' or the philosophy of Syndicalism, the same change is everywhere apparent. The day of the universal formula of reform has gone. Fabian Essays,' of which Mr. Wallas was one of the writers, are now regarded by him, on the constructive side at least, as entirely impracticable. The Essays merely reduced theory to one formula, and then sought to apply it generally.

this

discredited by the actual working of democratic institutions. Benthamite Hedonism died out with J. S. Mill. The examination of Crowd-Psychology results in a chapter of extreme interest. Mr. Wallas points out that subject has been regarded commonly from three points of view, each exclusive of the others. The adherents of the Imitation, Sympathy, and Suggestion theories have all exaggerated their cases. Here modern psychology has not as yet provided an adequate substitute; we do not know enough about the relation between the behaviour of a crowd-to use the word in a limited sense-and its environment, especially that part of its environment which is socially con

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trollable. Love and Hatred, again, are shown to be natural," that is to say, theorists astray. The doctrine of the but here current deductions have led they have an evolutionary survival-value, survival of the fittest has gone under as a guide in industrial politics. As Mr. Sidney Webb once said: "The fittest unfit to do anything else... But the arguto survive is, generally speaking, quite ment which has died out in a political, remains in a biological form; it is the addition to pacificist theory. great asset of the war parties of the world. Mr. Wallas's examination of it is a brilliant

We then come to the problems of organization, the central problems of the Great Society. Of these the organization of thought is the most important and the most difficult. Thought, especially to the psychologist, appears to be almost beyond deliberate construction, but it is, on the other hand, distinctly susceptible to the influence of external conditions. When William James

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said We trust to

the laws of cerebral nature to present us spontaneously with the appropriate idea," he was not denying this important

truth. The conditions under which social thinking is carried on, it is suggested, might be immensely improved. The large committee, whether

а

The method

of

clearance adopted by Mr. Wallas is the application of psychological tests to the formulæ into which social life has been crystallized. To the Habit-formula of Maine and the Duke of Wellington the author has little need to oppose Binet and the experimental school of psychologists; Plato settled that theory long ago. The Fear-formula of Hobbes, again, is The Great Society: a Psychological Analysis. By Graham Wallas. (Macmillan & Co., 10s. net.)

Work and Wealth:

a Human Valuation.

made use of them at Cabinet meetings. The very small committee is the best organ of collective thought yet evolved.

The organization of Will is the subject of turns, naturally, upon the principal of a slightly pessimistic chapter. It method in which the public will is to-day taken into account the general election. Mr. Wallas agrees with Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb in believing that Property, Democracy, and Industrial Association will all be present and active in the future State, but that it is impossible at present to predict the character of their combina

tion.

These are weighty words, for Mr. Walle's enthusiasm never overflows the limits of businesslike deduction.

has been since the Pacific War of 1879--83, To Bolivia, cut off from the coast as she railway communication is of the first consequence. To-day, three lines connect

La Paz and the chief commercial centres of the tablelands with the ports of Antofagasta, Mollendo, and Arica; while another (now in construction) will enable transit without change of axles from Buenos Aires to the Peruvian frontier in less than five days, and bring La Paz within twentyfive days from Europe. So Bolivia, hither to relegated to a hinterland of difficult access, is in a fair way to develope its vast natural mineral and agricultural wealth. It is interesting to note that the physical features and conditions of

Bolivia

are such that railway construction and maintenance are less costly than the creation and upkeep of prac

ticable roads.

The construction of the necessary network of railways planned during the first presidency of Señor Montes and that of Señor Villazon, only retarded by lack of funds, is now progressing rapidly, owing to the advances made by the Government in political and financial

soundness.

There is already plenty of opportunity for patient speculation, but little or none as yet for the European immigrant who has no settled object in view. The whole tone of this book is placidly optimistic in regard to the commercial future of Bolivia, and in these times of ordered government and finance optimism in regard to almost all the South American Republics is, we think, justified.

The author deals sanely and competently with the rubber question, foreseeing a further serious crisis, but considering that an effectual struggle may be made against Asiatic competition by means of rational plantation and the reduction of the cost of provisions and transport.

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Mr. Bernard Miall's translation is for the most part straightforward and clear, with occasional lapses into strange sentences, such as The mining industry has absorbed the activities of the Bolivians in a manner almost exclusive." For a moment one is horror-struck at reading "how many millions of Bolivians float down the river thus and are lost in the

rapids," only to be restored to equanimity by the discovery that the Bolivians" referred to are but Bolivianos, the silver standard florins which are still the monetary unit of the republic.

The volume has a fairly useful, though far from exhaustive Index, some sixty illustrations of the kind most frequently found in books of travel, and four clear maps. Its general get-up is good.

SOCIALISM AND ECONOMIC THEORY.

On its

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on Economic Progress,' also emphasizes the difference in outlook between the old economist and the new. The latter, at

a

dismal" science.

the new economist. His book is intensely Prof. Seager is, we believe, typical of practical; he regards economic theory as the connecting link between the history of industry and the tasks confronting the social reformer. Mathematical conceptions scarcely enter into his work. He begins by briefly describing the genesis of modern social and commercial conditions in the United Kingdom and the United States. Thence he passes on to a preliminary survey of the whole field. In the following chapters theory is never presented without examples of its application. A particularly lucid chapter deals with Wages, although we notice that, as usual, the peculiar circumstances which have to be taken into account in regard to women's wages are not described. Elsewhere Prof. Seager gives a short survey of sweated industry, but even here women are only mentioned incidentally.

We next come to a series of chapters on Money, Credit, Banking, and Tariffs— written, however, almost entirely with reference to the United States. Prof. Seager is a strong Free Trader, and states his case from a standpoint with which his British colleagues are by no means familiar. The chapter on this subject, we may add, reads curiously to an Englishman on account of the strange American nomenclature which calls a Free Trader a Tariff Reformer." So

we have apparently confused sentences, The success of the tariff reform party in 1912 was due, not to a sudden conversion of a majority of the people to a belief in free trade, but-" Then we have studies of monopolies, railways, trusts, and taxation, in which American conditions again receive the greatest share of the author's attention. The book concludes with chapters on Labour Movements and Legislation,' Socialism,' and Economic Progress.'

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It is the opinion of Mr. Clarence Gilbert Hoag-in his new book A Theory of Interest'that the importance of a correct solution to the the problem of interest can "hardly be over-estimated." The reason of this importance, we are told, based on the is that the Socialist movement is largely exploitation" theory of interest as formulated by Marx, which is fallacious. If the right answer to the problem is found, Socialists, we gather, will have to make radical changes in their propaganda. We were not aware that the more abstruse doctrines of Marx had so great an influence upon the theory and practice of American Socialism as to require such a broadside as the author has discharged; we may, however, assure him with the utmost confidence that very few English Socialists would be in the least degree affected by the most complete revolution in the accepted ideas of interest.

The author's answer to the problem, which is reached by means of algebraic symbols, is that

"natural interest is the price of an advance to nature, in other words the services of the later time for which the advance will exchange, the kind and in terms of nominal value, and the advance quantity of these services being measured itself being defined as the exchange of services of the earlier time for those of the later time to the same nominal value."

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We may be pardoned for observing that the author's preliminary fanfaronade led us to expect something more exciting than this none too intelligible elaboration of Senior's abstinence "theory. Indeed, Mr. Hoag tells us that on the whole Senior's theory is to be regarded as a wellconstructed theory essentially true as far as it went.' But if the approximation of the rate of interest to the marginal productivity of capital is deducible from the author's premises, we doubt whether the the rate of interest and the value of money. same can be said of the relation between Mr. Hoag has added little to the theory of interest.

from many lands and diverse publications -notably The Times, a paper, we may be sure, not of set purpose helpful to his point of view.

tical

Mr. Davies thinks the small retailer continues to exist because of the credit he allows, but we suspect that sentiment and the lack of organization on the part of the average housewife which enables her to kill time play a bigger part in his continuance. Our author remarks on the fact that many of our largest business concerns are now really managed, not by the nominal heads with whom the money they earn is accumulated, but by men at comparatively small salaries; in other words, brains become atrophied under the possession of great wealth, as do bodies. Another good point he makes is the absurdity of measuring the Collectivist failure and success by that of private enterprise, seeing that for all pracpurposes the aim of each is different: the former existing for the purpose of serving the community, the latter to profit financially a few. On the subject of a profit being made by a municipality or a state, the author takes the view of the waiter who could not be insulted because the tip was so small. This theory, which he holds in common with Mr. Sidney Webb, is, to our mind, most insidious. Two arguments against it-first, that a primary consideration in such enterprise is that those engaged in it shall be adequately paid; and secondly, that the public should be served at the lowest terms consistent with the first-are appreciated by the author. But to our mind the evil effect of making a "profit" goes further than this; municipal profits are usually allocated to the relief of some other department, so that the fooling of the public by the system of indirect payment is perpetuated. But there is no reason why Collectivism, which stands for a new and better order, should not start work on right principles. Another point on which we remain unconvinced is that it is better in buying out private interest to pay down a lump sum, instead of paying annuities to the displaced capitalists. No doubt from the old-fashioned business point of view there is much to commend in the former system. A lump sum, however, almost compels the capitalist to speculate afresh, and means more buying out hereafter; whereas annuities and annuitants, though proverbially long lived, do die at last-and together.

The book, being an introduction to a very large subject, is perforce somewhat sketchy, though we have no more fault to find with it on this score than occasional irrelevancies which are meant, we think, sarcastically. For instance, on p. 84 Mr. Davies speaks of Mr. Carnegie rightly" confining his so-called gifts of libraries to the buildings; and, again, on the next pages he writes:

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"Of course, it is very wrong in principle, and in a country like Great Britain, where gambling is unknown and wealth depends entirely upon merit and industry, such things as lotteries run by State or city are unthinkable!"

Records of the Social and Economic History of England and Wales.-Vol. I. Survey of the Honour of Denbigh, 1334. Edited by Paul Vinogradoff and Frank Morgan. (Humphrey Milford, for the British Academy, 16s. net.)

THE 'Survey of the Honour of Denbigh is the first volume of a series of texts relating to social and economic history which the British Academy, with the assistance of a Government grant, has undertaken to publish. The Academy proposes to issue three volumes every two years, and in the first instance will give attention to records illustrative of agrarian conditions and rural society in England and Wales during the Middle Ages; later volumes will relate to industry and commerce. To what extent endeavours will be made to deal with post-mediæval documents does not appear in the introductory matter of the volume before us; but we presume that, since it is largely the intention of this new enterprise to fill the gap caused by the discontinuance of the Rolls Series, the committee to whom responsibility for the present series has been confided will, for the most part, direct its labours towards rendering accessible the early records of this country, which in their completeness and extent are without rival in Europe. The British Academy will indeed earn our gratitude if, sharing in a work already being performed by such bodies as the Pipe Roll and Selden Societies, it hastens the time when this country can no longer be reproached with the neglect of a heritage such as has been vouchsafed to no other nation.

transformed Welsh society as surely as English society would have been transformed even if the Normans had not conquered at Hastings.

The social changes which completed the disintegration of the tribal system must

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have been as little noticeable to the tribesman of Denbigh as were the contemporaneous changes in the manorial system to the English peasant. The substitution of an English for a Welsh lord was of political rather than of social significance; and however bitter may have been the conquest, accompanied as it was by escheat and dispossession, yet this process was limited in scope, and for the great mass of the conquered the tide of life flowed on as heretofore, changing its direction but imperceptibly from year to year. It is true that there appears to have been some attempt at plantation" (if so modern a term may be permitted) in the eastern commotes, with the introduction of English settlers and, to a certain extent, of English tenures; but what is evident from the survey is the respect that was paid to native customs, and the absence of any attempt to anglicize the country and its people. To the English lord the honour represented a source of profit: he was as little likely to be moved by sentimental considerations in his dealings with Denbigh as Tom Broadbent and Larry Doyle in their dealings with Roscullen. But there was no advantage to him, and very possible difficulty and loss, in violently disturbing existing institutions, and so these were left comparatively untouched. The greatest disturbance appears to have sprung from the necessity of consolidatAt the date of the Survey the Honouring, for the purpose of economical adof Denbigh had been in the hands of ministration, the large areas which came William de Montacute for three years into the lord's hands by way of escheat; it had previously been held, subsequent yet here it is to be observed that, although to its conquest, by Roger Mortimer, Hugh this process led to the scattering of the Despencer, Thomas of Lancaster, and shares of kindreds, the forms of justice at Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. Why least seem to have been observed, and a survey should have been delayed for although the tribesmen may not have fifty years is difficult to understand; been particularly willing parties to the but the delay has rather increased its exchanges involved, they certainly did value for the purpose of the modern receive an equivalent for the lands taken historical student. We have a detailed from them. picture of a large tract of North Wales after fifty years of English penetration, and at the same time we are informed briefly of the state of affairs temporibus Principum ante conquestum." It is clear that before the Edwardian conquest the process of transition from communal to individualistic institutions was already well advanced: we have even a note of the mortgage to Prince Llewelyn ap Iorwerth of certain lands (or, as the editors say, rights in those lands-the text speaks of medietas ville ") for a money payment, and the subsequent gift and sale of the mortgage. Although the social and agricultural organization in Denbigh did not yet approximate to the manorial organization existing at the time in England, Welsh society was evidently evolving in the direction that English society had already taken. The conquest did little more than accelerate processes which had long been in operation, and would have

In congratulating the British Academy and the editors upon inaugurating this series so auspiciously with a volume of the value and importance of the Denbigh Survey, we may be permitted to make a few comments upon the method of editing. The MS. upon which the text is founded was studied and edited by Prof. Vinogradoff's seminar at Oxford, seven out of the ten sections of the Introduction being contributed by members of the seminar. While co-operative effort may be-and, we believe, has in this case been-successful in the preparation of the text, we do not think the method adopted in writing the Introduction has proved equally happy. Several of the tions are admirable in themselves, but there is great unevenness in style: it was evidently difficult to make a perfectly satisfactory division of the work between so many writers, and this has resulted in some overlapping, a lack of balance

sec