individualistic property, a few manufacturers instead of the whole people. He attacks the inconsistencies of political parties on this question particularly the Agrarians, who denounce the industrial cartells while obtaining state support for those affecting agriculture.

The most striking feature is a strong plea for the merchant class. The cartells are accused of aiming at its destruction; and, acting on the maxim divide et impera, they have brought the greatest merchants to their side by granting special privileges. Kantorowicz thinks the competitive régime brings about a better equilibrium of demand and supply than the cartell system. High prices are intolerable when arbitrarily determined though endurable when the result of natural conditions. He ridicules the view that prices can be unduly depressed by destructive competition and declares it a mockery for protectionists to justify cartells on the principle of freedom of industry. Various methods of control are suggested including laws against cartells. To show what has been done brief descriptions are given of their legal status in several countries. FRANCIS WALKER.

Bureau of Corporations, Washington.

NEW BOOKS.

BIELEFELDT, K. Das Eindringen des Kapitalismus in die Landwirtschaft mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Provinz Sachsen und den angrenzenden Gebiete. (Berlin: Puttkammer & Mühlbrecht. 1911. Pp. 158.)

BROWN, W. T. How capitalism has hypnotized society. (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co. Pp. 28, 10c.)

CONYNGTON, T. A manual of corporate management, containing forms, directions, and information for the use of lawyers and corporate officials. Third edition. (New York: The Ronald Press Co. 1911. Pp. xviii, 403. $3.00.)

LYSIS. Contre l'oligarchie financière en France. (Paris: Albin Michel. 1911. 3 fr.)

PARKER, J. S., editor.

The law of New Jersey corporations, their organization and management with the text of some of the statutes. With forms and precedents. (Chicago: Callaghan & Co. 1911. Two volumes.)

SCOTT, W. R. The constitution and finance of English, Scottish, and Irish joint stock companies to 1720. Vol. III. (London: Cambridge University Press. 1911. Pp. xii, 568. $6.00.)

To be reviewed.

Labor and Labor Organizations

The Solution of the Child Labor Problem. By ScoTT NEARING. (New York: Moffat, Yard and Company. 1911. Pp. viii, 145. $1.00.)

This book contributes little that is new to the discussion of the child labor problem except the suggestion that the time is ripe for a change of emphasis in the method of attack. Five of the six chapters of the book are largely given over to a conveniently brief re-statement of the case against child labor, with much miscellaneous quotation from well-known advocates of child labor reform.

It is pointed out that the present reform movement will lead to no really adequate solution of the problem if it is concerned wholly with prohibitive legislation excluding children from the factory, whereas "the two primary forces which are sending children to work,-family necessity and an uncongenial school system, —are in no measure altered by such an exclusion." The book contains a very timely protest against overemphasis on the fourteen to sixteen-year-old period as a suitable one for children to begin work. Setting up the "fourteen-year minimum" as a fetish may later prove an obstacle in the way of the adoption of some more suitable test of the child's fitness for work than an arbitrary age limit. It may be noted as an example of the rather careless way in which the book is written that we find the writer on another page taking space to argue that it is harmful for a young girl to "spend the years from twelve to twenty inside of the four dark, dirty walls amid whirring machines."

The three steps in the "Program for Child Labor Reform" are not, as the author suggests, "almost obvious" as a result of his very brief discussion, and it is hoped that he may later attempt a more adequate treatment of the subject with a thoroughgoing discussion of the various means of carrying out the constructive policy which he suggested. The book will undoubtedly serve as a useful tonic to child labor reformers and other interested persons in urging them to develop a reform movement on broadly constructive lines and to beware of the danger of tempting the community to regard half-way measures or first steps as a desired goal.

EDITH ABBott.

Labor Laws and their Enforcement with Special Reference to Massachusetts. By CHARLES E. PERSONS, MABEL PARTON, MABELLE MOSES, and Three "Fellows." Edited by SUSAN M. KINGSBURY. (New York: Longmans, Green and Company. 1911. Pp. xxii, 419. $2.00.)

These studies are presented as Volume II of Studies in Economic Relations of Women issued by the Research Department of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union in Boston. "They do not pretend to give a complete survey, nor do they make an attempt at formulating a social programme"; but they do constitute an important contribution to the literature upon labor legislation. The investigations have apparently been painstaking and the conclusions are cautiously, perhaps too cautiously, stated. There is need of more studies of a similar nature relating particularly to the administration of the labor laws of other American commonwealths.

Chapter I presents a survey of the labor legislation of Massachusetts from 1825 to the passage of the Ten-Hour law in 1874. The agitation during this period was kept alive by the humanitarians and the leaders of the wage earners. The chief demand was for a shorter working day. The period under consideration "chronicled the beginnings of labor legislation in that the right to regulate the relations between employer and employee was acknowledged." From the opening to the close of the era, the most potent and oftrepeated argument for a shorter working day emphasized the necessity of leisure time for education. And an exhausted, ignorant laboring class was repeatedly asserted to be a menace to American institutions. The influx of immigrant labor into the factories of the state and the increasing size of industrial units tended to weaken the opposition to the passage of labor legislation. Recent legislation has been adequately considered elsewhere by Miss Sarah Whittesley and Professor F. Spencer Baldwin.

Chapters II and III present clearly and concretely the difficulties involved in enforcing laws which run counter to the immediate economic interests of employers. These two chapters also show how thoughtless, ignorant and needy employees often aid in making the enforcement of labor laws difficult; and how the parents of children connive at violations of the child labor laws. Many specific cases of the evasion of labor laws are presented. The weakness of coercive legislation is evident. Can we, for example, formulate scientific legislation, that is, legislation which will make it

desirable from a purely bread-and-butter point of view, to install sanitary appliances and safety devices in factories, or to refuse to employ child workers?

Chapter IV on the "Standing of Massachusetts in the Administration of Labor Legislation" is the most valuable study in the volume. American legislatures are prone to pass a mass of legislation "which contains much dead timber" because the administrative system provided is inadequate to perform its proper functions. The administration of labor laws in Massachusetts is compared quantitatively and qualitatively with that in other states. The conclusion is reached that Massachusetts, as compared with other states, stands near the top in regard to laws regulating the conditions of labor and prescribing the enforcement of such laws; "but she has fallen far behind our other states in providing the machinery for enforcing those laws." A careful analysis of the problems connected with the administration of labor laws is found in this chapter. The need of standardizing terms is emphasized. Such a common term as "factory" is not sufficiently standardized to allow accurate comparisons to be made between different reports upon labor conditions. Charts are appended comparing the systems of administration of labor laws in different states.

Chapter V contains a digest of the Labor Laws of Massachusetts, 1902-1910. Chapter VI is concerned with the regulation of private employment agencies in the United States. The conclusions reached indicate that there is at present no adequate state or national system of regulating private employment agencies. Charts are used to compare the system provided in the various states for licensing and regulating such agencies.

FRANK T. CARLTON.

Albion College.

Les Conditions du Travail aux Etats-Unis, Etudiées Specialement dans la Tannerie au Chrome pour Chaussures. Rapports Présentés à M. le Ministère du Travail. By F. PIN, H. CHAUMARTIN, CH. FRITZ, F. RICHARD and CHARLES BARRAT. (Paris: Edouard Cornély et Cie. 1910. Pp. xvi, 317.)

In 1908, at the instance of the management of a French tannery, the Minister of Labor dispatched a commission to study industrial conditions in the United States. The commission was composed of an investigator attached to the Department of Labor, two repre

sentatives of the tannery, and two members of trade-unions. Although much of the matter of the report is familiar to American economists, some of the observations are illuminating, since they call attention to aspects of our industrial life which are too near to our eyes to be clearly seen.

They find that we use machinery with an almost incredible ingenuity, and attribute this in no small part to the scarcity of labor and consequent need of economy. The visitors call attention to the advantages of protection, and also to the favoring influence of immigration, which has caused our population to increase rapidly, affording our trade a stimulus which French trade lacks. They remark the lack of apprenticeship methods; and are surprised to find practically no opposition on the part of labor to the use of machines. They comment favorably upon the extent to which joint agreements are entered into between an employer and a group of operatives, and gather the impression that such agreements are practically always honestly carried out by the men. They are astonished at the devouring ambition of our workingmen to get ahead as evidenced by their taking courses in correspondence schools. The trade unionists seem to have stood astounded at the great pile of food products which they saw in certain sections of our markets. Here was very visible evidence of how blessed we are; indeed these French workmen believe that it costs far less to buy the necessaries of life in this country than it does in their own. They are agreeably impressed also by the fact that we are able to get along almost without the labor of women in the tanning industry, and that we secure education for children by forbidding them to go into factories until they are fourteen years old. not, they suggest, some abuses in the shape of despotic discipline, due to multiplicity of nationality? And is it not strange that American law does not secure adequate compensation to injured workmen? Is there not an absence of congenial neighborhood affection, to furnish the workman, in addition to his material income, with that sociable atmosphere which is so necessary to a Frenchman? These visitors do not believe that the American workmen give signs of any greater capacity than their French colleagues, but they are sure that the former are much better paid. CARL E. PARRY.

University of Michigan.

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