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(Manchester: Coöperative Wholesale Societies, Ltd. 1911. Pp. viii, 365, 3 maps, 3 charts.)

Contains statistics of the Wholesale Societies to June, 1910. The illustrations of the C. W. S. warehouses, factories, and farms are for the first time accompanied by descriptive statements. Four articles are included: Cotton growing within the British Empire, by J. Howard Reed; Lords and commons in legislation, especially as regards finance, by W. M. J. Williams; The coöperative movement in relation to literature and art, by A. E. Fletcher; The fraudulent relations of land and taxation, by Joseph Edwards.

Annuaire du movement coopératif international. Publié par les soins du Comité central de l'Alliance coopérative internationale. Première année, 1910. (Paris: Felix Alcan. 1910.)

Wahlhandbuch der deutschen Sozialdemokratie in Osterreich. (Vienna: Volksbuchhandlung. 1911. 2.40 m.)

Statistics and Its Method

The New Dictionary of Statistics. By AUGUSTUS D. WEBB. (London: George Routledge and Sons; New York: E. P. Dutton and Company. 1911. Pp. 682. $7.00.)

For some reason not clearly apparent this book is announced as "a complement to the fourth edition of Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics." It is true that Mr. Webb has covered less ground than Mulhall, but he has worked with commendable independence and has in no way limited himself to the task of bringing Mulhall's figures down to date. The pages of the new work are fewer in number and less crowded, but the omissions are largely of the odds and ends of curious and miscellaneous information, largely non-statistical in character and frequently unverifiable, which characterized Mulhall's book. Mr. Webb has limited himself to what is substantially the recognized field of economic and social statistics, a field which is for practical purposes delimited by the scope of official statistical publications of one sort and another. In its scope his book may be said to stand as near to Sundfärg's Aperçus statistiques internationaux as it does to Mulhall. But Mr. Webb's purpose, unlike Sundbärg's, is not primarily to provide a compendium of official statistics. He has used freely, but discriminatingly, the results of many analytical and interpretative studies that have appeared in the standard statistical journals, and has consistently kept in mind the fundamental purpose of the work as a book of ready reference.

The dictionary plan of arrangement is followed, but the classi

fication of subjects is less detailed than in Mulhall. Mr. Webb's plan of grouping his presentation of the separate, but closely related, parts of important general fields of statistics into "articles" is thoroughly commendable, since it obviates repetition and minimizes the chance of erroneous interpretation that arises from isolating individual statistical facts from their proper context. Crossreferences and an excellent index make the book substantially as easy to use as if the dictionary classification were more detailed. But perhaps the most notable and most praiseworthy departures from Mulhall's methods are the complete and specific citation of sources and authorities, and the concise but generally adequate cautions as to the limitations of the meaning and of the accuracy of the various kinds of statistics presented.

Washington University.

ALLYN A. YOUNG.

Otto Hübner's Geographisch-statistische Tabellen aller Länder der Erde. Edited by DR. FRANZ VON JURASCHEK. (Frankfurt: Verlag von Heinrich Keller. 1911. Pp. vii, 107.) The first section of the well known Tabellen gives the area, population, national income and expenditure, public debt, and strength of the army and navy, of the sixty-two leading nations of the world. In the second section the length of the railways and telegraphs, the principal industries, the population of the large cities, together with the value of weights and measures of the different countries reduced to the metric system is given. There follows a brief table giving the principal economic and social statistics obtainable for the European countries and the United States. There are very few statistics of a general nature which are not covered for the principal countries in these tables. The results of the censuses of 1910 and 1911 are, in some cases, included. The figures for the United States were taken from the official publications and, on examination, are found to be correct. If the figures for the other countries show as high a degree of accuracy, the tables can be used with confidence.

W. B. B.

Industries and Commerce

A difficult statistical task has been brought to completion in a special report of the Bureau of the Census, entitled Fisheries of the United States, 1908 (Washington, 1911, pp. 324). Statistical reports dealing with this industry have been published from time to time by the Bureau of Fisheries, but no such comprehensive survey has hitherto been undertaken. Among the topics considered are: persons employed, wages, capital, products, canning and preserving, exports and imports.

Readers of Miss Coman's article on "Some Unsettled Problems of Irrigation" in the March number of the REVIEW will find a large mass of documentary evidence in the Report of the Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation on the Investigation of Irrigation Projects (Washington, Sen. Doc., No. 1281, 61 Cong. 3 Sess., 1911, pp. 917).

The superior importance of the sugar-beet industry is dwelt upon in a pamphlet entitled Indirect Benefits of Sugar-Beet Culture, published as a Senate document (No. 76, 62 Cong. 1 Sess., 1911, pp. 22).

Comprehensive tables with interpretative text, relating to the cotton industry may be found in Bulletin, No. 111 of the Bureau of the Census (Washington, 1911, pp. 66). There is an interesting diagram showing the products and uses of cotton-seed, and state maps indicating the cotton crop by counties.

The issues of the bulletin of the Pan-American Union for July and August, 1911, are devoted to an annual review of the Latin-American republics with particular reference to their economic and commercial progress. The text is liberally illustrated by photographs, charts and maps.

The Bureau of Manufactures has recently issued Special Consular Reports, No. 45 on Trade Development in Latin America, by John M. Turner; and No. 47, Australia, by Henry D. Baker (Washington, 1911, pp. 56, 126). The former, written by a The former, written by a special commercial agent of the Department of Labor, who has visited all the countries of South America in order to study commercial conditions, is vivid in its description of mercantile conditions.

Historical data relating to the growth of public sentiment in behalf of the conservation of our natural resources may be found in a recent address, entitled The Contribution of the Mining Profession to the Conservation of our Natural Resources, by President Drinker of Lehigh University (pp. 19).

The increasing interest in the conservation of natural resources is abundantly illustrated in several reports published by the state of Wisconsin. Among them is the Report of the Committee on Water Power, Forestry, and Drainage, 1910 (Madison, 1911, pp. 779). This includes briefs on "The sliding scale of returns to public utility corporations," with a bibliography; "The nature of a public utility"; "The nature of a franchise. Does a franchise differ from a permit?"; and several on various aspects of navigable streams; the power of the legislature to award charters; and the taxation of corporations.

Other reports to be noted are the Second Report of the Waterways Commission of Wisconsin (Madison, 1910, pp. 12); the Report of the State Conservation Commission (Madison, 1911, pp. 75) which includes a brief paper on agricultural economics, by Professor H. C. Taylor; and the Report of the State Forester, 1909-1910 (Madison, 1910, pp. 136).

Relating to the same general subject is the Report of the Iowa State Drainage Waterways and Conservation Commission (Des Moines, 1911, pp. 210, maps) which will justify more extended notice in a subsequent number of the REVIEW.

The Second Annual Report of the Commission of Conservation, Canada (Ottawa, 1911, pp. 230) contains the proceedings of the second annual conference held in January, 1911, and also the Dominion Public Health conference held in October, 1910. In addition there are several papers on forestry and mining.

The Department of Agriculture has issued a bulletin on The Transporation Companies as Factors in Agricultural Extension, by John Hamilton (Washington, 1911, pp. 14), in which there is a brief account of agricultural instruction trains.

In the September number of the REVIEW (p. 630) it was noted that tenancy had made no substantial increase in Wisconsin during the last census decade. The census bulletin for Vermont shows a slight decrease. The percentage of mortgaged farms has remained stationary. The same tendencies are true of New Hampshire and Maine. In Delaware there has been a marked decrease in tenancy, with a slight increase in the number of mortgaged farms.

Corporations

In June, 1909, the British Board of Trade appointed a committee of ten (Russell Rea, chairman) to consider and report upon what

changes, if any, were expedient in the law relating to agreements among railway companies. The committee reported on April 11, of the present year, and its report (Parliamentary Papers, Cd. 5631. Price, 52d.) is a document of close upon 50 pages (not including the evidence). Some fifty witnesses, representing both railway, government and private interests, were examined. The committee unanimously agreed to report (1) that the balance of advantage, not only to the railway companies, but also to the public, would be found to attach to a properly regulated extension of coöperation rather than to a revival of competition; (2) that had the committee come to a different conclusion with regard to the value of competition, it would have been unable to suggest any means for securing its continuance: past experience, it is argued, shows that even Parliament appears to be powerless to prevent two parties, either by agreement or without formal agreement, from abstaining from a course of action-namely, active competition-which neither party desires to take; (3) that while informal combinations of this kind are likely to be of less advantage to the companies than more formal and complete unions, they can destroy competition just as effectively, and, moreover, possess certain incidental advantages, from the public point of view, from which a monopoly under a single control is free. So far as protection is required from any of the consequences of railway coördination, the safeguards should be provided, in the opinion of the committee, by general legislation applicable to all companies.

Under the existing law, companies may obtain from the Board of Trade a certificate authorizing them to enter into working agreements, but, if such application be opposed by any other railway company, recourse must be had to Parliament for confirmation. The Royal Commission on Railways, of 1867, recommended that companies should be allowed to enter into valid working and traffic agreements without the necessity of obtaining powers either from Parliament or from the Board of Trade, and this recommendation the present committee reE. R. D.

news.

From the office of the Department of Justice has been received The Sherman Anti-Trust Law with Amendments and List of Decisions thereunder or Relating thereto (Washington, July 1, 1911, pp. 50). The number of indictments secured under the anti-trust laws, by administrations, have been as follows: Harrison, 8; Cleveland, 2; McKinley, 0; Roosevelt, 25; Taft, 16.

Under date of September 25, 1911, the Commissioner of Corpora

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