Women's Municipal League of Boston, Department of Housing bulletin, vol. VII, no. 3. (Boston: Woman's Municipal League. 1916. Pp. 79.)

This report is the outgrowth of many years of continuous and careful inspection of old dwellings by the Department of Housing of the Women's Municipal League. The interest of the department centers upon questions of sanitation and maintenance of dwellings, housing problems faced by health departments and not those of building or city planning departments. The report is written to arouse popular indignation and immediate action for betterment of the sanitary conditions. The illustrations of existing housing conditions are exceptionally well chosen. J. F. A year book of the church and social service in the United States. (New York: Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. 1916. Pp. 254. 50c.)

Insurance and Pensions

NEW BOOKS

ALEXANDER, W. The successful agent, practical hints for the seller of life insurance. (Chicago: Spectator Co. 1917. Pp. viii, 215. $2.) GEPHART, W. F. Principles of insurance. Vol. I, Life. Vol. II, Fire. (New York: Macmillan. 1917. Pp. xi, 385; xi, 332. $1.50 each.) To be reviewed.

HARBURGH, C. H. The industrial claim adjuster. (Chicago: Spectator Co. 1916. Pp. 129. $1.)

JONES, J. P. Workmen's compensation. (Tucson: Univ. of Arizona. 1917. Pp. 19.)

Gives some comparative details of the provisions in the various states and a fuller outline of the Arizona law.

JOSEPH, E. S. The Joseph system for keeping accounts and records of fire insurance agencies. (Harrisburg, Pa.: Pub. House of United Evangelical Church. 1916. Pp. 13.)

POTTS, R. M. Addresses and papers on insurance. (Springfield: Printed by authority of the state of Illinois. 1917.)

An address on "The altruistic utilitarianism of insurance" which deals with the history and general theory of insurance is printed first in this collection and is followed by groups of addresses on mutual and fraternal insurance, workmen's compensation, life insurance, social insurance, vital conservation, fire insurance reform, and recommendations concerning insurance legislation.

SMITH, H. W. Talks with life insurance agents. (Chicago: Spectator Co. 1917. Pp. 153. $1.50.)

WILSON, A. E. Workmen's compensation and employers' liability acts. (Chicago: La Salle Extension Univ. 1917. Pp. 86.)

Although issued as part of a "complete course of study of the

American law," this pamphlet, or treatise, as the author calls it, will not acquaint students with American liability and compensation law. It will serve better to help readers to their first and very general knowledge of workmen's compensation, as an economic or industrial system. But neither as economics nor as law is it highly satisfactory. Somewhat serious errors of implication or direct statement are too frequent. The New York compensation statute is contrasted with those which establish insurance funds (62). Compensation and insurance of compensation are confused (64). It is stated that in Wisconsin "government insurance had been in effect for many years before the adoption of workmen's compensation" (66). Readers are given to understand that compensation awards are proportionate to wages everywhere except in Wyoming (75). And so on. Very little indeed is said about the liability laws, nothing, in fact, except as to their historical part in the development of workmen's compensation. Except for a fairly full enumeration of American cases raising questions of constitutionality (23-24), references to judicial interpretations of the compensation acts are few and not recent, being mostly to English cases taken at second-hand from an article in the Harvard Law Review of 1912 (71). The great body of recent American decisions is ignored almost entirely, no case later than 1914 being cited. It, therefore, is not surprising that there are misleading suggestions as to the meaning of the laws. The relations of the compensation commissions to the courts are described in three sentences.

All of the pages of the pamphlet would have been none too many for the subject. But half of them are wasted, no less than 32 being used for reprinting, without comment, the New York compensation W. C. F.

act.

Episodes of history in the stories of the United States and the Insurance Company of North America as bound up together in national achievement, 1792-1917. (Chicago: Donnelly. 1916. Pp. 96.) National health insurance. Second annual report of the Medical Research Committee. (London: Wyman. 1916. 3s. 6d.) Negligence and compensation cases annotated: New York workmen's compensation act and decisions of the state industrial commission (pp. 1163-1263); New Jersey workmen's compensation act and decisions of the courts of common pleas (pp. 1163-1227); Pennsylvania workmen's compensation act and decision of the workmen's compensation board (pp. 1168-1268); Decisions of the Ohio industrial commission (pp. 1163-1239); Illinois workmen's compensation act and decisions of the industrial board (pp. 1179-1280); Indiana workman's compensation act and decisions of the industrial board (pp. 1179-1264); Oklahoma appendix, being a common sense index to all negligence cases decided by the supreme court of Oklahoma and courts of the Indian Territory (pp. 1163-1219); California workmen's compensation act and decisions of the industrial board the industrial accident commission (pp. 1179-1824). (Chicago: Callaghan. 1917.)

Negligence and compensation cases annotated.

Cumulative common sense index. Vols. I-X. (Chicago: Callaghan. 1917. Pp. 1133.

$5.)

Pauperism and Charities

NEW BOOKS

BOGEN, B. D. The extent and scope of Jewish philanthropy. (New York: Macmillan. 1917. $2.)

HURRY, J. B. Poverty and its vicious circles. (London: J. & A. Churchill. 1917. Pp. xiv, 180. 5s.)

Socialism and Co-operative Enterprises

The Socialism of To-Day. A Source-Book of the Present Position and Recent Development of the Socialist and Labor Parties in All Countries, Consisting Mainly of Original Documents. Edited by WILLIAM ENGLISH WALLING, J. G. PHELPS STOKES, JESSIE WALLACE HUGHAN, and HARRY W. LAIDLER, and other Members of a Committee of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. (New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1916. Pp. xvi, 642. $1.60.)

The subtitle of this volume which reads, "A source-book of the present position and recent development of the socialist and labor parties in all countries, consisting mainly of original documents," is a more adequate description of the purpose and character of the book.

The first half of the book consists of a more or less exhaustive documentary narrative of the socialist movement throughout the world. The second half is devoted to a similar documentation of the programs and problems of the socialist organizations in the various countries.

In thus resorting to a documentary and statistical presentation of socialism, the authors, whether intended or not, have achieved, aside from the avowed purpose of an unbiassed and an uncritical study of socialism, the more important service of presenting the socialist movement not as a simple and unvarying article of faith adhered to by the so-called socialists and those in sympathy with them, but as a propaganda and a reform movement bearing all the marks and characteristics supplied by the varying needs and requirements of varying conditions and circumstances.

The method used for a long time and currently in academic treatments of social and economic problems has been to reduce, by analogy or otherwise, to simplest terms a conglomerate of incorrigible factors affecting those problems and thereby arriving

at broad generalizations or "universal" truths. Latterly, however, students have come to the realization of the fact that such broad generalizations are seldom warranted by the facts in the given case, and, what is still more important, that economic problems differ typically one from the other.1

Any illusion that may still be entertained as to the international character of socialism should be dissipated on the most cursory review of the present volume. Socialism as a theoretical speculation has long ceased to hold the first place in the interest of the rank and file of its students and followers, and the zeal which its advocates and prophets still manifest in socialism is merely as a politico-reform movement and as such it must needs lose its erstwhile international character.

Of course, this is not to say that, for instance, the socialism of Germany does not bear any resemblance to that of the Frenchquite the contrary. But apparently there is still enough difference in local color to make one of the arch protagonists of German socialism bold to declare in favor of the German bureaucratic rule as against French republicanism (p. 20).

The Socialism of To-day, for the study of socialism as a politicoreform movement, is without much question an excellent handbook, but like other books of the same character it suffers somewhat from the faults of its qualities. In spite of the fact that socialism as a theory and philosophy has ceased to command first attention, yet the strength of socialism lies essentially in its philosophy and ideals. As such it is not amenable to demonstration by the enumeration of ambitious programs of social reform, still less by the recital of statistics on votes and population. For instance, the trend of state and federal legislation of the recent past has probably more to say concerning the weakness or strength of socialism in the United States than the fact that statistically the membership of the Socialist party has fallen off since 1912 (p. 191), or that in the same year the socialist vote was more than double that of 1908 (p. 196).

In spite of such discretionary discrepancies in the distribution of emphasis, for the more detailed and particularistic study of socialism in colleges and universities the book should find a preferential place among textbooks on socialism.

Fresno, California.

LEON ARDZROONI.

1 Cf. R. F. HoXIE, “Trade Unionism in United States,” Journal of Political Economy, March, 1914.

The State as Manufacturer and Trader. An Examination Based on the Commercial, Industrial, and Fiscal Results Obtained from Government Tobacco Monopolies. By A. W. MADSEN. (London: T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd. 1916. Pp. ix, 281. 7s. 6d.)

Mr. Madsen's investigation of the tobacco monopolies in France, Italy, Austria, Japan, Spain, and Sweden is searching but one sided. He analyzes the relation between the state and the tobacco growers, the factory employees, the wholesalers, the retailers and the consumers; he scrutinizes the manufacturing, the bookkeeping as well as the general business methods of these governmental concerns; he considers the quality and the assortment of the goods sold. An appendix of over sixty pages to which the author continually refers in the text contains many valuable statistical tables; these tables derived from official reports, indicate by countries the financial results of tobacco monopolies, the wages paid to factory operatives, etc.

The most important contribution to the subject made by the author is the establishment of the fact that the comparatively high profits credited to the French Régie as well as to some of the other tobacco monopolies are due not so much to the superiority of this system of taxation as to faulty methods of accountancy; many important expenses, such as rent on land and buildings, interest on capital invested in the enterprises, costs of administration, and insurance are not included in the balance sheets. The writer is most decidedly opposed to the state's engaging in any industrial activity which destroys competition and curtails the free play of initiative. His monograph is permeated with this negative attitude towards the encroachments of what he terms "collectivism" upon industry and commerce. All his facts and figures are arranged in support of this contention. The book seems to have been written not in a spirit of scientific inquiry but for the sole purpose of demonstrating the dismal failure of state monopolies as engines of taxation and as commercial enterprises.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with the attitude of the author towards state socialism, one is unfavorably impressed by the absence in his work of an impartial analysis of the testimonials presented, by the lack of a judicious weighing of arguments pro and con. Assuming that Mr. Madsen is correct in all that he says regarding the poor quality of French tobacco, may we not ask ourselves whether this necessarily indicates the inefficiency of the