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Examining this table for the period 16871873, the first one hundred and thirteen years (1687-1800) show a variation not quite equal to one unit between the highest and lowest quotations; during the following seventy-two years (1801-73) the variation was still less, being scarcely more than a half-unit. This stability is no less remarkable than that during the 16th century, because equally great changes in the production of the precious metals took place. The average yearly production of gold from 1851-60 was nearly four times that for the years 1841-50. Therefore the causes that maintained stability in ratio must be sought for in the conditions affecting the demand for the metals rather than their supply.

Third Period 1873-97.-The period since 1873 has been an extraordinary one, and never has the question of the ratio of the precious metals called forth more discussion or greater anxiety on the part of economists, publicists, and legislators, nor indeed, has there ever been so great a need of knowing the real causes that determine that ratio. The London price of silver, as quoted for the year 1873, was 594d. per ounce; in the month of March 1894 the price on the same market touched 27d., which means a fall of about 54 per cent in its gold price. Since then the average monthly quotations have fluctuated between 27 and 31d., the highest figure reached in the period (February and June 1896), and remains in February 1897 at about 2944d. The ratio at the present date (February 1897) is about 1:31.76; for seventy-two years before 1873 the ratio did not vary one-half unit from the celebrated 1:15 ratio of the Latin Union; in the twenty years since 1873 it has departed from that ratio by more than 16 units. Silver measured in gold has fallen. The following questions naturally arise: Is silver solely responsible for the great variation in the relation between the two metals, or has gold also changed? (See GOLD AS STANDARD; PRICES; SILVER.) How can such changes be measured, and is it possible to assign to each its share in the divergence of ratio? (INDEX NUMBERS.) What are the remedies proposed for maintaining a more stable ratio, and is such desirable and necessary for healthy industrial life? (BI-METALLISM; LATIN UNION; MONEY.) There has been a very great change in the respective uses of the precious metals, at least for coinage purposes, with the third period. Formerly silver was regarded very widely in Europe as well as in Asia as the metal best suited for coinage purposes, and in the early fifties there was considerable apprehension of a flood of gold and of a danger of losing silver in those countries where both

from daily cablegrams from London to the Bureau of the U.S. Mint. The averages for the five-year periods from 1876 to 1910 were made by averaging each column separately.

The

metals were coined at a fixed ratio. Now the opposite fear has led to the stoppage of silver coinage, except in insignificant quantities, in all countries except China and Salvador. great extension of silver production since 1873 is one of the chief causes. India closed her mints in 1894, and Japan is now preparing for an exclusively gold standard coinage. So Asia has also joined in the struggle for gold. The outlook for a sufficient supply to meet this increased demand is brighter now than it was a few years ago (see GOLD; SILVER; for later period see Appendix, GOLD, INCREASE IN THE PRODUCTION OF; SILVER, PRODUCTION AND COINAGE OF).

[The literature which treats of this subject is so extensive that it is only possible to add to what we have already given in footnotes some general indications. The monetary bibliographies of Jevons; S. Dana Horton; and Soetbeer, Litteraturnachweis über Geld- und Münzwesen, Berlin, 1892, may be profitably consulted. Then Von Praun, Gründliche Nachricht von dem Münzwesen, Leipzig, 1739, 3rd ed. 1784.-Report from the Secretary of the United States Treasury on the Relative Value of Gold and Silver, 4th May 1830.-21 Cong. 1 Session, House of Representatives Document No. 117, Washington, 1830.-Reprinted in Report of Interim Monetary Conference of 1878, Washington, 1879; see p. 558 ff.-Reports of Monetary Conferences of 1878, 1881, and 1892.-Reports of Gold and Silver Commission, London, 1887-88.] S. M'C. L.

PRE-EMPTION, RIGHT OF. The right of pre-emption is the right possessed by one party of purchasing property before or in preference to other parties. International law allows this right to a government with respect to goods belonging to the subject of another power, which are in course of transport across its territory. But modern international law restricts this right to cases in which the goods are on their way to an enemy, and are of such a nature that, without being contraband, they would be useful to him in the prosecution of hostilities.

English law once gave the purveyors of the crown a right of pre-emption in respect of all commodities wanted for the royal household. Such commodities might be taken whether the owners wished to sell or not, at a price fixed by appraisement. This right of pre-emption gave rise to such gross abuses that it was frequently the subject of complaint in parliament, and was finally abolished by the act for the abolition of military tenures passed at the restoration of Charles II. (12 Car. II. c. 24). Under the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act 1845 (8 & 9 Vict. c. 18), a person whose land has been

1 See United States Special Consular Reports, Money and Prices in Foreign Countries, vol. xiii. pt. i. and ii., Washington, 1896-97, for an account of the mint rules, price, ratio, etc., in all foreign countries, based on replies received from consuls in August, September and October 1896.

taken by a joint-stock company under compulsory powers has a right of pre-emption if the company afterwards finds the land unnecessary for its undertaking, and so has to offer it for sale (see also PURVEYANCE). F. C. M.

PREFERENCE SHARES are shares in a company entitled to dividend in priority to the ordinary shares. The dividends on preference shares, like the dividends on ordinary shares, must be paid out of profits, and may not be paid out of capital; but it may be provided in the articles that the ordinary shareholders are not to receive any dividends until the arrears, if any, in the dividends of the preference shares have been cleared off. In such a case the preference shares are called "cumulative"; but if the dividend on the preference shares is payable out of the profits of each year only, they are called "non-cumulative."

As regards repayment of capital, the preference shares, in the winding up of the company, rank pari passu with the ordinary shares, unless the articles provide for any other arrangements. It also depends on the articles whether the voting rights of the preference shareholders differ from the rights of ordinary shareholders or not. It used to be thought that the power of a company to issue preference shares could be exercised to such extent only as the MEMORANDUM OF ASSOCIATION (q.v.) or the original articles authorised; but a recent decision of the Court of Appeal has established the rule that, notwithstanding the absence of authority in the memorandum, the articles of a company can at any time be altered so as to give the directors power to issue preference shares (Andrews v. Gas Meter Company, L.R. (1897) 1 ch. 361). In a company having a large and honest ordinary capital an investment in preference shares offers good security, and the public estimation of such a security is clearly shown by the prices at which the preference shares of English railway companies find purchasers. On the other hand, preference shares are often issued in cases in which the ordinary capital is small, or, though nominally large, was not issued against cash but against property worth a great deal less than the nominal purchase price. In such cases the issue of preference shares by which investors are made to think that they will be entitled to a fixed interest is often resorted to with the intention of obtaining money from the public where other means of doing so would be useless, and the chances of obtaining dividends is as small as if the shares were ordinary shares. The voting rights of preference shareholders are generally less extensive than those of ordinary shareholders, hence the latter exercise a more extended control over the management of their company than the former.

PREMIUM.

E. S.

Lat. praemium—prae, and

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emo, literally what one takes first or for one's self; hence, a reward.

In modern use the word has both of these

meanings. In the first sense we have:premium, in INSURANCE-the payment taken at once, and at intervals, to secure certain benefits either in the event of possible contingencies, or after the lapse of time. In life, fire, and marine insurance, the premiums are calculated upon plans which will be found fully described under those heads.

In the way of reward, premium is used to denote an amount offered by governments, or by individuals, to procure competitive designs for a building, or commemorative work of art, to stimulate invention, or to promote certain industries (see BOUNTIES). On the stock exchange, stocks and shares are said to be at a premium when their market price is higher than that at which they were originally issued (conversely, see DISCOUNT.) The market prices of new issues are generally quoted in this way, especially whilst they are being paid up by instalments, as it conveniently shows what part of the price is due to the appreciation of the stock.

In currency, when gold coins, for example, are of greater value than the notes in circulation of the same denomination, the gold is said to be at a premium. The expression, however, is apt to mislead, as it appears to indicate a scarcity of gold, when the only fact may be an over-abundance of paper (see also AGIO).

R. W. B.

PRENTICE, ARCHIBALD (1792-1857): Wrote a History of the Anti-Corn-Law League (2 vols., London, 1853, 8vo).-A Tour in the United States (London (Manchester printed), 1848, 8vo). Two of his addresses on "Temperance' were published in the Ipswich Series of Temperance Tracts (2 vols., 1850 (?) 8vo). In these he considered "Wages as affected by Temperance," and showed how the only remedy the artizan could have against the encroachments of capital was the accumulation of a counter instalment of capital whereby, in case of a strike or lock-out, the labourer could fall back upon his savings until the capitalists offered him the just price of his labour. But the intemperate member of the community would save nothing, and therefore was in an unfit condition to contend, and must yield without a contest. In another lecture on "Productive Labour and Temperance," Prentice insisted that the whole labour of manufacturing and selling intoxicating liquors was labour worse than thrown away. He showed by illustrations that the money taken from four years of abstinence from intoxicating drinks could be productively employed in constructing six thousand more miles of railway; that spent in five weeks of drink would suffice to construct a ship canal from Manchester to Hull, and so on. He strongly advocated the spending of the millions of money used in drink on something that would do good and not harm. Spent in clothing, or furniture, or education, it would have a permanent and lasting effect upon the generations which followed.

A. L

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Of

PRE-ROMAN INDUSTRY IN BRITAIN. The industrial condition of Britain before the historic period of the Roman occupation presents several points of interest to the student of industrial history, and the remains of the pre-Roman period are sufficient to enable us to gain some idea of the state of industrial development then prevailing. Traces of knowledge early developed are visible in the later history of agriculture, and it is even possible that additional light may be thrown on the origin of the manorial system from this source. At the time immediately before the Roman invasion, it is supposed (Rhys, Celtic Britain, pp. 213, 275) that three races inhabited Britainthe (1) aboriginal Iberians; (2) Celtic immigrants of an early invasion who amalgamated to some extent with the aborigines; and (3) Celts of a later migration in the east and southeast, known to Roman writers as Gauls. these races the first, the "Silures" of the Romans, lived in tribal communities (Dawkins, Early Man in Britain, ch. viii.) and possessed fixed habitations in the form not merely of caves, but of log-huts and wooden houses; they existed not only by the chase, but largely also on their own domestic animals. Specimens of their agricultural and other implements survive, and though made only of stone were sufficient for a variety of operations. The arts of spinning and weaving were also known to them (Early Man, p. 275), also those of flint-mining, pottery-making, and boat-building. Commercial intercourse existed, though only in the primitive form of barter (Solinus, c. 24), and that traffic of this kind was carried on over considerable distances seems evident from the fact that axes of jade are found in Britain, though jade is scarcely a product of Europe (Early Man, p. 281). In the forest clearings they grew flax and wheat (ib. p. 272) and kept pigs, sheep, goats, and oxen (the "Celtic shorthorn") (ib. p. 297). This early stage of civilisation survived in remote parts of Britain, almost unchanged, well into Roman times; but in most other parts metal implements, usually of bronze, were known, introduced possibly by the Celts of the earlier migration. The use of bronze rendered the agricultural operations before mentioned more easy, and improvement was made in house-building (Early Man, p. 352), harvesting, with bronze reaping hooks (ib. p. 360), and in spinning flax and wool (ib. p. 359), while the smith existed as a craftsman with a comparatively large array of tools (ib. p. 385). Mining was actively carried on in this epoch. The people had now left "the pastoral or migratory stage. . . had learned the simpler arts of society, and advanced towards the refinements of civilised life" (Elton, Origins of English History, p. 145), while "their pits and hut circles prove that they lived in regular villages" (ib.). The Celts or "Gauls" of the

later migration were quite familiar with iron implements and weapons, and appear to have been unduly depreciated, as conquered races usually were by classical writers (cp. Dion Cassius, Xiphiline, lxxvi. 12; Claudian, B. Getic., 417; Solinus, c. 4). "The British Gauls," says Elton, "appear to have been excellent farmers, skilled as well in the production of cereals as in stock-raising and the management of the dairy. Their farms were laid out in large fields without enclosures or fences, and they learned to make a permanent separation of the pasture and arable" (Origins, pp. 115-116). They understood marling (ib.), a practice im| plying both agricultural skill and a well-settled mode of existence. The varieties of cattle now included, in addition to the Celtic shorthorn, the kyloe or Argyll breed (ib. pp. 116, 117). There seems to be no trace of co-operative ploughing, as practised in the English village community in Saxon times (cp. Gomme, Village Community, pp. 281-284). Tin-mining was practised, and it continued into Roman times. Textile manufactures had progressed, and the use of dyes and patterns was common (Elton, Origins, pp. 110, 111). Neither the Roman nor Saxon invasions entirely obliterated these early races of Britain, and the influence of their industrial culture may be marked, especially in agriculture, in historic times.

[Boyd Dawkins, Early Man in Britain.Elton, Origins of English History.-Rhys, Celtic Britain.-Taylor, Origin of the Aryans.-Gomme, Village Community.—Gibbins, Industry in England (ch. i., pre-Roman Britain)]. H. de B. G.

PRESCRIPTION.

Prescription, p. 186; Prescription (Fr.), p. 187;
Prescription (Scots Law), p. 187.

PRESCRIPTION. A mode of acquiring title to incorporeal hereditaments by immemorial or long-continued use. The difference between prescription and CUSTOM is that by prescription a man can only acquire a title against a particular person, whilst by custom a title is acquired which avails against the whole world. The legal theory underlying prescription is that

a man would not be left to the exclusive use of anything by the real owner for any great length of time in virtue of some previous grant; and accordingly, if a man has had such use continuously for a long time, without any one's permission and for himself alone, the law presumes that such a grant has been made by the only person that would have a right to stop him.

Anciently a technical prescription was required for its establishment-proof of use and enjoyment from before the memory of man, but in the 18th century the period was fixed at twenty years, and has since as to certain rights been reduced to twelve years.

[See LIMITATION, STATUTES OF. Darby and Bosanquet, S. of L., 1893-Gale, On Easements. Nerril, American and English Encyclopedia of

Law, New York and London, 1892.-Markby, Elements of Law, Oxford, 1890.]

A. E. S.

PRESCRIPTION (Fr.). In French law, the limit of time by which possession of property ceases to be contestable, claims are barred, and right of action lapses. The general rules of prescription are laid down in arts. 2219 to 2281 of the civil code. Certain claims are, however, not prescribable, as the capital of money in the public funds; but the interest on the sums is paid over to the state at the end of five years. Prescription may also be suspended by circumstances. The term of prescription for debts varies. Thus the claims of teachers for lessons, workmen for wages, hotel-keepers for board and lodging, are limited to six months; those of doctors for medicine and attendance, boardingschool masters, and servants hired by the year, to twelve months; of solicitors to two years from the date of the judgment or settlement of the cause, etc. The extreme time for prescription in any case is thirty years (PRESCRIPTION; PRESCRIPTION, SCOTS LAW; PRESCRIPTIVE RIGHT).

T. L.

PRESCRIPTION (Scots Law). In Scotland, an action on a bill or note cannot be brought after six years, though the debt may still be proved otherwise, and in that case there is a "limitation." But after forty years there cannot be any action on the personal debt at all unless it has been kept alive by acknowledgments, payment of interest, etc., and the debt is then said to be "prescribed." The "positive prescription" is the method by which rights acquired become unchallengeable; e.g. continuous and peaceable possession of land or real rights in land on an ex facie good registered irredeemable title, without interruption, for twenty years; on redeemable titles, forty years; easements and rights of way, forty years. "Negative prescription" is the extinction of rights by lapse of time: e.g. the extinction of a personal debt by lapse of forty years, as above, which period may be lengthened through years of minority of parties not being counted; the right to object to a conveyance, on grounds not appearing on the deed itself, lapses in forty years; customary rights, such as vicarage tithes, lapse in forty years through a contrary usage of non-payment; the right to assert a claim to being heir lapses in twenty years after the last claim to heirship was admitted. There are also other cases in which the burden or mode of proof is generally changed; for example, an unwitnessed acknowledgment of debt in a debtor's own handwriting cannot be founded on more than twenty years after its date, but the debtor can be made to swear whether it was his writing and the signature his, and if he admit this, he must show that the debt has been discharged: tutors and curators (guardians) of a minor cannot be called to account more than ten years after their office has expired; sureties are, as a

187

general rule, subject to many exceptions, not bound for more than seven years; bills and notes, except bank notes and post-bills, cannot themselves be founded on after six years, but the debt may be proved by some other means, including the oath of the debtor himself; arrears of rent of agricultural land lapse after five years from the tenant leaving the land; and current accounts in general can only be proved after three years by a written acknowledgment of the debtor, or by referring the truth of the matter to his oath. Many of these cases are truly examples of limitation rather than prescription; but both limitation and prescription are generally treated of under the same heading, 'Prescription."

A. D.

PRESCRIPTIVE RIGHT. A right acquired by lapse of time. The principle of permitting rights to be so acquired appears to be necessary in order to prevent litigation. "Possession of a certain standing," says Bentham (Principles of the Civil Law, pt. ii. ch. i.), "ought to be superior to all other titles" on the ground that one of the chief aims of legislation regarding property should be security.

[Sir Henry Maine, in Ancient Law, London, 1886, traces the growth of prescription in Roman law from which it has descended to modern legal systems. Bentham, in the Civil Code (supra), discusses its justification.-Herbert, in the History of Prescription in England, London, 1891, traces the development of the doctrine in English law. For the present law in England, see Darby and Bosanquet on the Statute of Limitations, London, 1893 (see LIMITATION, STATUTES OF).] J. E. C. M.

PRESENT GOODS are valued higher than future goods for reasons considered under the head of DISTANCE IN TIME. . . . The depreciation of future goods is a factor in the conditions which determine the rate of interest, in the equation between present goods loaned and future goods discounted. If the depreciation of future goods become less ceteris paribus, the rate of interest will fall. But the depreciation is not a measure of the rate in general; it is so only on a particular hypothesis carefully defined by Prof. MARSHALL (Principles of Econ omics, 3rd ed. pp. 195-199, 306-307, note v. et passim.-Contrast Launhardt, Mathematische Begründung der Volkswirthschaftslehre, § 2, pp. 6, 7 (see DISTANCE IN TIME; FUTURE GOODS AND SERVICES; INTEREST, THEORY OF).

[John RAE in his New Principles, and Prof. BÖHM-BAWERK in his Positive Theory of Capital, are, with Prof. Marshall, the authors who have treated the subject most profoundly.] F. Y. E.

PRESSURE, MONETARY. Monetary pressure is a term used to denote a condition of the money market (see MONEY MARKET), in which a large proportion of the persons forming the market are simultaneously desirous of borrowing money, and are ready to give abnormally high rates for the use of it. This state of

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things may arise (1) owing to some temporary circumstance, such as the accumulation and locking up" of a considerable amount of cash in the form of deposits made on application to a large loan; or the withdrawal from the market of money that has been out at "call" pending the completion of some operation for which it has been previously accumulated. (2) It arises periodically as one of the results of over-speculation, and in this case may last for some time. This form of monetary pressure is merely one of the phenomena of the normal cyclic movements of commerce (see CRISES, COMMERCIAL; CREDIT, INFLUENCE ON PRICES). Temporary pressure may and does arise, from time to time, during periods of "cheap money"; and the pressure tends to recur more frequently and with increasing intensity as the period of cheap money draws to its close, after which, for a time, the pressure becomes practically continuous, and, usually, ends by becoming acute. The rapidity with which the integration of a series of temporary states of pressure will produce acute pressure depends on various circumstances, the most important being the question whether the "locking-up" of money is permanent and therefore preparatory to its withdrawal to a foreign country, or is merely a stage in the transfer of money from one set of persons to another within the country. In the latter case the period of pressure is only momentary. If there were a large conversion of circulating into fixed capital within the country during a short period, severe pressure might arise, especially if the lock-up of capital were accompanied by speculation. No such conversion of capital has occurred in the United Kingdom on a sufficiently large scale since the railway mania of 1847-48, and it does not seem probable that a similar phenomenon will be seen again. Serious pressure is, therefore, only to be expected after the withdrawal of a good deal of capital for investment abroad. w. H.

PRESTATION (Fr.). A tax paid in kind or by a service. It now only exists in France for the purpose of providing for the construction and maintenance of communal bye-roads, etc., and as a relic of the corvée or forced labour that existed before the revolution of 1789. The tax was sanctioned by a law of 1824, which declared that where the ordinary resources of the commune are insufficient for the maintenance of the communal bye-roads, the municipal council may provide means by additional centimes to the four direct taxes, or by labour, not exceeding two days (since increased to three) annually, to be required from all the valid male population between the ages of eighteen and sixty, and the use of their carts, carriages, and horses. The tax may, however, be redeemed by a money payment per diem for each man, horse, or vehicle the rate for which is fixed annually by the county council for each commune. Time,

usually one month, is allowed for the inhabitant to declare that he intends to work out the tax, and in default of such notice the tax is payable in money. The municipal councils summon the prestataires as required, and the season chosen for work is always that when field labour is light. The charge is not unpopular, and 70 per cent of the inhabitants liable to the tax prefer to discharge it by their labour. The prestation is however only applied in the poorer rural communes where the receipts from the ordinary taxes are small and money payment would be more onerous.

T. L.

PRICE, BONAMY (1807-1888). An economist, interesting for the independence of his views, and for the spirit with which he expounds them. The animating principle of his writings is, that for an economist practical instincts are more needed than speculative ability; it being understood that practical instincts do not mean the art of getting on, but the determination of conduct on a large scale in matters of commerce and taxation.

Of political economy, he says (Practical Political Economy, p. 2): "Its value lies in its being understood by the mass of men. . . . Its aim is to make common sense the supreme ruler of industry and trade." Common sense here includes desire for the public welfare. He attacks practical errors, or what he regards as such, with greater In his opinion, keenness than speculative errors. the banking world bestowed undue attention on the amount of gold in the country, and by comparison too little attention on the soundness of their loans. "Mercantile crises," he writes, "never have their origin in a deficiency of currency, of coin, and notes of legal tender" (Principles of Currency, p. 79). He expounds this thesis, in the work referred to, with great variety of illus tration. He insists (Practical Political Economy, p. 239) on the real identity of interest between employers and their workmen, except within certain narrow limits; in his exposition of the

causes which on either side assail this common interest, some will think him unduly tender to the employer; but his analysis is keen. His analysis of the free-trade question in the same volume (pp. 299-334) is acute. Speculative theory is not absent from his writings, but generally it arises through connection with some practical topic.

Bonamy Price's active life consisted of three parts. From about 1830 to 1850 he was a successful assistant master at Rugby; from 1850 to 1868 he was engaged in various ways, among these as a political writer in London; from 1868 to 1888 he was professor of political economy at Oxford. In the middle of these three periods he performed what seems to have been a signal service to the Scotch herring trade. From the year 1809 onwards the government had affixed, after due examination, a brand on the casks of herrings belonging to fishermen on the east coast of Scotland, before they were sent to the market, thus guaranteeing the soundness of their contents; and the guarantee had been found of special value in the foreign trade with Germany, etc. Objection