to land and as to trade, was disapproved by Stein, who was more conservative by temperament, and wished rather to reform than to abolish old German institutions.

[Stein wrote, at the request of the crown prince of Bavaria, an autobiography, in very curt and official style, which originally ended at the Peace of Paris, but to which some passages were subsequently added, describing his occupations after his retirement. E. M. Arndt, author of Des deutschen Vaterland, who saw much of Stein from the beginning of the war of liberation to the end of his life, wrote in 1850, by desire of Bunsen, his recollections of the statesman. The standard German life is that by G. H. Pertz (the editor of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica) in 6 vols., a most valuable work on the man and his period. The English reader will find a full account of both in Prof. Seeley's Life and Times of Stein (3 vols., 1878), a work founded throughout on original documents, and these collected from the most various sources and studied with conscientious care and penetrating judgment]. J. K. I.

STEIN, LORENZ VON (1815-1890), born at Eckernförde in Schleswig, was educated at a military school and at the gymnasium of Flensburg, and studied at the universities of Kiel and Jena. After having been for some time employed at Copenhagen as a government official for Schleswig, he went to the university of Berlin to complete his scientific education. During a subsequent residence at Paris, he studied closely the life of the people, became acquainted with Louis BLANC, CONSIDÉRANT, and CABET, and thoroughly learned the characters and principles of these and other leading socialists. In 1846 he was appointed professor extraordinary of the political sciences at Kiel, but lost this position in 1850, when the supremacy of Denmark in the duchies was restored. In 1855 he was called to Vienna as professor of political science, and worked there as such, with undiminished zeal and spirit, till 1888, when he retired, maintaining, however, his intellectual activity to the end.

His writings cover the entire field of economic science and a part of the theory of politics, properly so called. His Lehrbuch der NationalOekonomie appeared in 1858 (3rd ed. 1887); his Verwaltungslehre in 1865 et seq., and an abridgment of it, entitled Handbuch der Verwaltungslehre in 1870 (3rd ed. 1887-88) and his Lehrbuch der Finanzwissenschaft, in which he studied the financial systems of all the countries of Europe, in 1860 (5th ed. 1885-86). He and R. von MOHL are regarded as the creators of the modern science of administration; they substituted, says Cossa, for the empirical Polizeiwissenschaft of the cameralists (see CAMERALISTIC SCIENCE) a new science of administration adapted to the wants of our own time, and, of necessity, comprising economic elements. Stein compares, in his work on the subject, the administrative systems of France, Germany, and England. All his writings give evidence of a very high order of ability, though sometimes they were too much influenced by the metaphysics of HEGEL

(q.v.), while he sometimes is led, by his love of system and his lively imagination, to erroneous or premature generalisations. A special object which he keeps in view is to exhibit the close relations which exist between economics, law, and philosophy. The work by which his name is best known in England is his Socialismus und Kommunismus des heutigen Frankreichs (1843; 2nd ed. 1848), in which he utilised his early Parisian experiences. It was afterwards re-written and expanded, and published under the name Geschichte der socialen Bewegung in Frankreich (1850-51). Stein was in a high degree awakening and stimulating as a lecturer and teacher, and had many thousands of pupils, including a number of Japanese youths, sent over by their government to study the western sciences. He was editor of the Centralblatt für Eisenbahnen und Dampfschiffahrt, 1861-87, and of the Zeitschrift für Eisenbahnen und D. der österreichischen Monarchie, 1886-90.

[Inama in Allg. Deutsche Biogr.-Stammhammer in Handw. der Staatsw.-Cossa, Introd. allo Studio dell' E. P., ed. 1892, p. 534; English ed. 1893, p. 408.]

J. K. I.

STEPHEN, JAMES (1759-1832), lawyer and distinguished anti-slavery agitator, was master in chancery Feb. 1811 to March 1831. He may be regarded as one of the ablest legal advocates of the anti-slavery group (see also ABOLITIONIST).

The publication of his most famous work, The Slavery of the British West India Colonies deline ated (2 vols., London, 1824-30, 8vo) extended over six years. The title exactly describes the work. Vol. i. treats of the legal status of the West India slave, showing how he or she was debarred from giving legal evidence, bereft of the right of self-defence, and shamefully neglected in

education. The volume closes with an account of the different kinds of ENFRANCHISEMENT and MANUMISSION. Vol. ii. treats of agricultural labour in the torrid zone, and the pernicious effect of its excess when forcibly exacted, with the consequent decline of population among the predial slaves on sugar estates. Chap. iv. exposes the barbarities practised on these plantations in excess of labour exacted under the lash, both as to time and actual physical exertion. Not only is the feeding, clothing, and housing of the negroes bad to the last degree, but they are even treated harshly when sick. Instances are quoted of illtreatment, resulting in the slave's death. Chap. viii. concludes the work. Slavery is shewn to be a disgrace to Great Britain. The author quotes Mr. PITT's view of compensation, and makes an urgent appeal to parliament to "undo the heavy burthen and let the oppressed go free."

This great work was both preceded and accompanied by smaller publications on the subject, New Reasons for abolishing the Slave Trade, by the author of War in Disguise (J. S.), 1807, 8vo. -A Defence of the Bill for the Registration of Slaves in Letters to W. Wilberforce, London, 1816, 8vo. ibid. Letter the Second, London, 1816, 8vo. -England enslaved by her own Slave Colonies, 1st ed. London, 1826, 8vo, 2nd ed. 1826, London, 8vo. Stephen also published War in Disguise, or the Frauds of Neutral Flags, 1st ed. London,

STERLING. See EASTERLINGS; POUND STERLING.

STEUART, SIR JAMES (1712-1780), was born at Edinburgh, the only son of Sir James Steuart, solicitor-general of Scotland; great magistrates were also among his ancestors on both sides. Educated in the university of his native city, he was admitted as an advocate in 1735. He then, according to the custom of the period, went abroad and travelled for some years in the Netherlands, France, Spain, and Italy. At Rome he was presented to the Young Pretender, and became one of his most devoted and faithful supporters; he drew up the manifesto addressed to the people of England at the commencement of the insurrection of 1745. After Culloden, Steuart retired to France, and took up his residence at Angoulême, where he applied himself to the study of political economy and finance, for which he had always shown a marked predilection. He afterwards removed with his family successively to Paris, Brussels, Frankfort, Tübingen, Venice, Padua, and Antwerp, thus extending the range of his social observation. At the peace of 1763 he was allowed to return to Scotland on certain conditions; and in 1767 recovered the full rights of citizenship. In 1770 the work on which his reputation rests appeared. The range of subjects with which it deals is indicated in the title-An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy, being an Essay on the Science of Domestic Policy in Free Nations, in which are particularly considered Population, Agriculture, Trude, Industry, Money, Coin, Interest, Circulation, Banks, Exchange, Public Credit and Taxes. He describes it as "an attempt towards reducing to principles and forming into a regular science the complicated interests of domestic policy," offering it only "as a canvas for better hands than his to work upon." The book was at first well received at home, but after the publication of the Wealth of Nations, it fell into neglect, and has never since been much studied in England. Opinion respecting it has varied much among foreign economists. Many of the Germans from HUFELAND (1807) to Hasbach (1891) have estimated it very highly. HERRENSCHWAND declared Steuart to be the most thorough (Gründlichste) of all the English economists. Rehberg thought him more important than Smith, and valued so highly his exposition of the theory of money and prices that he said it ought, as a work of instruction, to be placed beside the Principia of NEWTON. He thought it very desirable that Steuart should find an interpreter (Bearbeiter), as SMITH had found one in J. B. SAY. ROSCHER also holds him to have been " a great economist," who, by the higher

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merit of Adam Smith, and especially by the classic form of the latter's exposition, has been thrown unduly into the shade. On the other hand, in the view of GENTZ, "Steuart is to Smith what a very practised calculator is to a profound mathematician"; and the Italian COSSA, whilst admitting that he has good ideas on population, taxes, machinery, the influence of the market, and the distribution of systems of cultivation, adds "It is mere pedantry to compare with the PHYSIOCRATS and with Adam Smith, a writer who could not distinguish between money and capital, value and price, wages and profits." One characteristic which has doubtless won for him the special esteem of the Germans is the relativity of his conceptions (which Roscher regards as among the most marked advances in economics before Smith), his constant reference to the stage of general national culture as influencing industrial life, and his often repeated enforcement of the necessity of adapting public policy to "the spirit, manners, habits, and customs of a people." He agreed, too, with most of the recent Germans in his sense of the danger of excessive abstraction, of too wide generalisation in deductive reasoning, and of neglecting "the influence of concomitant circumstances on economic facts.

Steuart is to be viewed as one of those eclectics of the 18th century who, like FORBONNAIS in France, JUSTI in Germany, SONNENFELS in Austria, and GENOVESI in Italy, attempted to produce a connected series of dissertations on the several subjects with which political economy deals, before the foundation of the study on a truly scientific basis. He, as well as those foreign writers, adopted a system of moderate mercantilism, from which his acquaintance with the Essays of HUME had not converted him. In the spirit of the mercantile school, he considered political economy (he had adopted that name from MONTCHRÉTIEN) to be not so much a science as an art, having for its object "to provide food, other necessaries, and employment for every member of a society." We find in him many survivals of the characteristic prejudices of the mercantilists. Thus, for example, he entertains an altogether exaggerated view of the influence which statesmen can exercise on the national well-being. He dwells too much on the circulation of money as the one thing needful, the doing which tends to obscure all our notions of industrial economy. over-estimates the importance of foreign as compared with domestic trade. And he seems to countenance the old opinion expressed by MONTAIGNE, that in the commerce of peoples "le profict de l'un est le dommage de l'aultre."

He

The plan and leading features of the Inquiry will be understood from the following summary :Bk. i. is devoted to Population. Steuart is one of those named by MALTHUS in the preface to his Essay as having preceded him on this subject;

and he is generally admitted to have treated it well. He compares the generative faculty to "a spring loaded with a weight, which always exerts itself in proportion to the diminution of that weight," and explains clearly how increase and decrease of numbers follow the increase and decrease of the available amount of food. Bk. ii. is on Trade and Industry. Here he seeks to show how a judicious statesman ought to be constantly endeavouring, by legislative interference adapted to varying circumstances, to encourage some and discourage other branches of industry and commerce. He dissents from, and criticises, the views of Hume with respect to what the latter writer considered unfounded ideas as to the balance of trade. Bk. iii. is on Money and Coin, which are treated at great length; British coin, in particular, being historically dealt with, and its defects and the necessary remedies being elaborately discussed. In bk. iv. the author treats of Credit and Debts, and goes fully into the theory of banking and the history of some foreign banks, especially the Bank of France, and also into the doctrine of exchange. Bk. v. is on Taxes, which he divides under three heads: 1. those upon alienation, which he calls proportional; 2. those upon possessions, which he calls cumulative; and 3. those exacted in service, which he calls personal. A proportional tax is paid by the buyer who intends to consume at the time of the consumption, and is consolidated with the price of the commodity. Examples are excises, customs, stamp duties, postage, and the like. A cumulative tax implies no transition of property from hand to hand; instead of being laid on any determinate piece of labour or article of consumption, it is made to affect past, and not present, gains. Examples of this class are land-taxes, poll-taxes, window-taxes, etc. Of the third class, the CORVÉE in France was an example, as was also the militia service in England before pay was allowed.

The most important general rule respecting taxation, according to Steuart, is that it ought to impair the fruits, and not the fund-income and not capital. The net produce of the land remaining after deduction of the cost of production should alone be taxed, and so also only the produce of artisan work over and above the "physical necessary" of the workman, that is, his maintenance and his expense on tools. He refutes the notion that taxes act as a spur to industry, whilst admitting that a wise expenditure of them by the government may have that effect. He discusses the Dime Royale of VAUBAN, and considers the question of the mode of collection of taxes, whether by farming or through government commissioners.

Steuart is not an attractive writer. His failure to achieve popularity must be in part attributed to his defects of style. Cossa complains of his tiresome digressions, and Dugald STEWART, while acknowledging him to be " "very ingenious and well informed," remarks on the profusion of words with which he often obscures his meaning. Indeed, Steuart himself apologises for his prolixity and other faults of style, and tells his readers that he has sacrificed everything else to perspicuity. But more adverse still to his acceptance and reputation was the state of opinion in his time,

when the principles of industrial liberty were strongly tending towards the decisive ascendency, both intellectual and political, which they were destined soon to acquire from the superior genius of Adam Smith. Steuart's book must, however, always retain at least a historical interest and value, as abounding in information respecting facts and institutions, and exhibiting the transitional stage of economic studies immediately before the new era opened by the Wealth of Nations.

Other writings of Steuart are:-A Dissertation upon the Doctrine and Principles of Money applied to the German Coins, 1761; The Principles of Money applied to the Present State of the Coin of Bengal, 1772; A Dissertation on the Policy of Grain, 1783; Plan for Introducing Uniformity of Weights and Measures over the World (pub. lished posthumously). These tracts will be found in the edition of his collected works published by his son General Sir James Steuart (6 vols., 1805). Appended to this edition are Anecdotes of his Life, by the editor. There is also a biography by his nephew Lord Buchan, 1780.1

[Roscher, Geschichte der N. O., pp. 563, 745, 757; Kautz, Geschichtliche Entwickelung der N.O., p. 285; Cossa, Introd. allo Studio dell' E. P., ed. 1892, pp. 255 et seq., Eng. ed. 1893, p. 233.]

J. K. I.

STEWART, DUGALD (1753-1828), was son of Dr. Matthew Stewart, the able successor of Maclaurin as professor of mathematics in the university of Edinburgh. To that university the young Dugald passed from the High School as early as 1765, and was there a pupil of Adam FERGUSON; he was afterwards a student at Glasgow for a session, where Reid was then teaching. In 1785 he succeeded Ferguson in the chair of moral philosophy, which he continued to fill till 1810.

It was the practice of the Scottish professors of moral philosophy to include in their courses lectures on political economy. Stewart did so, and with great effect, exerting by his teaching of this, as of the other subjects he dealt with, a powerful influence on many hearers who afterwards became distinguished, as for example Lords Lauderdale, Palmerston, Lansdowne, Brougham, and Jeffrey, Francis Horner and Sydney Smith. "His disciples," says Sir James Mackintosh, "he lived to see among the lights and ornaments of the council and the senate; and, without derogation from his writings, it may be said that his disciples were among his best works." The course on economics delivered by Stewart was prepared by

1 The anxious care Steuart devoted to his work, his desire to do his very utmost for the benefit of his country, his earnest anxiety to be impartial, stamp his work with a powerful and vivid individuality. His very motto

Ore trahit quodcumque potest atque addit acervo is characteristic of his energetic toil and his con. sciousness that at the time he wrote patient labour was what was most needed to advance the study. the interests of which he had so closely at heart.

him for publication in a corrected and amplified form; but his son, in a fit of disappointment and despondency, destroyed the manuscript, only a small portion accidentally escaping, along with those of other writings of his father and almost all his correspondence. What could be recovered of the economic lectures, whether in this revised form or in their earlier shape, with additions from notes taken by students when they were delivered, has been published in Sir William Hamilton's edition of Stewart's Collected Works (1877), vols. viii. and ix.

Whilst in general agreement with the practical conclusions of the Wealth of Nations-of which be elsewhere said that it was "the most comprehensive and perfect work that had yet appeared on the principles of any branch of legislation he occasionally criticises Smith's statements of theory and technical phrases and distinctions, differing from him, however, with reluctance. In advocating liberty of individual enterprise and unrestricted exchange of the products of personal or national industry, he goes even farther than his master, as with respect to the NAVIGATION LAWS. He also examines with care the doctrines of the PHYSIOCRATS, and to some extent defends them against the strictures of Smith, He seeks to enlarge the comprehension of political economy, so as to make it comprise "all those speculations which have for their object the happiness and improvement of political society." His observations everywhere exhibit good sense, clearness of thought, and a fine enthusiasm for justice, liberty, and progress. But he is sometimes unduly prolix, and degenerates into commonplace; and he is too much given to quotation, even where there nothing in the passage cited which might not as fitly have proceeded from his own pen.

The subjects successively dealt with by Stewart in his lectures are-population, including the question of the comparative advantages of small and great farms, enclosures, and agrarian policy in general; national wealth, with the distinction of productive and unproductive labour; money, prices, and interest; trade, especially the trade in corn; taxation; and the relief and maintenance of the poor. After the study of those subjects which strictly belong to political economy, follow a brief treatment of the education of the lower orders, and a pretty full discussion of politics proper or the theory of government. The bibliography of the lectures is very valuable.

Besides the lectures, he was author of an "Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith," read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1793, and published in vol. iii. of its Transactions. There is a biography of Stewart by John Veitch in vol. x. of Hamilton's edition of his works.

J. K. I.

477

was not a general but a specific right of common; it did not carry with it ownership of the soil, but it was a real estate, tenable and transferable as a freehold or a copyhold tene ment, like any other estate in land.

The term is said to be chiefly used in the north. [Elton, Law of Commons and Waste Lands, ch. ii. and Law of Copyholds, p. 18, note.-Woolrych, Law of rights of Common.-Joshua Williams, Rights of Common.-Fitzherbert, Extent Maner.. 12, 13.-Gen. Inclosure Act, 8 & 9 Vict. c. 118.]

E. G. P.

The stipulatio might be either absolute or conditional.

It was a general form, by which any kind of agreement might be made.

Stipulatio poenae nomine corresponds in principle to the bond of English law.

The stipulatio did not require witnesses, but it became usual to draw up a written memorandum (cautio) of its terms, at the time of its being entered into, and the existence of such a memorandum was under the law of Justinian presumptive evidence of the fact that the form of question and answer had been observed.

E. A. W.

STIRLING, PATRICK JAMES, LL.D. (1809. 1891), for fifty years a well-known and much respected lawyer in Dunblane, N.B.

Author of The Philosophy of Trade, or Outlines of a Theory of Profits and Prices, including an examination of the principles which determine the relative value of Corn, Labour, and Currency. (Edinburgh, Oliver and Boyd, 1846): also of The Australian and Californian Gold Discoveries and their Probable Consequences (Oliver and Boyd, 1853): translator of BASTIAT'S Harmonies (1860) and Sophismes (1863), the former with a notice of Bastiat's life and writings. The Philosophy of Trade treats, in a highly abstract way, of value, labour, profits, rent, foreign trade, the chief contention being, in opposition to RICARDO, that value depends solely on the relation of demand and supply. It purports to describe in outline the laws which would regulate the operations of trade in its healthy and unfettered state, assuming freedom from external interference of every kind, even from taxes for revenue. It had the good fortune to be highly praised in the N.B. Review, Nov. 1846, by Dr. T. CHALMERS-whose favourite student Stirling had been in St. Andrews-as "something far higher than an exposition: it is a rectification of first principles"; and by George Eliot in the Westminster Review, Oct. 1847, for "the extreme clearness of its illustrations and the almost geometrical form of its doctrines and demonstrations." In the Gold Discoveries one sees the misgivings

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with which the new flood of precious metal was regarded. Stirling anticipates "a great social and commercial revolution, a disturbance of the rela tions and distribution of property"; suggests that prices may be trebled or quadrupled ; and seriously "counts the cost of adhering to the gold standard. He has, however, the true banker's belief in the sacredness of the money contract. "The man who has undertaken to pay his creditor £100 ster.ing has in law and in fact engaged to deliver to him 100 sovereigns, or 25 oz. of standard gold. Providence, in the meantime, has furnished the debtor unexpectedly with cheaper and more abundant means of fulfilling this engagement. Is he to be deprived by arbitrary legislation of the benefit of those means?" In the end he concludes that the

question embraces considerations of justice and equity as well as of policy and expediency, and should be handed over to the politician or practical

STIRNER, MAX (1806-1856), born at Bayreuth, is the name by which Caspar SCHMIDT, the philosophic individualist anarchist, is most generally known in Germany. After studying philosophy and theology, he became a master at the Gymnasium in Berlin, and was also a teacher in a girls' school. He published, in 1845, his chief work, Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum. This had a brilliant but transitory success. He also wrote a History of the Reaction after 1848, and published translations of Adam SMITH and other English economists. His life was spent in humble circumstances, and he died in poverty. His position was that of an individualist anarchist of the most extreme and uncompromising kind, preaching the cultus of the ego of the individual almost as a religion. He maintained in his Einzige und sein Eigenthum the crudest form of the doctrine "might is right," deriving every right and moral sanction from the individual alone. His views on property are best expressed in his own words, which form a remarkable contrast to PROUDHON'S view that "property is theft." "What is my property?" asks Stirner, and answers at once, 'Nothing but that which is in my power to what property am I entitled? to any to which I entitle myself. I myself give myself the right to property by taking property." He accepts the principle that in labour-questions each should look out for himself, and will have no organisation and no division of goods among the community. He would let all struggle for existence, and fare as best they can. The only form of community he would admit is that of a "free union of egoists," which should only last as long as any one member of the union pleased. Stirner, in fact, is the philosophic exponent of the extremest form of LAISSEZ FAIRE and INDIVIDUALISM (q.v.) in society and economics, and as such has had considerable influence over the modern school of anarchists in Germany and Russia.

[Stirner's chief work is Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum, Leipzig, 1845, republished by Ph. Reclam of Leipzig, with an introduction by Paul Lauterbach.-See also Max Stirner und Friedrich Nietzsche, Erscheinungen des modernen Geistes, by R. Schellwien, Leipzig, 1892; and (better) Der Anarchismus, by E. V. Zenker, Jena, 1895.Cf. Nordau, Entartung, 1892.] H. de B. G.

=

=

=

STIVER, the full predecimal money of account of Holland, Flanders, Brabant, Liège, Clêves, and Westphalia, may be stated thus :lb. (£) 3 rix dollars 6 florins [] 20 schillings (8)=120 stiver [s] = 240 groat (d) = 960 pfennig (Clêves) = 1440 deniers [d]=1920 pfennig or (in Clêves) heller; but some only of these items are selected, and those to which we have given the Carolingian titles £: s: d do not appear twice over in the usual money of account. The stiver, when coined, was in modern times the least silver coin; it has now been superseded by the 5 cent piece, with which it is popularly identified.

Modern Cambist (1893).]

[P. Kelly, Universal Cambist (1835). — Tate,

J. D. R.

In

STOCK. Public loans may be raised in one of two ways: either by the issue of bonds, obligations, or debentures, or by the issue of "stock." Bonds, obligations, or debentures are issued in fixed amounts; stock, on the other hand, may be allotted and transferred in any amounts appearing suitable to the parties concerned, subject, however, in some cases to certain restrictions prohibiting fractions of pounds or of larger or smaller amounts. the case of securities of the first named description the investor receives a document stating his rights, whilst in the case of stock the document, if any, which the holder receives, merely states that he is the holder of stock for a certain amount constituted by some statute, or trust deed or general bond, by which the rights of the shareholders are defined (see DEBENTURE STOCK).

The expression "stock" is also used in respect of such part of the capital of a company as has ceased to be divided into shares of fixed and equal amount. Shares in companies may be converted into stock as soon as their nominal amount is paid up in full.

[Companies' Act 1862, §§ 12 and 28; Companies' Clauses Consolidation Act, § 61. The conversion of shares into stock is almost universal in the case of English railway and canal companies.] E. S. STOCK EXCHANGE. See EXCHANGE, STOCK.

STOCK JOBBING. See JOBBER.

STONE. See MEASURES AND WEIGHTS. STOPPAGE IN TRANSITU. If a buyer of goods becomes insolvent, the unpaid seller who has parted with the possession of the goods has a right of stopping them in transitu, that is to say, he may resume possession of the goods so long as they are in course of transit,