pedantic, and rash pieces of legislation " which had ever come within his observation. He pointed out with great clearness the disadvantages which must result from dividing the Bank of England into two departments, and from limiting the country note circulation. He considered the sudden and frequent alteration in the rate of discount to be closely connected with this legislation. It is to be observed that these arrangements were not followed in the German Bank Act of 1875, and that greater steadiness in the rate of interests charged by the Reichsbank has resulted during the period of autumnal demand (see arts. AUTUMNAL DRAIN; BANK OF GERMANY). The fifth and sixth volumes contain fresh topics, viz. railways and the railway system, the origin and progress of the free-trade movement; the state of finance and banking in France, and the effect of the new discoveries of gold.

[Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Économie Politique, par M. Léon Say et M. J. Chailly, Paris, 1892.Ricardo's Letters to Malthus.]

TOOL.

Tool, p. 549; Tool Rent, p. 549.

H. E. E.

TOOL. The difference between a tool and a machine has been long a subject of controversy. C. BABBAGE (Economy of Machinery and Manufactures) saw very little difference between them. "A tool," he says, "is usually more simple than a machine; it is generally used with the hand, whilst a machine is frequently moved by animal or steam power. . . . The simpler machines are often merely one or more tools placed in a frame and acted on by a moving power." Dr. Ure was of much the same opinion, and popular writers, like Mr. Samuel SMILES (Industrial Biography, Iron Workers and Tool Makers, ch. x.), mostly follow in their wake. On the other hand, it is clear that, whilst a tool may well form part of the mechanism of a machine, it is not itself that mechanism; nor will any number of tools placed in mere juxtaposition be so; and in this connection the definition of a machine by a recent writer, Mr. Alexander B. M. Kennedy (The Mechanics of Machinery, p. 2), may be compared with the above. "A machine," says Mr. Kennedy, "is a combination of resistent bodies whose relative motions are completely constrained, and by means of which the natural energies at our disposal may be transformed into any special form of work.' Two important characteristics, in which a tool is wanting, emerge from this definition, its potential division into parts, and the alleged circumstance of energy being "transformed," not merely transferred, when applied to move it. The same view is strenuously argued by Karl MARX (Capital, pt. iv.). "All fully developed machinery, he contends, "consists of three essentially different parts, the motor mechanism, the transmitting mechanism, and finally the tool" a machine "is a mechanism that, after

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being set in motion, performs with its tools the same operations that were formerly done by the workman with similar tools." If these latter views be accepted as being the more correct, it would follow that a tool is an implement for merely transferring energy applied to itself alone, and when combined with other tools "whose relative motions are completely constrained," it becomes part of a machine.

[Charles Babbage, Economy of Machinery and Manufactures.- Dr. Ure, The Philosophy of Manufactures.-A. B. M. Kennedy, The Mechanics of Industry, Macmillan and Co., 1886.- Karl Marx, Capital, vol. ii., English translation.-R. W. Cooke-Taylor, Modern Factory System, ch. ii.-J. R. M'Culloch, A Dictionary of Commerce, article "Tools and Machines."]

R. W. C. T.

TOOL RENT is a name given to the price paid for the use of an artificial instrument of production. In certain industries it has been common to hire out tools and machines to workers at a fixed price, the hirer being sometimes the employer of the workers as well, sometimes not. This has generally happened where the tools or machines were of a complicated construction, and therefore expensive to purchase, and at times or in places where the factory system had not made much way. In the stocking industry, for example, it was, until quite recently, a very common method of production, which prevails to some extent still. The charges in this instance took the name of "frame" rents, and in some cognate instances of "loom" rents, where a loom was the implement supplied. This system has been always open to many abuses. In the Life of Thomas Cooper (p. 139) there is a particularly good account of some of these, and a comparative estimate of its merits with those of the factory system, which are worth quoting. "A cotton manufacturer builds a mill," he explains, "and puts machinery into it, and then gives so much per week, or so much per piece of work, to the men and women and boys and girls he employs. But I found that the arrangement in the hosiery trade was very different. The stocking and glove manufacturers did not build mills, but were the owners of the 'frames' in which the stockings and gloves were woven. These frames they let out to the masters or middlemen at a certain rent, covenanting to give all the employ in their power to the said masters. . . . The masters employed the working hands, giving so much per dozen for the weaving of the stockings or gloves, and charging the man a weekly frame rent-which was, of course, at a profit above the rent the master paid the owner of the frame." The prominent position of the middleman was an ominous portent in this transaction, and the worker was subject, it seems, to many direct exactions at his hand. "He had to pay

not only frame-rent' but so much per week for

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the 'standing' of the frame in the shop of the master, for the frames were grouped together in the shops generally, though you would often find a single frame in a weaver's cottage as well. The man had also to pay threepence per dozen to the master for 'giving out' of work. He had also to pay so much per dozen to the female 'seamer' of the hose; and he had also oil to buy for his machine, and lights to pay for in the darker half of the year. But the foul grievance was this: each man had to pay a whole week's frame-rent although he had only half a week's work . . ." and so on, this authority finally giving his verdict in favour of the factory system in preference to this system of production. Tool rent was, however, known long before this time, and is specially mentioned and condemned in an act of parliament of Mary's reign (2 & 3 Phil. and Mary, c. 11), entitled "An Act touching Weavers," where we read of persons guilty of the offence of "engrossing looms into their hands and possession, and letting them out at such unreasonable rents as the poor artificers are not able to maintain themselves, much less to maintain their wives, families, and children." Clearly too it is a system as applicable to agriculture as manufacture, and, indeed, to any occupation in which tools or machinery play a part.

[The Life of Thomas Cooper written by Himself (Hodder and Stoughton, 1879).-R. W. Cooke Taylor, The Modern Factory System, p. 53.— William Felkin, History of the Machine- Wrought Hosiery and Lace Manufactures, Longman, 1867. --J. A. Froude, History of England from the Fall of Wolsey, ch. i.]

R. W. C. T.

TORRE, RAFFAELE DELLA (17th century), the author of a treatise on exchange, which contains a comparatively liberal opinion, for the time, on the scholastic doctrine of usury.

Torre, while professing the most absolute respect for the principle of gratuitous loans, admits some practical means of evading it. After describing the different forms of exchange, he examines with great acumen the much-debated question of the lawfulness of exchange. He investigates what constitutes profit in different contracts; distinguishing loans from exchange; falls into the error of denying the usefulness of loans, in opposition to which he upholds the advantages of exchange; he therefore admits exchange, provided the price be a fair one, fair by which he means legal. According to him distance of place, and distance of time, the latter absolutely limited to the distance of place, in order to avoid loans in the form exchange, are necessary to constitute exchange.

De cambiis, Genoa, 1641 [Gobbi, L'economia politica negli scrittori italiani del secolo XVI.XVII., Milan, Hoepli, 1889.]

U. R.

TORRENS, ROBERT, COLONEL (17801864), soldier and political economist, was born in Ireland, and entered the Marines in 1797, becoming captain in 1806, and major, for

services at Anhalt, in 1811. At the close of the great war he was placed on half-pay, and devoted himself to politics and literature, entering parliament, after various unsuccessful efforts, as member for Ashburton in 1831. He entered with great vigour into the scheme for colonising South Australia by means of the South Australian Company, of which he was chairman for several years.

Torrens was a prolific writer on economic subjects; his works took usually the form of letters to the ministry of the day. They lack polish of style, and as a rule are devoid of permanent merit. He was a great supporter of the so-called RECIPROCITY (q.v.) system.

The principal works which need be cited are as follows:

The Economists refuted, or An Enquiry into the Nature and Extent of the Benefits conferred by Trade and Commerce, etc., London, 8vo, 1808.-An Essay on Money and Paper Currency, London, 1812.-An Essay on the External Corn Trade, London, 8vo, 1815; 3rd ed. 1826; 4th ed. 1827. -A comparative Estimate of the Effects chich a Continuance and a Removal of the Restriction of Cash Payments are Respectively Calculated to produce... London, 8vo, 1819.-An Essay on the Production of Wealth, London, 1821.-Letters on Commercial Policy, Lond., 1833. On Wages and Combinations, Lond., 1834.-A Letter to Lord Melbourne on Bank reform, Lond., 1837.-A Letter to Sir Robert Peel on the Condition of England, Lond., 1843.-The Budget, or Commercial and Colonial Policy, Lond., 1844.The Principles and Practical Operation of Sir Robert Peel's Act of 1844 Explained and Defended, London, 1847; 2nd ed. 1857.

[Gent. Mag., 1864, pt. ii. p. 385. Papers, South Australian Co. Reference in Ricardo's Letters to Malthus, 1887.] C. A. H.

TORRENS, SIR ROBERT RICHARD (18141884), author of the TORRENS ACT (q.v.), was son of Col. Robert TORRENS (q.v.). Born at Cork, he was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and became collector of customs in South Australia in 1851. In 1856 he became colonial treasurer, in 1857 he entered the house of assembly, and on 27th January 1858 carried the act which bears his name, for the transfer of land by simple registration of title. In 1863 he returned to England, and in 1865 entered parliament, where he tried to press his views as to simplifying the transfer of lands.

He wrote Political Economy and Representative Government in Australia, 1855, Reform of the Law of Real Property, 1858; Registration of Title of Land, 1859.

C. A. H.

deeply impressed with the idea that one of the chief things required for the success of the colony was simplification of the transfer of land he carried his views in the legislature in 1858 (act 15 of 1857-58). The benefits of the system became rapidly manifest. Victoria was the next colony to introduce it. Now it is the general system adopted in all Australasia. It has also been extended to Fiji, to the Leeward Islands, and to Trinidad in the West Indies. Under this system the transfer of land is carried on by a government department. Great care must be exercised in registering a title for the first time, but when once a title has been entered in the official registers it cannot be questioned, its registration is sufficient evidence of its soundness, and it can be encumbered, disencumbered, or transferred by simple entry with proper formalities in the register.

It is generally admitted that the system conferred immense benefits on Australia; elsewhere it has usually been received with suspicion, and in an old country the expense of investigating and first registering an old title has prevented the adoption of the plan.

The English Land Transfer Act 1897 (60 & 61 Vict. c. 65) gives powers to the privy council which may be used for the gradual introduction of a compulsory system of registration of title to land in England (see LAND REGISTRATION; MORTGAGES, REGISTRATION OF).

C. A. H.

TORRI, LUIGI (1719-1814), a nobleman of Verona. In one of his works, written for a prize competition, set by the academy of Verona in 1789, on trade-gilds, which he won (see MARACHIO), Torri eclectically expounds the reasons for and against the restrictions of freedom in trade, and without giving a decided opinion he says circumstances must be the guide.

Dreading the excesses of liberty, he admits a partial retention of the old systems. His book is a long treatise on trade, and in the last part he considers trade-gilds-though he recognises their abuses, he would retain and reform them by eliminating these. Torri's work is of importance in spite of its vagueness and want of originality; partly because he sums up the reasons given by the first writers of the day against trade restrictions, and particularly against trade-gilds; partly because he echoes the prevailing public opinion on secular institutions, traditionally respected, though their very serious drawbacks were recognised.

Considerazioni sopra i mezzi conducenti alla prosperità delle arti e del commercio, 1793 [see Alberti, Le corporazioni d' arti e mestieri e la libertà del commercio, etc., 1888.-Gobbi, La concorrenza estera, etc., 1884].

U. R.

TORT is the name for a wrongful act inflicting damage on another person and entitling the injured person to pecuniary compensation. In certain cases a party threatened or injured by a tort is also entitled to an injunction restraining

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the commission of the threatened act or the continuance of a wrongful course. Assault and battery, slander and libel, unlawful imprisonment and malicious prosecution, fraud, trespass and wrongful conversion, are the most obvious instances of tortious acts. A tort may be, but is not necessarily, a criminal offence.

There is one material difference between the liability arising out of a contract and the liability arising out of a tort. The benefit as well as the burden of a contract is not affected by the death of either party; but in the case of a tort the death of the wrong-doer as well as the death of the person wronged, as a general rule, destroys the liability. Legislation has, however, engrafted various exceptions on this rule, the result being that injuries to property may now be sued upon by the deceased owner's personal representatives, but that personal injuries, not resulting in the death of the person concerned, must be considered as forgiven if the injured party has not instituted proceedings in his lifetime. The representatives of a person whose death has been caused by a wrongful act, neglect, or default have, by virtue of Lord Campbell's Act (9 & 10 Vict. c. 93; and see 27 & 28 Vict. c. 95), a right of action for the benefit of the wife, husband, parent, and children of the deceased.

[Pollock on Torts, 4th ed. 1895.]

E. S.

TOTAL UTILITY denotes sum-total of satisfactions. The total utility of a commodity to a person is the whole of the pleasure which he derives from its consumption; the total utility of an occupation is the whole of the pleasure derived from the remuneration and in the exercise thereof. The total utility of commodities or actions, less by the attendant total disutility, constitutes their net utility or "net advantages" (Marshall); to maximise which is the end of the "economic man."

The

The economic measure of the total utility of an object to a consumer is "the maximum sacrifice that he is prepared to make in order to procure it for himself "(Dupont, "De l'utilité," Journal des Économistes, July 1853). same, less by the sacrifice which he has actually to make, in the measure of the net utility. Thus the "relative utility" (Dupuit) or "CONSUMERS' RENT" (Marshall) of a purchased commodity is the money-measure of its total utility less by the purchase-money. But it must be remembered that when the "maximum sacrifice" is very great, it can no longer be measured by money (Princ. of Ec., p. 203, 3rd ed., cp. 5th ed. bk. iii. ch. vi.).

The constructions which are employed to represent the total utility of an individual may be extended to the collective total utility, the Gesammtnützlichkeit of all parties. (In a régime of market.) The proposition that under the conditions of competition economic equilibrium is determined by rendering the collective total utility a maximum consistent with the

Towns, Decay of (medieval), p. 552; Towns, Policy of the (mediæval), p. 552.

TOWNS, DECAY OF (mediæval). From 1433 to 1472 the Rolls of Parliament record the relief from taxation allowed to Lincoln, Great Yarmouth, Andover, Cambridge, Cheltenham, and other "towns, cities, and burghs desolate wasted and destruyed or over gretely empoverished." The cause is not always stated; but fires and incursions of the sea explain the distress in some cases. These facts might seem to be local and accidental were it not that more than sixty years later the statutes show that Canterbury, Cambridge, the Cinque Ports, Exeter, Gloucester, Lincoln, Northampton, Plymouth, Salisbury, Stafford, Yarmouth, York, and many other towns, English and Welsh, were in a semi-ruinous state. Houses were in danger of falling; uncovered vaults and cellars were a peril to passers-by; and streets were choked with rubbish. Seven statutes (26 to 35 Hen. VIII.) attempted a remedy by ordaining that if the owners did not rebuild, or at least wall off the sites, corporations might do so, and in that way acquire the freehold.

The cause of this ruin is not clear. The Wars of the Roses had reduced the population, and the harsh regulations of the craft-gilds respecting apprentices and journeymen were driving the industrial classes to work in villages, as for example around Worstead in Norfolk, in order to escape from burdens and restrictions.

The needs of the state again and the French wars had caused customs dues and taxes to become heavy burdens on merchants and craftsmen; and the manorial system had fallen into ruin, so that liberty, of which towns were at one time the chief centres, could be enjoyed in the country on easy terms. Probably therefore the temporary decay of the towns marks the period of transition which prepared the way for a new era of trade and industrial prosperity. It is possible that the rise of Manchester, Birmingham, and Sheffield about 1550 or later is a sign of revival.

The statutes from 4 Hen. VII. c. 19 to 39 Eliz. c. 1, which forbade the pulling down of towns, relate to places of about 200 inhabitants, and so to rural not urban life.

[Cunningham, Growth of English Industry.C. Gross, The Gild Merchant, i. 51, 52.] R. H.

It

TOWNS, POLICY OF THE (mediæval). Dur ing a well- marked period in the economic development of Europe, the whole of the commercial and industrial life of the time was concentrated in, and indeed confined to, the towns; was controlled, assisted, and limited by municipal regulation. This was a phase which began and ended at different times in different countries, but which may be regarded as generally culminating in the 14th and 15th centuries. During this period every town, from that which was hardly more than a village, and was subject to the authority of a strong monarchy, to that which had become an independent city-state, pursued a policy in its spirit and main features identical. Each burgess body avowedly pursued what it regarded as its own material interest as against the burgesses of all other towns, much in the same spirit as is shown to-day by the several nations; and, what we cannot find a modern parallel for, it followed the same self-regarding ends in relation to the inhabitants of the surrounding agricultural areas. admitted the men of other towns to its markets only on the payment of tolls from which its own burgesses were exempt. It sought to benefit as much as possible by their presence, while preventing them from encroaching on what the burgesses regarded as their own exclusive rights; for instance, it was very common to exclude outsiders or "foreigners," as they were called, from all retail trade as well as from all direct dealings in the town with other "foreigners." Every town expected to obtain for its own consumption the surplus food grown in the country around, and sought to prevent the rustics from engaging in any industry which could compete with its own manufactures. The more powerful and independent the towns were, the more thorough were the measures resorted to, to secure these results. In Germany, where both the imperial and the territorial authorities were weak, the towns were able to proceed to extremes (as e.g. in the "staple-right") unknown in England.

But the regulations of the municipal government aimed not only at securing the interests of the town as against the world outside; they aimed at securing what were regarded as the interests of the great mass of the citizens as against members of the burgess body itself. This is especially true in regard to the purchase of victuals, though it is illustrated by regulations with regard to other articles of common use. The intention of the authorities was to bring the producers, i.e. chiefly the peasants from the country around, as far as possible into direct contact with the actual consumers. Dealers were not admitted to the market to purchase until after the ordinary householder had had an opportunity to satisfy his needs. None must come between the consumer aud producer, and obtain what was deemed an

illegitimate profit by engrossing or by forestalling the market (see FORESTALLERS AND REGRATORS).

When the town governments were gradually compelled to surrender their powers to the territorial or national rulers, the latter very commonly adopted, for larger areas, the policy which the towns had pursued for their own benefit; and thus the medieval towns contributed one element to what is now known as mercantilism (see MERCANTILE SYSTEM); while in their administrative organisation they furnished at least suggestions towards the formation of the later state bureaucracy.

As to the justification of the town policy, opinions differ-from that of those who regard it as short-sighted and self-defeating, to those who consider it as suited to the larger requirements of the economic stage then reached, though, of course, narrowly selfish in its immediate intent. Opinions likewise differ as to the degree of success with which it was carried out. Probably on both these points insufficient attention has been paid as yet to differences of time and place.

"

[There is a great mass of material to be found in the works on town history, especially those in German; beginning with K. D. Hüllmann, Städtewesen des Mittelalters, 4 vols. 1826, 1827, 1828, 1829. Recent sketches of the whole subject, with numerous bibliographical indications, will be found in Ashley, Economic History, vol. i. pt. ii. (Amer. ed. vol. ii.) ch. i., for England; and in K. Bücher's article " Bürger in Conrad's Handworterbüch der Staatswissenschaften, vol. ii. for Germany. G. SCHMOLLER has sought to place the period of town dominance in its due relation to economic evolution in an opening chapter in his Studien über die wirthschaftliche Politik Friedrichs des Grossen, in his Jahrbuch für Gesetzgebung, 1884 (trans. under the title The Mercantile System, 1896); and in an article "Die Epochen der Getreideverfassung und -politik" in the same Jahrbuch for 1896 he has made perhaps the first attempt to distinguish the nuances of policy, in the action of the small, middle-sized, and large towns respectively.]

W. J. A.

TOWNSEND, REV. JOSEPH (1739-1816), of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and graduate of the university, Edinburgh, practised as a physician, but subsequently took orders. He

is mentioned as a popular preacher. He was rector of Pewsey in Wiltshire, and domestic chaplain to the Countess of Huntingdon (see Gentleman's Mag., and, as to his parentage, Notes and Queries, 6th series, vol. iii. p. 507). He was well read, a versatile and able writer. travelled much both in Great Britain and on the continent.

He

Townsend's Journey through Spain reached three editions (1791, 1792, 1814), and may be compared with Arthur YOUNG's Travels in France. He is probably best known for his Dissertation on the Poor Laws. He wrote Observations on various

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plans offered to the public for the relief of the poor 1788.

His Dissertation on the Poor Laws is an important pamphlet (1st ed., 1786; 2nd, 1787; 3rd, 1817) in the poor law controversy of the 18th century. He argued in principle that the "whole system of compulsive charity" should be abolished. The Poor Laws, "beautiful in theory," "promoted the evils they were meant to remedy, and aggravated the distress they were intended to relieve." Prices had fallen, wages increased as six to four in the past century, and rents doubled, yet the poor rates had doubled in fourteen or even seven years, and in some manufacturing towns 10s. in the £ on the improved rental. Manufacture and agriculture were both alike checked. Further, under better economic conditions, there was less

diligence on the part of the poor. This resulted from the rigid system of settlement (see SETTLEMENT, POOR LAW), coupled with the obligation placed on the parish to provide employment. The pauper, and not the independent family, had to be first considered. The former received not merely maintenance but the lesser luxuries also. The general inducements to labour were thus relaxed; and in this and other ways a larger number of persons and a higher class became pauperised. The poor laws were a limited communism. They defeated the natural law under which hunger or the fear of hunger incited to energy and schooled character-for the poor are not stimulated by the higher ambitions. They might, it was true, be compelled to labour, but compulsion was practically impossible. Industrial workhouses were no remedy; nor were work houses with (what was perhaps called later) "the offer of the house." That was tantamount to a repeal of the poor laws for those who would not enter the "house." But there might be day workshops in parishes to train the poor in industry. The poor rate might be reduced nine-tenths in nine years; horses might be taxed, and oxen, which are cheaper to feed, used instead. Still, in the main, voluntary charity should be relied on and would suffice.

Many of the positions held by Townsend were challenged (cp. e.g. RUGGLES, T., History of the Poor; EDEN, Sir F. M., State of the Poor), yet on the main issues he may be deemed justified. In general, he adopted views similar to those of MONTESQUIEU (Esprit des lois, bk. xxiii. ch. 29), Lord Kames, and MALTHUS, but the peculiarity of his position is this; he was profoundly convinced of the social utility of voluntary charity, though opposed to any "certain and constant provision for the poor"-cp. his remarks on the effect of charitable gifts and doles, and also "Industrial Workhouses" in Spain (see Journey, I. 218, II. 115, ed. 1815); and hunger, he argued, was the natural penalty for idleness or incompetence. State relief was, he insisted, an apparent substitute for this. Yet it could only take its place if the rule of "the offer of the house" were strictly applied, and this was equivalent to the repeal of the law, so far as the able-bodied were concerned. And to this alternative he was strongly averse on the grounds of experience. Workhouses were ill-classified bally