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tically any price which the producers might choose to establish, a state of things which rarely prevails with regard to any commodities excepting in a famine, and which usually leads to a great increase of price. That the price continued to fall in spite of this demand is the best proof of the enormous potential supply. The demand for silver under free coinage is, however, and always must be, a demand "at the lowest price to which it can be beaten down." The demand for silver under free coinage comes from those who sell their goods for silver; a high price for silver means low prices for commodities; and to asume that the demand exists under any other circumstances than at the lowest market price would be to assume that the people who sell commodities for silver, knowingly sell them at a lower price than the highest market price which they can get, an assumption which runs counter to all human nature.-ED. YALE REVIEW.

Profit-Sharing. For the best essay on the subject of ProfitSharing a prize of no less than 25,000 francs was placed by the Comte de Chambrun at the disposal of the Musée Social-the Parisian Society for the promotion of economic and social research to whose good work we have more than once had occasion to allude. The period for sending manuscripts closed at the end of 1896; the prize was awarded, or rather divided, for no one competitor was found worthy of the whole amount-in May of this year. The highest award (12,000 francs) was given to Emile Waxweiler, a Belgian engineer; the second (8,000 francs) to Maurice Vanlaër, a barrister of Lille; the third (5,000 francs) to Paul Bureau, a law professor of Paris. Besides these three essays two others were awarded the privilege of being printed at the expense of the Society. Considering the large amount of the prize, the number of competitors does not seem very large. But twentythree essays were handed in to the committee, and less than half of these could be regarded as serious efforts to advance human knowledge on the subject in question. Eleven of them were very short indeed. The comments of the committee on some of the essays which it could summarily dismiss from consideration are very brightly written. Of No. 4, we read that "the author, who wrote it in two days, had only time to give an outline of his ideas; but this outline was quite sufficient to prove, as he intended it should, that he did not want to talk about profit-sharing." No 7

was a manuscript of 54 pages, which, in spite of its brevity was divided into 14 chapters and illustrated by a number of geometrical diagrams. "We regret," say the committee, "our inability to follow the logic of these theorems and figures, and are only sure that they have nothing to do with the subject in hand."

Of the prize essays, the first takes a rather optimistic view of the possibilities of profit-sharing; the second and third a more unfavorable one. As far as we can judge from the pretty full abstract given in the report, it was not so much on account of superior knowledge of the subject as on account of the advantage of mental tone which the optimist enjoys, that the order was finally determined. The committee itself seems to countenance this idea. “The author of the first prize essay sees the difficulties of applying his system but he also sees its moral advantages. He is less daunted by objections and obstacles than the author of the second prize essay, and consequently less shrouded in doubts and reservations as to the importance of the service which it can render." Possibly the rather small number of able competitors was due to the fact that most of those who went into the subject deeply found so much reason for conscientious doubt, as to make them feel that they were at a disadvantage in this subject as compared with one on whose future importance they could feel more sanguine. It is but just to the committee to say that their own report explicitly disclaims any extravagant valuation of what has already been done in the line of profit-sharing, and looks to its possible future for good rather than to its actual present.

Sociology in Russia. This subject has assumed proportions in Russian literature of which the scholars of western Europe and America have little idea. The few sociologists who have followed the matter at all-being unfamiliar with the Russian languagehave derived their information respecting it, as a rule, either from the works of G. de Roberty, J. Novicow and M. Kowalewsky, which are written in French, or from the "Gedanken über eine Socialwissenchaft der Zukunft" by Paul von Lilienfeld. Lothar Dargun, the sociologist of Cracow, who died untimely, is also regarded by many as belonging to Slavonic literature. But the fact is universally overlooked that there is an autochthonous and multiform Russian sociology, which is not merely thoroughly scientific according to present standards in that department of thought,

but which even attacks with thorough and acute criticism the fantastic views which have been put forth by sociologists of western Europe. One name, that of P. Lawroff, who is at present the best thinker in systematic sociology in Russia, and who, on account of his scientific breadth of view, has been adorned there with the title, "the most universal mind of our time," is as good as unknown to the scientific world of western Europe. He is the author of eight or ten important works. The subjective method in sociology, of which Lawroff is to be regarded as the originator, has been further and in an independent manner developed by his most gifted disciple, N. Michailowsky, who has devoted himself especially to an assault. upon the method of sociological analogy which Herbert Spencer developed to such excess. It may be remarked in passing, that there was in Russia a full-fledged "Spencerian school" ("Spencereowy dieti"), and a polemic directed against it, before Spencer was so much as known upon the continent. Michailowsky has also sought to give to the Russian sociological school a more secure, because more critically tested, basis, by collecting more copiously sociological material from primitive history, by making critical use of the latest results of biological inquiry, and especially by adopting the methods of Völkerpsychologie. Midway between Spencer and Michailowsky, but inclining more to the latter, stands Juschakow. Among other Russian sociologists may be mentioned Karejeff, Tschtschapof, Jakobi, Metschnikow and Kowalewsky, whose works, written for the most part in French, have contributed rather to the details than to the principles of the science. (From "Die sociale Frage im Lichte der Philosophie," by Dr. Ludwig Stein, Stuttgart, 1897.)

Lynchings in the South. Although statistics covering the subject are not accessible, we have the impression that lynchings of blacks in the South have for some cause greatly increased in number during recent months. These mob murders betray how much barbarism remains in that region, in both races; and they show, and breed, such disregard of law as threatens yet further disintegration of the social order. We suppose there is an inarticulate justification of lynch-law in the Southern mind, somewhat like this: Law presupposes subjects who are amenable to law-this, the negroes are not, in general. In them, the notion of a social and legal order. is almost wanting. The processes of the court-room are slow; being without property, fines have no terror for them; they do not feel the

shame of imprisonment; the death penalty is too remote and contingent to affect their imagination and thus influence their conduct; in a word, we are trying to apply a system of legal concepts and processes wrought out by one race through centuries of social struggle to another and very different race-it does not fit; it will not work. In this view of the matter, there seems to us to be much that is true and cogent. Perhaps it may lay on the leaders of public opinion in the South the duty of devising such modifications both of civil and criminal law and procedure as will better adapt these to the population of that region. But neither this nor any other consideration can justify a general resort to lynch-law. Every such case only complicates yet further the most difficult and threatening problem with which American civilization has to do.

Work of the Department of Labor. We have received the eleventh annual report of the Commissioner of Labor, embracing statistics of "work and wages of men, women, and children." In the letter of transmittal, the Commissioner states that the Department is now engaged upon six principal subjects, as follows: the effect of machinery upon labor and the cost of production; the wages paid in the leading countries of the world; the economic aspects of the liquor habit and traffic; the municipal ownership in the United States of gas, electric and water plants (this subject being studied contemporaneously and uniformly by all the departments and bureaus of labor in the country); the social, moral and economic condition of the Italians of Chicago; and the economic progress of the negroes. This is an extensive and varied program; and as concerns especially two or three of the subjects mentioned there is great need of exact information.

Mr. P. C. Lyon, who contributes the article on the famine in India to this number of the Yale Review, is a member of the Indian Civil Service who has had exceptional opportunities for informing himself on the subject of his paper. He was for some time Secretary to Sir Charles Elliott when the latter was lieutenant-governor of Bengal. He therefore came into close contact with the leading Indian authority on famines. More recently he has been Officiating Director of Land Records and Agriculture, Bengal, and has had direct experience in those multifarious duties, which the paternal government of India demands of the picked men who enter its service.

We print this month a review of the social and economic legislation of the States, from the pen of F. J. Stimson, Esq., of Boston, the author of American Statute Law, Handbook to the Labor Law of the United States, and Labor in its Relations to Law. There is no better authority on these subjects in the United States than Mr. Stimson, and we consider ourselves fortunate in being able to present to our readers, so early in the year, a summary of the important and often radical and curious laws which have been enacted during the past six months.

Money is the title of a new periodical, the first number of which appeared in May. It is a "non-partisan monthly magazine," whose "main object is to find the truth and help others to do likewise," and which contains short, readable articles by able contributors on all sides of the money question. Mr. Raymond E. Dodge is the editor, and it is published by the Money Publishing Co. for $1.00 a year.

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