designed not as remedies, but as palliatives which can at best "do something to ease the position of occupiers of land." Upon the essential consideration, the possibility and character of any general corrective of the chief cause of the depression, the long-continued fall in prices,-the Commission report "considerable difference of opinion among us," and leave the subject to be dealt with in separate memoranda.

The most remarkable of these "memoranda" is a noteworthy Supplementary Report, signed by ten out of the seventeen members of the Commission, and thus constituting a virtual majority report. The leading signature is that of Rt. Hon. Henry Chaplin, President of the Local Government Board, who is probably responsible for the text.

The Supplementary Report concurs in the detailed recommendations already made, but emphasizes the fact that none of the proposals pretend to be remedies or anything more than palliatives and that none of them relate to the admitted main cause of depression, the fall in prices. It seemed, however, eminently desirable that the investigations of the Commission should yield a larger residual, and that some attempt at least should be made to ascertain the possibility and nature of any remedy of the primary cause of depression.

The dominating sentiment among the witnesses examined was that the fall in prices is to be attributed to increased foreign competition. If this be the essential cause, the outlook for the English agriculturist seems hopeless. A common panacea suggested, return to measures of protection, can hardly be regarded as "within the pale of practical politics," while in any event the experience of Germany and France yield results "not encouraging to the advocates of a policy of protection."

It is by no means established, however, that foreign competition is alone responsible for the collapse in agricultural prices. Admitting the fact that within the past twenty years new areas of great agricultural possibilities have been opened up, and costs and facilities of transport have been reduced,the Supplementary Report calls attention to the phenomenon that there has apparently been no corresponding over-produc

tion of agricultural products: "we have had no evidence, and we greatly question if such evidence could be adduced, to show that, compared with the increase of population, the food products of the world to-day are materially greater than they were before the fall in prices." Indeed in the case of wheat, the product most strikingly affected in price, careful estimates of Sir Robert Giffen show that acreage has declined relative to increase in population.1

There remains one other possible explanation of the progressive decline in agricultural prices, viz., the change in monetary standard since the demonetization of silver and the abandonment of silver in 1873-74. This opinion is advanced in the evidence of certain agriculturists and experts and is definitely adopted in the Supplementary Report. The results of the monetary change have been two-fold: (1) the monetary standard has appreciated, or, in other words, prices have fallen; (2) a wide divergence in the relative value of gold and silver has occurred, giving an artificial stimulus to producers in countries where gold is at a premium. Both influences have been alike disastrous to agricultural interests. The agriculturist has suffered peculiarly from the general fall in prices, and India and Argentina have become his most dangerous competitors.

The Supplementary Report recognizes that a reversal of the monetary policy from which these evils proceed could be accomplished only by international agreement. No proposal is made as to the terms of such an agreement or the nature of England's contribution thereto; the abandonment of the gold standard in Great Britain is not even suggested. The statement is simply made that, "if a conference of the Powers was assembled, and their deliberations resulted in an international arrangement for the reopening of the mints abroad and in India, and the restoration of silver, either wholly or partially, to the position which it filled prior to 1873, it would be of the greatest benefit to the industry of agriculture." Accordingly

1 In explanation of this Sir Robert Giffen advances the theory that with increased wealth and population there has been a displacement of wheat by meat as an article of consumption.-Appendix to Final Report, p. 74.

the Government is urged to cooperate with foreign powers for the purpose of promoting such a conference, and of giving effect to the bimetallic resolutions unanimously adopted by the House of Commons. It is believed that such an international arrangement would arrest the long-continued fall in prices and that any further movement would be in the nature of a rise rather than a decline. The recommendation is made after careful and deliberate consideration, in the absence of "signs of any spontaneous and permanent change in this direction," and as the only possible means of "arresting that constant and progressive fall in prices which, by universal admission, has been the cause which lies at the root of agricultural depression."

The memoranda and special reports by individual members of the Commission are of interest as illustrating the variety of its constituent elements, rather than of any great intrinsic worth. Sir Robert Giffen restates his familiar monometallic doctrines in rebuttal of the argument of the Supplementary Report. Mr. Robert Lacey Everett, on the other hand, develops the bimetallic argument in more aggressive spirit and fortified by an historical review of the relations of agriculture and currency. Mr. George Lambert characterizes the main Report as cast essentially "in a landlord mould," and submits individual views upon the detailed recommendations. Finally Mr. F. A. Channing, finding the same Report "defective in method, inadequate as a presentment of the facts laid before us, onesided in its handling of essential issues, and misleading in several of its conclusions," submits an industrious compilation of one hundred and forty-five pages.

Any definite forecast as to the practical influence of the Final Report is useless, and without the scope of an objective summary. It seems likely that certain of the specific recommendations will be embodied in legislative action in the near future. On the other hand, with regard to the vital proposal of the Supplementary Report, an immediate, although not a final, negative has been given. Within two months after the appearance of the Report, Her Majesty's Government formally declined to open the India Mints as part of a general inter

national movement for the remonetization of silver.

Whether

under conditions other than those proposed, or influenced by the progress of events, a different attitude will be taken in the near future, are matters of inviting but hazardous speculation. J. H. HOLLANDER.

Johns Hopkins University.

MODERN SOCIAL REFORM AND OLD CHRISTIAN

IDEALS.

FROM the dawn of time down to the middle of the last

century, the toil of the race did not continuously

produce food enough to sustain the lives of all, or clothes sufficient to make all comfortable. Periodically thousands and millions were swept to destruction, as they were thus swept last year in India by famine. The very conception of a world without want and misery lay as much outside the thoughts of the average man as the continent of America was outside of the knowledge of the European peasant before the voyage of Columbus. But with the advent of this century a change is evident in every civilized land. For the first time in human history, the powers of production, owing to modern discoveries and inventions, have become greater than those of consumption. As one of the results of this change, religious hopes and aspirations, instead of being limited in their sphere of activity by the land-locked sea of speculative philosophy or theology, as in the ancient civilization, send their ships across the great main of contemplated social amelioration now and here.

With this change arise a multitude of questions concerning the best methods of social reform and the principles upon which the same must be based. The subject may be approached from a variety of different positions. This article has been written to emphasize this thought. Social reform, social salvation must rest to-day upon the principles which have been demonstrated as true in earlier ages in the past achievements of man for the betterment of himself and his fellows. True progress here, as elsewhere, consists in the extension of the lessons learned in preceding experience. The wonderful increase in modern production, changing, as it has, the very appearance of society, necessitates, however, a restatement of those old principles of salvation, suited to the special exigencies of the time, and to the nature of the saving work demanded of the men and women of this generation. The old preacher of righteousness, seeing no hope of rescuing all men from earthly