Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/257

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RECENT PERIODICALS AND NEW BOOKS
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every-day life, can yet exert its influence on them.' To brinR toRether its members for the purpose of a free exchange of thought is an essential part of the German Association's programme. The meetings are biennial. 'Great stress is laid on the need of hearing wellgrounded opinions from every possible source. The only principle insisted on is that of scientific method, and the object is to attain not prtical conclusions, but enlightenment.' Votes were taken in the earlier .meetings of the Verein; but the practice lending itself to unworthy arts of partizans was abandoned. If the proceedings thus carefully defined are less lively than some more popular debates, on the other hand' the Verein, in its volumes of reports and in its printed proceedings, offers material which permanently enriches science.' The secretary says, with truth no doubt, ' the payments of the members are a low charge for the very valuable publications which they receive from the Verein.' Besides what we may call its personal interest, this article is also valuable for its sketch of political movements in Germany, both as leading to the formation of the Verein in 1872, and as reacted on by that body. 'Many of the reforms which have been demanded by the Verein, or had their origin it its discussions, have been accomplished by legislation.'

Among the Notes and Memoranda we observe a friendly notice of ourselves and of our esteemed contemporary, the Economic Review. Another note, referring to a recent publication, disclaims on behalf of the French ' Economists' the doubtfu. l compliment of having anticipated Mr. Henry George's scheme of land-taxation. In a note or memorandum On the Growth of Capital and the Cause of Interest, Professor Gidding defends his peculiar views on those subjects, not retracting his doctrine that goods of the second order (tools. materials, &c., as distinguished from articles ready for immediate consumption) have a higher cost of production than lu. xuries. A note on the theory of emigration, by Professor Richmond Mayo Smith, presents in a nut-shell the gist of Professor Philippovitch's recent writings on this ubject, together .'ith the important addition of Professor Richmond Mayo Smith's ]udgme thereon. 'The proposition that mt emigration will continue until equilibrium is reached, by decreasing the price of land and increasing the rate of wages in Europe, and increasing the price of land and decreasing wages here [in America], has a very dubious sound to American ears.'


Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (Philadelphia), January, 1891.

The Austrian Economists. By Dr. Böhm-Bawerk.

A clear and terse statmnent of the characteristics which distinguish the school of which the writer is a leading representative.

On the Conception of Sovereignty. By David G. Ritchie.

The Character of Villein Tenure. By W. J. Ashley.

Referring to the change which consisted in the substitution of pasture, or of a convertible husbandry with a preponderance of pasture, for the tillage of the old eonnnon-field system; Mr. Ashley considers the methods by which, and the extent to which, the change was effected.

A Critique of Wage Theories. By Stuart Wood.

Railroad Passenger Tariffs in Austria. By Jane J. Wetherell.

Contains the principal regulations of the new zone-system.