570 THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL foundation of a map appended to his article on the Influx of Population. We have now endeavoured to give in as small a compass as possible an analysis of the contents of the volume before us; and we think that such a summary is perhaps the best evidence that we can furnish of that honest thoroughness which we previously stated was the chief cause of the success of Mr. Booth's endeavours. In taking leave of it, we can only look forward with increased expectation to the next instahnent, and again congratulate the Editor on what he has already achieved. If his future success at aH corresponds to that with which he has accomplished what might before he had engaged in the enterprise have seemed hopeless, he will, we venture to think, have reason to rest in the sight of that goal to which he says he is now walking by faith. L. L. PRICE Trade Unionism, 1ge?c a?d Old. By GEORGE HOWELL, London: Methuen & Co., 1891. M.P. FEW, if any writers, have done more than Mr. Howell to acquaint students of economics and the general public with the aims and opinions, the constitution and working, and the past history and present condition of trades unions. He may fairly claim, as he does in the volume before us, to have contributed to produce the change which has of recent years passed over public opinion with regard to these associations. In his Co7?fiicts of Capital a?d Laborer he has given a full account of some of the largest and oldest trades unions, and the fifth and sixth chapters of the present volume contain, in a clear and concise form, what may be described as a summary statement of some of the more valuable parts of his larger book. He describes the administration and government of the leading unions, and enumerates their various provident benefits. The figures with which he illustrates his account are of recent date in many instances more recent than those supplied in the last report of the Labour Correspondent of the Board of Trademaud they bring into strong relief the friendly-society side of trades unions, which Mr. Howell will not allow to be exclusively either more or less important than the other or trade-society side. The accou_nt, again, which he gives of the past history of trades unions is, here, as in his larger book, lucid and instructive; and, although the . more recent investigations of historical researchers have tended to throw doubt upon some of the conclusions of Dr. Brentano, upon whom Mr. Howell relies as his chief authority, this consideration applies rather to the earlier stages of that history--and especially to the relations between the craft and the merchant guilds .than to that later period of the rise and progress of combinations, which is the artore important for Mr. Howell's purposes, and is discussed by him in his third chapter. The early period of the organisation of labour is reviewed in two chapters, one on the guild system, and the other on state regulation.
