GILMAN, STEPHEN. Principles of Accounting. Pp. xii, 415. Price, $3.00. Chicago: La Salle University, 1916. The author has endeavored to present to the student a clear statement of the principles of accounting practice without attempting to advance any new theories. Some question may be raised by the author's treatment of good will and organization expenses in practice, as both of these items are usually regarded as proper capital items. The balancing device to prove that "assets = liabilities" is good, but most readers would have a clearer conception of the proprietorship interest had the equation "assets-liabilities = proprietorship" been used. Effective use is made of charts, examples and illustrations. The book should prove of considerable interest to those with experience in bookkeeping. A. T. C. THOMPSON, C. BERTRAND. How to Find Factory Costs. Pp. 191. Price, $3.00. Chicago: A. W. Shaw Company, 1916. An admirable treatise by one who has had wide experience in the development of cost and efficiency systems and as a teacher of factory management. The author has endeavored to dispel the illusion of the average manufacturer that the installation of a cost system means the retardation of efficient production because of the accompanying expense and red tape. In doing so he points out how simple cost systems may be worked up for particular types of businesses, which, in many instances, will reveal leakages amounting to great sums. Indeed, only with a good cost system will the manufacturer be enabled to submit accurate bids on prospective orders. Many forms and charts are used to good advantage. Although the reader is strongly impressed with the idea that they are merely suggestive, he feels that they may be adapted to the specific conditions present in individual plants. The volume has, without doubt, set forth the accounting principles to be followed in securing accurate costs in such a manner that it should make a distinct appeal to manufacturers who are not specialized students of accounting. BANKING, INVESTMENTS AND CORPORATION FINANCE W. D. G. KEMMERER, EDWIN W. Modern Currency Reforms. Pp. xxi, 564. Price, $2.40. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916. Professor Kemmerer needs no introduction to students of money and credit. His contributions in this field have been numerous and of a uniformly high order. He and Professor Irving Fisher are generally recognized as the two foremost exponents in the United States of the modern form of the "quantity theory" of money value. The book under review deals with the currency reforms in India, Porto Rico, Philippine Islands, Straits Settlements and Mexico. In all these countries the local currencies, on a silver or on a fiduciary basis, were brought practically to a gold basis. In some cases an out-and-out gold standard was established; in the others a gold-exchange standard was the end sought. While Professor Kemmerer gives a lucid historical account of the reforms in each of the countries studied, his book represents much more than mere historical description. It constitutes a searching inquiry into monetary principles in the light of the recorded historical experience. The determination of money value in practice, the effect of deliberate changes in this value on wages, on the relations between debtors and creditors, on foreign trade, etc., are most interestingly set forth, and conclusions are abundantly buttressed by statistical diagrams and tables. In the realm of principle, Professor Kemmerer's studies establish beyond dispute the inadequacy of the crude metallist or bullionist theory of money value. While bullion value naturally supplies a lower limit to money value, and while it undoubtedly affects the acceptability of and hence the demand for money, Professor Kemmerer's researches show clearly that money itself is a distinct entity whose value is independently determined. Professor Kemmerer was admirably equipped for pursuing the studies so happily brought to fruition in the book under review. His experience in the field of scholarship was broadened by unique practical opportunities in the domain of administration. While the subject matter of his volume is not such that lends itself to literary embellishment, Professor Kemmerer writes with ease and clearness. To each of the countries studied a separate "Part" is allotted, yet unity of treatment is achieved through emphasis in each instance on the underlying monetary principles. The book is a noteworthy contribution to monetary literature. Columbia University. EUGENE E. AGGER. LYON, HASTINGS. Corporation Finance. Pp. vii, 316. Price, $2.00. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1916. Some few years ago Mr. Lyon published a book entitled Capitalization. The present volume, Corporation Finance, is also labeled Part II with a subtitle, Distributing Securities, Reorganization. From these facts the reviewer gathers that the two volumes, Capitalization and Corporation Finance-Part II, are to be regarded as a complete treatment of the subject of corporation finance. The author devotes four chapters of the volume under consideration to what may be termed the raising of funds and the mechanism therefor, and includes an interesting discussion of syndicates and a brief chapter dealing with listing on the Exchange. The fifth chapter, about twenty pages in length, carries the title Corporate Income, and is followed by another and even briefer chapter entitled Special Nature of the Income of a Holding Corporation. Mr. Lyon then devotes some ten pages to a discussion of the origin of the complexity of liens, and his final and most lengthy chapter is given over to the subject of reorganization. The principal criticism which can be made of this new work of Mr. Lyon is that it deals too much with what may be termed the technical mechanism of corporation finance and that the author is altogether too little concerned with the study of financial policies and the reasons for their adoption. For example, although Mr. Lyon has written several hundred pages in his two volumes, he has given over an exceedingly small percentage of space to the matter of corporate income and its management. Nowhere in either of the two volumes is there to be found any extended consideration of such subjects as dividends and dividend policies, surplus and its management and distribution. Another important topic which seems to have been almost utterly neglected is that of depreciation. Many minor subjects, such as the matter of accumulated dividends, privileged subscriptions, etc., also appear to have been given comparatively little attention. The volume under review contains an interesting and illuminating treatment of many phases of corporate finance some of which are not to be found in any other volume dealing with this subject which has as yet appeared. The chapters on Reorganization and on Syndicates are especially comprehensive and valuable. The reviewer notes with regret the statement of Mr. Lyon in his preface to the effect that he has changed his mind about the desirability of using existing securities and corporations to illustrate various principles. Always a great believer in the source method wherever practicable in a book designed for text purposes, the reviewer is rather inclined to believe that Mr. Lyon has made a mistake in not continuing in this second volume the method which he pursued in Capitalization. Again, in justice to Mr. Lyon, it ought to be said that he is perhaps in the right in altering his method and the reviewer in the wrong in criticising such alteration. Certainly Mr. Lyon has had ample opportunity in using Capitalization as a textbook to determine the value of the illustrative material which it contained. His experience, therefore, is probably the contrary of that of the reviewer and his view in consequence entitled to equal if not greater weight. Federal Trade Commission, Washington, D. C. PAINE, WILLIS S. Paine's W. H. S. STEVENS. Analysis of the Federal Reserve Act and Cognate A collection of current information, accurately and skilfully devised, is of the same importance as original research in its relation to the commercial and educational fields. This, apparently, is the theory underlying the publication of the foregoing volume. The practical demonstration of this theory, as measured by the book itself, suffers from a lack of cohesion. Current news is more easily comprehended and constitutes a more valuable reference source when it is classified according to subject matter. If a chronological development of events, rulings, and regulations is desirable, this development can be executed quite as readily under topical heads. It is an unfortunate incongruity that an analysis of the Federal Reserve Act should have the semblance of a hasty compendium of newspaper clippings and extracts from the Federal Reserve Bulletins. The worth of this work lies primarily in its compilation of statutes. The outline digest of the Federal Reserve Act, the abridgement of State statutes relating to the membership of State banks, and the bill of lading and farm loan acts are commendable inclusions. For the student there exist several other books that cover the Federal Reserve system in a more logical and more thorough way. The business man will find the Federal Reserve Bulletin an investment of greater profit. F. P. STETSON, FRANCIS L.; BYRNE, JAMES; CRAVATH, PAUL D.; WICKERSHAM, GEORGE W.; MONTAGUE, GILBERT H.; COLEMAN, GEORGE S.; GUTHRIE, WILLIAM D. Some Legal Phases of Corporate Financing, Reorganization and Regulation. Pp. ix, 389. Price, $2.75. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1917. A happy contrast to the mechanical compilations of nameless hackwriters, under whose weight the shelves of our law libraries groan wearily, is this volume of addresses delivered in 1916 by recognized leaders of the legal profession at the instance of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, to audiences drawn from practicing lawyers. Mr. Stetson contributes a lengthy paper concerning the preparation of corporate bonds, mortgages, collateral trusts and debenture indentures. He gives a very helpful explanation of the reasons for the inclusion of many of the clauses which are usually found in these documents. Mr. Byrne supplies an exceptionally valuable treatise on the foreclosure of railroad mortgages in the United States courts. If the volume under review contained nothing but this treatise, it would still be an important addition to legal literature. Mr. Cravath treats of the reorganization of corporations; bondholders' and stockholders' protective committees; reorganization committees; and the voluntary recapitalization of corporations. His long experience in these matters enables him to furnish numerous apposite illustrations of the rules which he lays down. Mr. Wickersham deals with the Sherman anti-trust law. Very few persons are as well fitted to handle this subject as Mr. Wickersham, who, as Attorney General of the United States, had much to do with some of the principal proceedings brought under this statute. Mr. Montague writes about the Federal Trade Commission and the Clayton Act. Mr. Coleman and Mr. Guthrie discuss the public service commissions. The authors are to be commended for their public spirit in placing some of the results of their long contact with important corporate affairs at the disposal of the public. It is to be hoped that the publication of this volume will spur on other lawyers versed in legal problems involving corporations to further the work. JOHN J. SULLIVAN. University of Pennsylvania. FOREIGN TRADE AND COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPHY COURSE IN FOREIGN TRADE. (12 units.) AUSTIN, O. P. Economics of World Trade. Pp. 141. Pp. 112. WYMAN, WALTER F. Direct Exporting. Pp. 136. Pp. 156. Pp. 173. SNOW, CHAUNCEY DEPEW. Factors in Trade-Building. Pp. 143. The importance of the United States in world commerce has been brought forcibly to the attention of the layman since the outbreak of the present war and the growing need for men who understand foreign trading has stimulated the development of a literature on the subject. This work, organized and arranged by Dr. Edward Ewing Pratt, Chief of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, while planned for use as a correspondence course "built around the one idea of preparing men for successful work in export trade," has value for any one making a study of the subject since it contains information heretofore unpublished. It is a joint work and each of the collaborators, the majority of whom are business men, is intimately acquainted with his subject. There are four main divisions: (1) Determining markets and policies, (2) Selling methods, (3) Handling export orders, and (4) Factors influencing export trade. The topics are arranged in the order in which the problems would arise were a foreign trade campaign being designed, although the factors which influence foreign trade must be known to the exporter at the outset and parts of division 4 might very well have been presented at the beginning. In considering markets and policies an analysis is first made of the organization of world trade. Division of labor, transportation and communication, and finances are explained as the essentials of trade and along with them less important factors such as exporting of surplus production and of capital, control of transportation, colonization and immigration, trade routes and trade centers, seasonal movement of commodities, and the effect of governmental subsidies and the tariff. The next step shows the recent developments in foreign trade and particularly the changes in the United States. The industrial development of the other continents is described with reference to important trade routes and commercial centers. The problem of selecting the method of exporting best suited |