La Participation aux Bénéfices. Par Emile Waxweiler. Paris, A. Rousseau, 1898-8vo, 320 pp.

In 1895 M. le Comte de Chambrun, the well known French philanthropist, offered a prize of 25,000 francs for the best essay on the subject of profit-sharing. The committee entrusted with the examination of some twenty-five MSS., which were submitted in competition, decided to divide this sum into three prizes, the first and largest of which (12,000 francs) was voted to the volume named above. M. Waxweiler is at the head of a bureau in the Belgian Labor Department; he is the author of two smaller volumes on "High Wages in the United States," and the "Regulation of Sunday work in Switzerland." He writes here as a sincere but not bigoted believer in profit-sharing, whose hopes of its future are moderate, but who is convinced that it is a system economically sound and morally commendable, and must therefore make its way, however gradually.

The programme for the Chambrun competition called for essays which should supplement, not repeat, earlier works on the subject, and should pay especial attention to the legal aspects of participation. As the latter matter is comparatively easy of determination, the fullest possible exposition of the fortunes of the system in late years, especially in the decade 1886-1896, would have seemed to be the line to commend itself to the favorable judgment of the committee. To our surprise, M. Waxweiler, despite his travels in this country and Europe, has made no attempt to take a more recent census than M. A. Trombert's or my own (1888): he records no observations made in visits to profit-sharing establishments, and his work lacks that freshness which would come from detailed study of new instances, while it can lay claims to no other merits of style than clearness and logical order. The two diagrams showing the development of profit-sharing according to decades and countries since 1841, are the most novel feature of the book, but unfortunately, they cannot be said to be the most obviously trustworthy, as the figures set down are not supported by tables of cases, and successful and unsuccessful instances are lumped to show the "development" (which thus means only trials, fortunate or unfortunate) of the system.

M. Waxweiler's most animated pages are those in which he refutes the scholastic objections to participation made by M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu in his last great treatise, on Economics. This distinguished savant rests his present argument (he has previously

favored others as more potent) on the assumption that profits are purely the creation of the entrepreneur, and hence it is morally wrong, as well as economically improper, for the employee to touch them in any degree. M. Waxweiler shows us that profits, on the other hand, are diminished before the balance sheet is made up, by the subtraction of sums destined for other factors in the industry, and that there is no logical gap between this process and a later subtraction in favor of the workman. "Le dividende," he well says, "n'est pas un fonds privilégié, et ce n'est point un sacrilège économique d'y toucher." It is in this second part of his work on participation from the point of view of economic science, that M. Waxweiler's chief merits are shown. He analyses the whole process with great sobriety and candor. Reaching no novel results (which would, indeed, be out of the question), he has traversed familiar ground with an independent mind and a candid temper.

The part of the work devoted to the legal aspects of participation does as well with this field as its infertility will allow. That the agreement to share profits is a common-law agreement; that it is in the control of the employer, since he has proposed it and reserved for himself the right of modification or abrogation at pleasure; and that the employee who disregards the rules can have no legal action against the employer for a bonus withheld for this reasonthese points, to mention no others, are sufficiently obvious to an ordinary capacity. As the programme called for a special study of this part of the subject, the abundance of more or less learned terms in which M. Waxweiler has expounded truths almost selfevident is not inexcusable. But, as we have said, it is in the general economic exposition of participation-not in his rather meagre array of facts and instances, or in his skillful presentation of what little law there is concerned with profit-sharing-that the main force of this essay lies; doubtless this was the chief reason for the distinction conferred upon it by the judges.

Meadville, Penn.

NICHOLAS P. GILMAN.

Railway Economies. By H. T. Newcomb, Chief of the Section of Freight Rates in the division of Statistics of the U. S. Dep't of Agriculture. Philadelphia, Railway World Publishing Co., 1898-152 pp.

This is a collection of papers originally published in the Railway World, but well worth reprinting in book form. Nowhere else is the recent history of American railroad traffic so compactly presented to the reader. The author has collected his facts with care; he has an excellent sense of proportion; his conclusions are generally sound.

In the attempt to treat so many topics it is not surprising that a few errors of fact or judgment should occur. The outstanding capitalization of the railroads of the United States he puts about $1,000,000,000 too high, by including stocks and bonds which are held in the treasury of other roads. In this, he but follows the authority of the Interstate Commerce Commission; but it is none the less a violation of fundamental principles to count liabilities subsisting between members of a group as outstanding liabilities of the group as a whole. In dealing with income (p. 23) the author shows that he is acquainted with this theory; he probably has never had his attention called to its full scope as applied to capital accounts. In his treatment of pools, he does not fully grasp the difference of purpose between the joint rate sheet, which is essentially an agreement between principals, and the division of traffic, which is chiefly a means of protecting the principals against the consequences arising from irregularity of their agents. Nor does the method adopted for justifying the system of charging what the traffic will bear seem a very practical one. The assumptions made in Chapter XII are confessedly not realized in practice. A theory based upon them, therefore, makes the impression of hanging in the air; and the final statement of principles deduced from it (p. 88) seems at once less clear and less convincing than that which results from more concrete presentations of the case by writers like Alexander or Acworth. But these criticisms, all taken together, are not fundamental enough to affect the general merit of the work.

A. T. H.

32

BOOKS RECEIVED.

Annuaire de la Législation du Travail. Bruxelles, J. Lebègue & Cie.

ASHBORNE, LORD. Pitt, some Chapters of his Life and Times. N. Y., Longmans, Green & Co.

BRYAN, A. C. History of State Banking in Maryland. Johns Hopkins University Studies, XVIII, 1–3.

CHANNING, E. A Student's History of the United States. N. Y., The Macmillan Co. COSSA, LUIGI. Histoire des doctrines économiques. Paris, V. Giard & E. Brière. GREENE, E. B. The Provincial Governor in the English Colonies of North America. Harvard Historical Studies, VII. N. Y., Longmans, Green & Co.

HYSLOP, JAMES H. Democracy; A Study of Government. N. Y., Charles Scribner's Sons.

Imbert de Saint-Amand, The Court of the Second Empire. Transl. Eliz. G. Martin. N. Y., Charles Scribner's Sons.

LANE-POOLE, STANLEY. Saladin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. N. Y., G. P. Putnam's Sons.

LANG, ANDREW. The Companions of Pickel, being a Sequel to "Pickel the Spy." N. Y., Longmans, Green & Co.

MASSART, JEAN and VANDERVELDE, ÉMILE. Parasitisme organique et parasitisme social. Paris, C. Reinwald.

NEWCOMB, H. T. Railway Economics, Philadelphia, Railway World.

POWELL, L. P. (Editor) Historic Towns of New England. N. Y., G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Rapports annuels de l'inspection du travail, ze année, 1897. Bruxelles, J. Lebègue & Cie.

Reeve, Henry, Memoirs of. By J. K. Laughton. N. Y., Longmans, Green & Co. Report by the Chief Labour Correspondent on the Strikes and Lockouts of 1897. Board of Trade, Labor Department. London, Eyre & Spottiswoode.

ROUSIERS, PAUL de.

SCUDDER, VIDA D.
Mifflin & Co.

Industries monopolisées (Trusts). Paris, Colin & Cie.
Social Ideals in English Letters. Boston and N. Y., Houghton,

TILDSLEY, JOHN L. Die Entstehung und die ökonomischen Grundsätze der Chartistenbewegung. Jena, G. Fischer, 1898.

Travail du Dimanche en Belgique. Min. de l'industrie & du travail. Bruxelles, J. Lebègue & Cie.

TREVELYAN, SIR G. O. The American Revolution, Pt. 1, 1766-1776. N. Y., Longmans, Green & Co.

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