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PREFACE

To interest the reader in home problems, twenty-four charts have been scattered throughout the volume, which bear upon our own conditions, with the expectation, also, that the different methods of graphic representation here presented would lead students to apply them to other questions. They are mainly such as I have employed in my class-room. The use and preparation of such charts ought to be encouraged. The earlier pages of the volume have been given up to a "Sketch of the History of Political Economy," which aims to give the story of how we have arrived at our present knowledge of economic laws. The student who has completed Mill will then have a very considerable bibliography of the various schools and writers from which to select further reading, and to select this reading so that it may not fall wholly within the range of one class of writers. But, for the time that Mill is being first studied, I have added a list of the most important books for consultation. I have also collected, in Appendix I, some brief bibliographies on the Tariff, on Bimetallism, and on American Shipping, which may be of use to those who may not have the means of inquiring for authorities, and in Appendix II a number of questions and problems for the teacher's use.

In some cases I have omitted Mr. Mill's statement entirely, and put in its stead a simpler form of the same exposition which I believed would be more easily grasped by a student. Of such cases, the argument to show that Demand for Commodities is not Demand for Labor, the Doctrine of International Values, and the Effect of the Progress of Society on wages, profits, and rent, are examples. Whether I have succeeded or not, must be left for the experience of the teacher to determine. Many small figures and diagrams have been used throughout the text, in order to suggest the concrete means of getting a clear grasp of a principle.

In conclusion, I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to several friends for assistance in the preparation of this volume, among whom are Professor Charles F. Dunbar, Dr. F. W. Taussig, Dr. A. B. Hart, and Mr. Edward Atkinson.

Chart I

Chart II

INTRODUCTORY.

A Sketch Of The History Of Political Economy.

GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY.--There is no satisfactory general history of political economy in English. Blanqui's "Histoire de l'?conomie politique en Europe" is disproportioned and superficial, and he labors under the disadvantage of not understanding the English school of economists. He studies to give the history of economic facts, rather than of economic laws. The book has been translated into English .

Villeneuve-Bargemont, in his "Histoire de l'?conomie politique" , aims to oppose a "Christian political economy" to the "English" political economy, and indulges in religious discussions.

Travers Twiss, "View of the Progress of Political Economy in Europe since the Sixteenth Century" , marked an advance by treating the subject in the last four centuries, and by separating the history of principles from the history of facts. It is brief, and only a sketch. Julius Kautz has published in German the best existing history, "Die geschichtliche Entwickelung der National-Oekonomie und ihrer Literatur" . Cossa in his book has furnished a vast amount of information about writers, classified by epochs and countries, and a valuable discussion of the divisions of political economy by various writers, and its relation to other sciences. It is a very desirable little hand-book. McCulloch, in his "Introduction to the Wealth of Nations," gives a brief sketch of the growth of economic doctrine. The editor begs to acknowledge his great indebtedness for information to his colleague, Professor Charles F. Dunbar, of Harvard University.

Systematic study for an understanding of the laws of political economy is to be found no farther back than the sixteenth century. The history of political economy is not the history of economic institutions, any more than the history of mathematics is the history of every object possessing length, breadth, and thickness. Economic history is the story of the gradual evolution in the thought of men of an understanding of the laws which to-day constitute the science we are studying. It is essentially modern.

Aristotle and Xenophon had some comprehension of the theory of money, and Plato had defined its functions with some accuracy. The economic laws of the Romans were all summed up in the idea of enriching the metropolis at the expense of the dependencies. During the middle ages no systematic study was undertaken, and the nature of economic laws was not even suspected.

It is worth notice that the first glimmerings of political economy came to be seen through the discussions on money, and the extraordinary movements of gold and silver. About the time of Charles V, the young study was born, accompanied by the revival of learning, the Reformation, the discovery of America, and the great fall in the value of gold and silver. Modern society was just beginning, and had already brought manufactures into existence--woolens in England, silks in France, Genoa, and Florence; Venice had become the great commercial city of the world; the Hanseatic League was carrying goods from the Mediterranean to the Baltic; and the Jews of Lombardy had by that time brought into use the bill of exchange. While the supply of the precious metals had been tolerably constant hitherto, the steady increase of business brought about a fall of prices. From the middle of the fourteenth to the end of the fifteenth century the purchasing power of money increased in the ratio of four to ten. Then into this situation came the great influx of gold and silver from the New World. Prices rose unequally; the trading and manufacturing classes were flourishing, while others were depressed. In the sixteenth century the price of wheat tripled, but wages only doubled; the laboring-classes of England deteriorated, while others were enriched, producing profound social changes and the well-known flood of pauperism, together with the rise of the mercantile classes. Then new channels of trade were opened to the East and West. Of course, men saw but dimly the operation of these economic causes; although the books now began to hint at the right understanding of the movements and the true laws of money.

Even before this time, however, Nicole Or?sme, Bishop of Lisieux , had written intelligently on money; but, about 1526, the astronomer Copernicus gave a very good exposition of some of the functions of money. But he, as well as Latimer, while noticing the economic changes, gave no correct explanation. The Seigneur de Malestroit, a councilor of the King of France, however, by his errors drew out Jean Bodin to say that the rise of prices was due to the abundance of money brought from America. But he was in advance of his time, as well as William Stafford, the author of the first English treatise on money, which showed a perfect insight into the subject. Stafford distinctly grasped the idea that the high prices brought no loss to merchants, great gain to those who held long leases, and loss to those who did not buy and sell; that, in reality, commodities were exchanged when money was passed from hand to hand.

Such was the situation which prefaced the first general system destined to be based on supposed economic considerations, wrongly understood, to be sure, but vigorously carried out. I refer to the well-known mercantile system which over-spread Europe. Spain, as the first receiver of American gold and silver, attributed to it abnormal power, and by heavy duties and prohibitions tried to keep the precious metals to herself. This led to a general belief in the tenets of the mercantile system, and its adoption by all Europe. 1. It was maintained that, where gold and silver abounded, there would be found no lack of the necessaries of life; 2. Therefore governments should do all in their power to secure an abundance of money. Noting that commerce and political power seemed to be in the hands of the states having the greatest quantity of money, men wished mainly to create such a relation of exports and imports of goods as would bring about an importation of money. The natural sequence of this was, the policy of creating a favorable "balance of trade" by increasing exports and diminishing imports, thus implying that the gain in international trade was not a mutual one. The error consisted in supposing that a nation could sell without buying, and in overlooking the instrumental character of money. The errors even went so far as to create prohibitory legislation, in the hope of shutting out imported goods and keeping the precious metals at home. The system spread over Europe, so that France and England forbade the export of specie. But, with the more peaceful conditions at the end of the sixteenth century, the expansion of commerce, the value of money became steadier, and prices advanced more slowly.

Italian writers were among the first to discuss the laws of money intelligently, but a number of acute Englishmen enriched the literature of the subject, and it may be said that any modern study of political economy received its first definite impulse from England and France.

The prohibition of the export of coin was embarrassing to the East India Company and to merchants; and Mun tried to show that freedom of exportation would increase the amount of gold and silver in a country, since the profits in foreign trade would bring back more than went out. It probably was not clear to them, however, that the export of bullion to the East was advantageous, because the commodities brought back in return were more valuable in England than the precious metals. The purpose of the mercantilists was to increase the amount of gold and silver in the country. Mun, with some penetration, had even pointed out that too much money was an evil; but in 1663 the English Parliament removed the restriction on the exportation of coin. The balance-of-trade heresy, that exports should always exceed imports , was the outcome of the mercantile system, and it has continued in the minds of many men to this day. The policy which aimed at securing a favorable balance of trade, and the plan of protecting home industries, had the same origin. If all consumable goods were produced at home, and none imported, that would increase exports, and bring more gold and silver into the country. As all the countries of Europe had adopted the mercantile theory after 1664, retaliatory and prohibitory tariffs were set up against each other by England, France, Holland, and Germany. Then, because it was seen that large sums were paid for carrying goods, in order that no coin should be required to pay foreigners in any branch of industry, navigation laws were enacted, which required goods to be imported only in ships belonging to the importing nation. These remnants of the mercantile system continue to this day in the shipping laws of this and other countries.

A natural consequence of the navigation acts, and of the mercantile system, was the so-called colonial policy, by which the colonies were excluded from all trade except with the mother-country. A plantation like New England, which produced commodities in competition with England, was looked upon with disfavor for her enterprise; and all this because of the fallacy, at the foundation of the mercantile system, that the gain in international trade is not mutual, but that what one country gains another must lose.

From this time, economic principles began to be better apprehended. It is to be noted that the first just observations arose from discussions upon money, and thence upon international trade. So far England has furnished the most acute writers: now France became the scene of a new movement. Marshal Vauban, the great soldier, and Boisguillebert both began to emphasize the truth that wealth really consists, not in money alone, but in an abundance of commodities; that countries which have plenty of gold and silver are not wealthier than others, and that money is only a medium of exchange. It was not, however, until 1750 that evidences of any real advance began to appear; for Law's famous scheme only served as a drag upon the growth of economic truth. But in the middle of the eighteenth century an intellectual revival set in: the "Encyclopaedia" was published, Montesquieu wrote his "l'?sprit des Lois," Rousseau was beginning to write, and Voltaire was at the height of his power. In this movement political economy had an important share, and there resulted the first school of Economists, termed the Physiocrats.

All this, however, was the slow preparation for a newer and greater movement in political economy than had yet been known, and which laid the foundation of the modern study as it exists to-day. The previous discussions on money and the prominence given to agriculture and economic considerations by the Economists made possible the great achievements of Adam Smith and the English school. A reaction in England against the mercantile system produced a complete revolution in political economy. Vigorous protests against mercantilism had appeared long before, and the true functions of money had come to be rightly understood. More than that, many of the most important doctrines had been either discussed, or been given to the public in print. It is at least certain that hints of much that made so astonishing an effect in Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" had been given to the world before the latter was written. To what sources, among the minor writers, he was most indebted, it is hard to say. Two, at least, deserve considerable attention, David Hume and Richard Cantillon. The former published his "Economic Essays" in 1752, which contained what even now would be considered enlightened views on money, interest, balance of trade, commerce, and taxation; and a personal friendship existed between Hume and Adam Smith dating back as far as 1748, when the latter was lecturing in Edinburgh on rhetoric. The extent of Cantillon's acquirements and Adam Smith's possible indebtedness to him have been but lately recognized. In a recent study on Cantillon, the late Professor Jevons has pointed out that the former anticipated many of the doctrines later ascribed to Adam Smith, Malthus, and Ricardo. Certain it is that the author of the "Wealth of Nations" took the truth wherever he found it, received substantial suggestions from various sources, but, after having devoted himself in a peculiarly successful way to collecting facts, he wrought out of all he had gathered the first rounded system of political economy the world had yet known; which pointed out that labor was at the basis of production, not merely in agriculture, as the French school would have it, but in all industries; and which battered down all the defenses of the mediaeval mercantile system. In a marked degree Adam Smith combined a logical precision and a power of generalizing results out of confused data with a practical and intuitive regard for facts which are absolutely necessary for great achievements in the science of political economy. At Glasgow Adam Smith gave lectures on natural theology, ethical philosophy, jurisprudence, and political economy, believing that these subjects were complementary to each other.

While Adam Smith had formulated very correctly the laws of production, in his way Malthus was adding to the means by which a better knowledge of the principles of distribution was to be obtained; and the next advance, owing to the sharp discussions of the time on the corn laws, was, by a natural progress, to the law of diminishing returns and rent. An independent discovery of the law of rent is to be assigned to no less than four persons, but for the full perception of its truth and its connection with other principles of political economy the credit has been rightly given to David Ricardo, next to Adam Smith without question the greatest economist of the English school. Curiously enough, although Adam Smith was immersed in abstract speculations, his "homely sagacity" led him to the most practical results; but while Ricardo was an experienced and successful man of business, he it was, above all others, who established the abstract political economy, in the sense of a body of scientific laws to which concrete phenomena, in spite of temporary inconsistencies, must in the end conform. His work, therefore, supplemented that of Adam Smith; and there are very few doctrines fully worked out to-day of which hints have not been found in Ricardo's wonderfully compact statements. With no graces of exposition, his writings seem dry, but are notwithstanding mines of valuable suggestions.

In the field of distribution and exchange Ricardo made great additions. Malthus and West had shown that rent was not an element in cost of production; but both Malthus and Ricardo seemed to have been familiar with the doctrine of rent long before the former published his book. Ricardo, however, saw into its connection with other parts of a system of distribution. The Malthusian doctrine of a pressure of population on subsistence naturally forced a recognition of the law of diminishing returns from land; then as soon as different qualities of land were simultaneously cultivated, the best necessarily gave larger returns than the poorest; and the idea that the payment of rent was made for a superior instrument, and in proportion to its superiority over the poorest instrument which society found necessary to use, resulted in the law of rent. Ricardo, moreover, carried out this principle as it affected wages, profits, values, and the fall of profits; but did not give sufficient importance to the operation of forces in the form of improvements acting in opposition to the tendency toward lessened returns. The theory of rent still holds its place, although it has met with no little opposition. A doctrine, quite as important in its effects on free exchange, was clearly established by Ricardo, under the name of the doctrine of "Comparative Cost," which is the reason for the existence of any and all international trade.

He who has improved upon previous conceptions, and been the only one to make any very important advance in the science since Mill's day, is J. E. Cairnes, in his "Leading Principles of Political Economy newly expounded" . Scarcely any previous writer has equaled him in logical clearness, originality, insight into economic phenomena, and lucidity of style. He subjected value, supply and demand, cost of production, and international trade, to a rigid investigation, which has given us actual additions to our knowledge of the study. The wages-fund theory was re-examined, and was stated in a new form, although Mr. Mill had given it up. Cairnes undoubtedly has given it its best statement. His argument on free trade is the ablest and strongest to be found in modern writers. This volume is, however, not a systematic treatise on all the principles of political economy; but no student can properly pass by these great additions for the right understanding of the science. His "Logical Method of Political Economy" is a clear and able statement of the process to be adopted in an economic investigation, and is a book of exceptional merit and usefulness, especially in view of the rising differences in the minds of economists as to method.

A group of English writers of ability in this period have written in such a way as to win for them mention in connection with Cairnes and Mill. Professor W. Stanley Jevons put himself in opposition to the methods of the men just mentioned, and applied the mathematical process to political economy, but without reaching new results. His most serviceable work has been in the study of money, which appears in an excellent form, "The Money and Mechanism of Exchange" , and in an investigation which showed a fall of the value of gold since the discoveries of 1849. In this latter he has furnished a model for any subsequent investigator. Like Professor Jevons, T. E. Cliffe Leslie opposed the older English school , but in the different way of urging with great ability the use of the historical method, of which more will be said in speaking of later German writers. He also distinguished himself by a study of land tenures, in his "Land Systems and Industrial Economy of Ireland, England, and Continental Countries" , which was a brilliant exposition of the advantages of small holdings.

Of living English economists, Professor Henry Fawcett, in his "Manual of Political Economy" , is a close follower of Mill, giving special care to co-operation, silver, nationalization of land, and trades-unions. He is an exponent of the strict wages-fund theory, and a vigorous free-trader. Professor J. E. Thorold Rogers, of Oxford, also holds aloof from the methods of the old school. His greatest contribution has been a "History of Agriculture and Prices in England," from 1255 to 1793, in four volumes .

Of all the writers since Cairnes, it may be said that, while adding to the data with which political economy has to do, and putting principles to the test of facts, they have made no actual addition to the existing body of principles; although questions of distribution and taxation are certainly not yet fully settled, as is seen by the wide differences of opinion expressed on subjects falling within these heads by writers of to-day.

It now remains to complete this sketch of the growth of political economy by a brief account of the writers on the Continent and in the United States, beginning with France. About the time of the founding of the London "Economist" and "The Statistical Journal" in England, there was established in Paris the "Journal des ?conomistes" , which contains many valuable papers. On the whole, the most popular writer since J. B. Say has been Bastiat, who aspired to be the French Cobden. He especially urged a new view of value, which he defined as the relation established by an exchange of services; that nature's products are gratuitous, so that man can not exact anything except for a given service. Chiefly as a foe of protection, which he regarded as qualified socialism, he has won a reputation for popular and clever writing; and he was led to believe in a general harmony of interests between industrial classes; but in general he can not be said to have much influenced the course of French thought. On value, rent, and population, he is undoubtedly unsound. A writer of far greater depth than Bastiat, with uncommon industry and wide knowledge, was Michel Chevalier, easily the first among modern French economists. He has led in the discussion upon the fall of gold, protection, banking, and particularly upon money; an ardent free-trader, he had influence enough to induce France to enter into the commercial treaty of 1860 with England. One of the ablest writers on special topics is Levasseur, who has given us a history of the working-classes before and since the Revolution, and the best existing monograph on John Law. The most industrious and reliable of the recent writers is the well-known statistician, Maurice Block, while less profound economists were J. A. Blanqui and Wolowski. The latter devoted himself enthusiastically to banks of issue, and bimetallism. A small group gave themselves up chiefly to studies on agriculture and land-tenures--H. Passy, Laveleye, and Lavergne. The latter is by far the most important, as shown by his "L'?conomie rurale de la France depuis 1789" , which gives a means of comparing recent French agriculture with that before the Revolution, as described in Arthur Young's "Travels in France" . The best systematic treatise in French is the "Pr?cis de la science ?conomique" , by Antoine-?lise Cherbuliez, a Genevan. The French were the first to produce an alphabetical encyclopaedia of economics, by Coquelin and Guillaumin, entitled the "Dictionnaire de l'?conomie politique" . Courcelle-Seneuil, by his "Trait? th?orique et pratique d'?conomie politique" ; and Baudrillart, by a good compendium. Joseph Garnier, Dunoyer, Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, Reybaud, De Parieu, L?on Say, Boiteau, and others, have done excellent work in France, and Walras in Switzerland.

As Cobden had an influence on Bastiat, so both had an influence in Germany in creating what has been styled by opponents the "Manchester school," led by Prince-Smith . They have worked to secure complete liberty of commerce and industry, and include in their numbers many men of ability and learning. Yearly congresses have been organized for the purpose of disseminating liberal ideas, and an excellent review, the "Vierteljahrschrift f?r Volkswirthschaft, Politik, und Kulturgeschichte," has been established. They have devoted themselves successfully to reforms of labor-laws, interest, workingmen's dwellings, the money system, and banking, and strive for the abolition of protective duties. Schulze-Delitzsch has acquired a deserved reputation for the creation of people's banks, and other forms of co-operation. The translator of Mill into German, Adolph Soetbeer, is the most eminent living authority on the production of the precious metals, and a vigorous monometallist. The school is represented in the "Handw?rterbuch der Volkswirthschaftslehre" of Reutzsch. The other writers of this group are Von B?hmert, Faucher, Braun, Wolff, Michaelis, Emminghaus, Wirth, Hertzka, and Von Holtzendorf. The best known of the German protectionists is Friedrich List, the author of "Das nationale System der politischen Oekonomie" , whose doctrines are very similar to those of H. C. Carey in this country. An able writer on administrative functions and finance is Lorenz Stein, of Vienna.

The most prominent of the new school is Wilhelm Roscher, of Leipsic, who wrote a systematic treatise, "System der Volkswirthschaft" , in the first division of which the notes contain a marvelous collection of facts and authorities. He agrees in results with Adam Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, and Mill, but does not seem to have known much of Cairnes. This book, however, is only a first of four treatises eventually intended to include the political economy of agriculture, industry and commerce, and the state and commune. The ablest contemporary of Roscher, who was probably the first to urge the historical method, is Karl Knies, in "Die politische Oekonomie vom Standpunkte der geschichtlichen Methode" . The third of the group who founded the historical school is Bruno Hildebrand, of Jena, author of "Die National?konomie der Gegenwart und Zukunft" .

The German mind has always been familiar with the interference of the state, and a class of writers has arisen, not only advocating the inductive method, but strongly imbued with a belief in a close connection of the state with industry; and, inasmuch as the essence of modern socialism is a resort to state-help, this body of men, with Wagner at their head, has received the name of "Socialists of the Chair," and now wield a wide influence in Germany. Of these writers, Wagner, Engel, Schmoller, Von Scheel, Brentano, Held, Sch?nberg, and Sch?ffle are the most prominent.

The historical school has received the adhesion of ?mile de Laveleye, in Belgium, and other economists in England and the United States. While Cliffe Leslie has been the most vigorous opponent of the methods of the old school, there have been many others of less distinction. Indeed, the period, the close of which is marked by J. R. McCulloch's book, was one in which the old school had seemingly come to an end of its progress, from too close an adhesion to deductions from assumed premises. Mill's great merit was that he began the movement to better adapt political economy to society as it actually existed; and the historical school will probably give a most desirable impetus to the same results, even though its exaggerated claims as to the true method can not possibly be admitted.

Political economy has gained little from American writers. Of our statesmen none have made any additions to the science, and only Hamilton and Gallatin can properly be called economists. Hamilton, in his famous "Report on Manufactures" , shared in some of the erroneous conceptions of his day; but this paper, together with his reports on a national bank and the public credit, are evidences of a real economic power. Gallatin's "Memorial in Favor of Tariff Reform" is as able as Hamilton's report on manufactures, and a strong argument against protection. Both men made a reputation as practical financiers.

"With few exceptions, the works produced in the United States have been prepared as text-books by authors engaged in college instruction, and therefore chiefly interested in bringing principles previously worked out by others within the easy comprehension of undergraduate students." Of these exceptions, Alexander H. Everett's "New Ideas on Population" , forms a valuable part in the discussion which followed the appearance of Malthus's "Essay." The writer, however, who has drawn most attention, at home and abroad, for a vigorous attack on the doctrines of Ricardo is Henry Charles Carey. Beginning with "The Rate of Wages" , he developed a new theory of value , "which he defined as a measure of the resistance to be overcome in obtaining things required for use, or the measure of the power of nature over man. In simpler terms, value is measured by the cost of reproduction. The value of every article thus declines as the arts advance, while the general command of commodities constantly increases. This causes a constant fall in the value of accumulated capital as compared with the results of present labor, from which is inferred a tendency toward harmony rather than divergence of interests between capitalist and laborer." This theory of value he applied to land, and even to man, in his desire to give it universality. He next claimed to have discovered a law of increasing production from land in his "Past, Present, and Future" , which was diametrically opposed to Ricardo's law of diminishing returns. His proof was an historical one, that in fact the poorer, not the richer lands, were first taken into cultivation. This, however, did not explain the fact that different grades of land are simultaneously under cultivation, on which Ricardo's doctrine of rent is based. The constantly increasing production of land naturally led Carey to believe in the indefinite increase of population. He, however, was logically brought to accept the supposed law of an ultimate limit to numbers suggested by Herbert Spencer, based on a diminution of human fertility. He tried to identify physical and social laws, and fused his political economy in a system of "Social Science" , and his "Unity of Law" . From about 1845 he became a protectionist, and his writings were vigorously controversial. In his doctrines on money he is distinctly a mercantilist; but, by his earnest attacks on all that has been gained in the science up to his day, he has done a great service in stimulating inquiry and causing a better statement of results. While undoubtedly the best known of American writers, yet, because of a prolix style and an illogical habit of mind, he has had no extended influence on his countrymen.

The effect of the civil war is now beginning to show itself in an unmistakable drift toward the investigation of economic questions, and there is a distinctly energetic tone which may bring new contributions from American writers. General Francis A. Walker, in his study on "The Wages Question" , has combated the wages-fund theory, and proposed in its place a doctrine that wages are paid out of the product, and not out of accumulated capital. Professor W. G. Sumner is a vigorous writer in the school of Mill and Cairnes, and has done good work in the cause of sound money doctrines. Both General Walker and Professor Sumner hold to the method of economic investigation as expounded by Mr. Cairnes; although several younger economists show the influence of the German school. Professor A. L. Perry, of Williams College, adopted Bastiat's theory of value. He also accepts the wages-fund theory, rejects the law of Malthus, and, although believing in the law of diminishing returns from land, regards rent as the reward for a service rendered. Another writer, Henry George, has gained an abnormal prominence by a plausible book, "Progress and Poverty" , which rejects the doctrine of Malthus, and argues that the increase of production of any kind augments the demand for land, and so raises its value. His conclusions lead him to advocate the nationalization of land. Although in opposition to almost all that political economy has yet produced, his writing has drawn to him very unusual notice. The increasing interest in social questions, and the general lack of economic training, which prevents a right estimate of his reasoning by people in general, sufficiently account for the wide attention he has received.

Of late, however, new activity has been shown in the establishment of better facilities for the study of political economy in the principal seats of learning--Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Columbia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania: and a "Cyclopaedia of Political Science" has been published by J. J. Lalor, after the example of the French dictionaries.

Books For Consultation .

GENERAL TREATISES FORMING A PARALLEL COURSE OF READING WITH MILL.

Professor Fawcett's "Manual of Political Economy" is a brief statement of Mill's book, with additional matter on the precious metals, slavery, trades-unions, co-operation, local taxation, etc.

Antoine-?lise Cherbuliez's "Pr?cis de la science ?conomique" follows the same arrangement as Mill, and is considered the best treatise on economic science in the French language. He is methodical, profound, and clear, and separates pure from applied political economy.

Other excellent books in French are: Courcelle-Seneuil's "Trait? th?orique et pratique d'?conomie politique" , , and a compendium by Henri Baudrillart, "Manuel d'?conomie politique" .

Roscher's "Principles of Political Economy" is a good example of the German historical method; its notes are crowded with facts; but the English translation is badly done. There is an excellent translation of it into French by Wolowski.

A desirable elementary work, "The Economics of Industry" , was prepared by Mr. and Mrs. Marshall.

Professor Jevons wrote a "Primer of Political Economy" , which is a simple, bird's-eye view of the subject in a very narrow compass.

IMPORTANT GENERAL WORKS.

Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" . The edition of McCulloch is perhaps more serviceable than that of J. E. T. Rogers.

Ricardo's "Principles of Political Economy and Taxation" .

J. S. Mill's "Principles of Political Economy" .

Sch?nberg's "Handbuch der politischen Oekonomie" . This is a large co-operative treatise by twenty-one writers from the historical school.

Cairnes's "Leading Principles of Political Economy" ; "Logical Method" , lectures first delivered in Dublin in 1857.

Carey's "Social Science" . This has been abridged in one volume by Kate McKean.

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