Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/870

 854 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

toricnl spirit: and (3) because the science became national. List had caught the " dynamic " idea. Protection, he urged, might develop a nation's productive powers and lead to larger production. The economic interest of the present is not neces- sarily that of the future. Today Germans point out that, while free trade was wise for England in 1846, owing to her industrial supremacy, if countries less favorably situated are to develop their resources, or if Germany desires to retain her agricultural population, recourse must be had to protective measures.

With us in Great Britain the question is whether the empire can be main- tained and converted into an economic reality. Hence the German economists' spirit of approach is stimulating. A modification of England's commercial policy does not strike them as the arbitrary freak of a sentimental politician. Professor Wagner surveys England's commercial situation. Why ? As a warning to Ger- many. The transformation of the spirit of economic teaching has taken place in France and the United States as well.

It is not the purely abstract scientific analyses of the orthodox British economist which cause him to be an intransigeant free-trader. These analyses may be accepted as correct. It is because, instead of using them as a means toward interpreting tendencies shown by historical and statistical inquiry, he draws con- clusions from them dictated by a preconceived bias. Why have the majority signed this veto ? Simply because the problem has been presented to our economists when the stirring of the intellectual waters is only beginning to reach England.

National pride, in part, accounts for the survival of the old spirit. But the main cause has been the apparent success of our commercial policy until recent years, for economic speculation always lags behind conditions. But the attitude of the minority shows that a transition is under way. The increase of teaching positions for economists will lead them to examine concrete conditions.

The attempt to secure the unanimous opposition of English economists to " tampering " has failed. Some of the signers now join us in demanding better official statistics. I look forward with confidence to the time when the majority of teachers of political economy in this country will recognize imperial needs, and have the courage to face great dangers for a worthy end. There is exceeding gravity in the risks we run when we depart from the easy policy of doing nothing. But the probable consequences of inaction are graver still. I am anxious that my colleagues should aid in the practical work of reasonable opportunism. W. J. ASHLEY, in Economic Review, July, 1904. H. E. F.

Housing in Germany. The so-called First General German Housing Congress is not, in fact, the first gathering of the sort held in Germany, two gatherings having been previously held by the Society for Social Politics in 1872 and in 1901, and an international congress having taken place at Dusseldorf in 1902. But on the present occasion, for the first time, a general congress was organized to deal especially with the conditions prevailing in Germany ; and every- body interested in the question governments, municipalities, societies for the study of social questions, representatives of the tenants and of the houseowners was invited to take part in it.

Since the Franco-German War there has been a revolutionary change in the distribution of population in Germany. In 1870, 63.9 per cent, of the people lived in the country, while only 36.1 per cent, were in the towns : in 1900, 45.7 per cent. were in the country and 54.3 per cent, in the towns and cities. In absolute figures the increase among the inhabitants of the towns was 16.000,000. This means that during those years dwellings for that number of additional inhabitants had to be provided. In some towns, as Dortmund, Dusseldorf, Kiel, Mannheim, more than three times as many inhabitants lived on the same area in 1900 as lived there in 1871. In Berlin in 1900 not less than 348 houses in every thousand were inhabited by more than 50 persons, and 255 by more than 100. In all towns the number of families living on floors above the second has largely increased. Thus the outcome was a vastly more intensive occupation of the ground area of the cities. Work- men were anxious to live as near as possible, not only to their factories, but also to the places of amusement in other words, to the centers of the towns and this desire could be fulfilled only by providing high block dwellings.

The increased demand for rooms was due not only to the influx of new