Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/708

 692 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

products of the east to Germany by means of low graded mileage rates. These railways, like the Russian, especially the Siberian Railway, ought to follow the example of the American railways ; then the agriculture of the Danubian provinces and Siberia would blossom forth like that of the great American west (p. 177). In this Meyer overlooks the fact that eastern Europe and the German Empire are not a unified economic domain ; and that European states still maintain, what is to him an entirely antiquated point of view, that the policy of customs duties and the freight-rate policy shall not negative each other. Professor Meyer, of course, maintains the direct contrary, when in another place (p. 340 ff.) he considers it utterly false that the Interstate Commerce Commission does not regard as permissible railroad rates which render nugatory the federal tariff legislation. It is unnecessary for me to point out that a comparison of Siberia with the Far West of the United States is ludicrous, except that I wish to use this as an example of Meyer's method. He claims that the Russian government has impeded the development of the grain industry in Siberia by a faulty policy of its state tariffs. On p. 178 he says :

Therefore it is worth while to recount what the Siberian peasant has been made to do under the incentive of gain, in the single instance in which the railways are free to co-operate with men of enterprise and capital in the development of Siberia's resources.

This, he claims, was the result of lower rates for the exportation of butter. Hence this same Siberian Railway is at one time an irrational state railway, and at another an intelligently operated private railway! And the best part of it all is that it was just the Russian government that has always promoted the dairy interests and the exportation of butter from Siberia in every way possible.

(The remainder of von der Leyen's review is devoted chiefly to Professor Meyer's comments on American conditions, closing with the following paragraph:)

I should regret it exceedingly if the very one-sided and, so far as our railway conditions come into consideration, often absolutely untruthful representations of Meyer's book should interfere with what seems to me a very wholesome movement on the part of the American government with respect to railway policy, and possibly to thwart the strivings of the President of the Union.

DR. A. v. D. LEYEN.

BERLIN.