Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/487

 REVIEWS 473

permanent hold upon the convictions of instructed men. The style is admirable for its purpose of popular impression. There is nothing new for the student.

C. R. HENDERSON.

Strikes and Social Problems. By J. SHIELD NICHOLSON. Mac- millan & Co. Pp. 226. $1.25.

THE eminent British economist publishes in this volume a number of popular addresses and essays bearing on the conflict of capital and labor. The writer believes that trades unions have an important place in industrial life, especially in providing funds for various emergencies. But he warns against trusting organization to add to wages, and he is alarmed at the recent tendency to turn to state aid on every possible occasion. In spite of the slow progress of profit sharing Professor Nicholson looks for an increase of interest in this mode of industrial remuneration. He does not seem to have weighed the difficulties started by Schloss in his " Methods of Industrial Remuneration."

In the fourth lecture the writer joins issue with Mill in relation to the assertion that machinery has not lightened the burdens of working men, and he employs the materials collected by Giffen and others to show that wealth has not only greatly increased but is more equitably distributed than even before. There is an interesting chapter on " liv- ing capital," in which an estimate is made of the money value of an adult working man, based on the capitalized value of his cost of rear- ing and of his productive energy. He reaches the conclusion that this living capital is worth about five times the material wealth of the king- dom. The importance of this consideration is seen when it is pro- posed to help a certain class by burdening another ; the suffering must fall on the majority of the population.

There is a plea for the classical economy and for industrial liberty, and an urgent attack upon all schemes of old age pensions.

In the plea for industrial liberty Professor Nicholson touches on a problem discussed by Professor H. C. Adams : On what principle may we determine what forms of industry should be left to private enter- prise and what should be owned or controlled by the state ? But no conclusion is reached beyond the presumption that when government and individual liberty are in competition we should give the benefit of the doubt to liberty. To support this conclusion two arguments are