Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/582

 568 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

question as to age, from "age last birthday" to "age nearest birthday." Nothwithstanding that his attention was thus called to this important change in classification, we find this author saying (p. 85) :

It is true that the age period in 1880 covers one additional year, but, allowing for that, it is calculated that the percentage of children of the age of ten to fifteen in gainful occupations was 16.8 per cent, in 1880, and only 10.8 per cent, in 1890.

He here refers by footnote to the Eleventh Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, and thus practically indorses the error of that report exposed in my contribution to this JOURNAL and more recently in the Journal of Political Economy (December, 1899).

To call attention to more than a few of what to me seem the numer- ous errors of this work would require many pages and involve a dis- cussion of the entire economic question and situation. From my standpoint, which is quite different from that of this author, the work can only be commended for its recognition of the limitations of the statistical method and its many pertinent criticisms of the statistical data presented. Yet, though under nearly every heading the author largely discounts or completely discredits his statistics, he afterward argues from them and concludes with an emphasis which seems intended to carry conviction. Some of his conclusions, moreover, seem not only unsupported by reliable data, but inconsistent with each other. An illustration of this we find in his conflicting conclusions regarding rent. He says (p. 257) :

There are two very marked exceptions to the fall in prices not shown by any index numbers. The first of these is residential rents. It has been found impossible to include them in any index number on account of the difficulty of finding a unit. There is considerable evidence, however, to show that rents have advanced during the last twenty-five years.

On p. 349 the author says :

The fall in prices since 1873 affords an opportunity of studying how such a fall has been met. There has been, first of all, a decreased cost of production, which in the long run comes to the benefit of all members of the community. But the evidence in this and the preceding chapter goes to show that, of the active participants in production, the laborer has conserved or improved his position by the maintenance of, or even advance in, the level of wages ; the landowner has lost by falling rents ; interest has fallen ; and profits have been reduced to a narrow margin.

Thus we have the opposite conclusions : that rent has increased, and also that the landowner has lost by falling rents.