Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/255

Rh February.

The Crushing Defeat of Trade Unionism in Australia. By H. H. Champion.

Ascribes the defeat mainly to bad generalship. ' This strike has conclusively shown that the most gigantic federation of labour, unless it is handled with a greater strategic ability than is'at present available in Australia, will break like an egg against an ironclad when faced by the resolute opposition of employers who are also federated. It has shown that, difficult as it is for employers to risk their rival interests against a common enemy, they will do so, and receive public support in the most democratic countries, so soon as labour makes a demand which the public holds to be arbitrary or unfair.'

The Scottish Railway Strike. By Sir Herbert Maxwell.

Maintains—offering typical illustrations—that it is not altogether possible to avoid the occasional occurrence of excessive hours; and that the system of 'booking off' is not unfair. The establishment of an independent authority to whom appeal should be had, and a sound and liberal system of superannuation, are recommended.

March.

The Advantages of Poverty. By Andrew Carnegie.

Overmortgaging the Land. By The Right Hon. Lord Vernon.

Mr. H. H. Champion on the Australian Strike. By John D. Fitzgerald) (Labour Delegate from Australia).

Traverses Mr. Champion's statements both as to the origin and the conduct of the strike. The employers acted much more on the offensive than he represents. Their .hostility was directed not so much against unions as federations, 'unions of unions.' There was ' for the first tim.e in histo. ry, but perhaps not for the last. .. organiRed capital against orgamsed labour over a large continent.'

The Harvard Quarterly Journal of Economics (Boston). 1891.

January.

I.—The Value of Labour in relation to Economic Theory. By James Bonar.

Mr. Bonar, as might be expected from his interest in the Austrian school, is not a dualist in his the. ory of value. ' When it is said that .disutility in the sense of cost is as real and important an element in value as utility itself,' the remark can be accepted, according to Mr. Bonar, only in a qualified sense, for cost is.only a remote cause of value as affecting supply; just as education is a cause of value as affecting demand. ' Both of them are particular and peculiar circumstances which cannot be co-ordinated with the most general and invariable causes.' Those who differ from this theory may still accept the author's conclusions, summed up in the final paragraph, as to the ' limits physical and moral within which wages will be fixed.' The incidental criticism of Jevons and references to less well-known writers are striking and instructive.