Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/594

 .]72 TIIE ECONOMIC JOURNAL These considerations, and others of a similar nature, are rged by Mr. Howell with great force; but his natural indignation seems, if hc will allow us to say so, sometimes to overpower his judgment. His language in some places is calculated--as it appears to a bystander. to increase unnecessarily the bitterness and heat of the controversy, and to widen rather than close the breaches in the ranks. He does not seem to make sufficient allowance for the youth of the new associations, and for the comparative inexperience of their leaders. We believe that Mr. Howell's candour is such that he would at once allow that the early history of the older unions might appear at the time to opponents of their policy and opinions to be marred by instances of violence of speech, and sometimes of action; and, although the repeal of repressive, if not unjust, laws has been followed by a period of quiet and peaceful development on the part of those older unions, and of growing fayour in the eyes of the public, it is not irrational to suppose that the early history of organisation among unskilled labourers, or other classes, which have been an unorganised crowd before, may similarly exhibit an extravagance, and a liability to mistakes, which may disappear at a later stage of development. We have heard a veteran unionist observe that the infancy of a union is generally characterised by strikes; and for their socialistic leanings the new leaders may not unfairly hold the times, and not themselves, to some extent responsible. Mr. Howell's book, in short, appears to us to have too many of the elements of a controversial pamphlet; and, while it is instructive to the economic student as an indication of the feeling of a representative old unionist towards the new unions, Mr. Howell will forgive us for saying that its value appears to us somewhat similar to that of a chapter in the first edition of his larger book, in which he criticised severely economists themselves. In both cases Mr. Howell's views are important because of their representative character, but in both cases these views invite criticism and suggest qualification. We think that it is possible that he may have in the future to append to his racy discussion of the New Unionism a statement not wholly dissimilar from that which in his second edition of the Conflicts of Capital and Labour he has added to his strictures on economists; and that in the one case, as in the other, he may eventually allow that 'a new era may be said to have dawned,' and 'a new class' ' has grown up, sutsed with new ideas, having broader sympathies.' If this should be the case, Mr. Howell will, we think, be the first to recognise the change with the same outspoken frankness with which in the final chapters of the present treatise he acknowledges the limits of trade unionism as a' solution' of the labour problem. In conclusion, it should be noticed that his book is the first volume of a series entitled ' Social Questions of To-Day,' which is intended to deal with many topics of present interest. L.L. PRICE