Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/616

 .594 THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL able to dress in ' blue silk' for social gatherings, nor the men to command choice wines at pleasure. There are other economic objections that might be urged. We content ourselves with noticing that while there is ample wealth in Utopia there was at one time apprehension that there might be a deficiency of work, or a ' work-famine.' On the latter point the Utopians' mind might have been easily re-assured; it might indeed happen that there would be a deficiency of artistic and agreeable work; but there would always be plenty to do in other directions, if forty millions are to be fed and clothed, so sumptuously as they are to be; and if there are not to be forty millions at least in the United Kingdom transformed into Arcadia, we are not informed what is to become of the superfluous numbers or where they are to go. We will only add that on the literary side the work is considerably more interesting than the generality of this particular class of romance in which the imagination having to deal with the future and the unknown is apt to become paralyzed and poverty stricken, and in its difficulty to present us with the past for the future, as indeed Mr. Morris himself does in his Arcadian pictures of the haymaking and elsewhere. The descriptions of Nature, however, are always good, as they needs must be coming from so genuine a poet as Mr. Morris. His account, too, of some of the larger social evils of our actual system is true and impressive. His remedies are for the most part impracti- cable; while the realization of his vision I should be disposed to postpone considerably beyond the ' Morrow of the. Revolution,' and almost to the morning of the Millennium. WLLAM The Railways and the Traders. By W. M. Murray. ACWORTH; John NOTWITHSTANDING the many books lately published respecting railways, Mr. Acworth's volume deserves to be welcomed. It is popular in style, a little too diffuse, and over-abundant in illustrations. It has no pretence to be a scientific treatise. Written at the suggestion of the Railway Association, it is the production of an advocate, and is marked by the advocate's tendency to overstate his point. But Mr. Acworth writes with ample knowledge of his subject; and at this time, when any fallacy likely to injure railway companies and to benefit their customers passes muster, his incisive criticisms are useful. In the early history of railway companies they did very much what seemed good in their own eyes; the abuses flowing from a virtual monopoly were little thought of. At present the danger is exactly the reverse. The traders have pretty much their own way; and we have seen Parliament deliberately adopt in regard to rates measures leclared by almost every economist who has investigated the subject to be futile.. About the ultimate result of the systen initiated by the Acts of 1873 and 1888 Mr. Acworth is confident; ' it will before long