Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/781

 REVIEWS 759 system as practised in Cornwall, that it secures a community of interest between the adventurers and the miners, with the result that the maximum of output is obtained, whilst the intelligence of the miner is stimulated by the foresight he has to display in making the bargain. On the other hand he finds that the mortality is excessive, owing to the unhealthy conditions that are allowed to exist in the mines, that the accounts of wages are sometimes manipulated, that the articles sold to the miners are charged at too high a price, and that too long a period elapses between the payments of wages. Where wages depend on the price realized for the ore (tribute), the earnings fluctuate much more than where a fixed price per fathom is paid for excavation (rut- work), and it seems that the latter system is replscing the former. There is one point on which Mr. Price might have given further inform- ation, viz., how far the system tends to depress wages. Mr. Price states that the contracts usually result in the payment of the average wages of the district, but it is quite possible that this average is kept down by the selling of contracts by auction. In the districts of Prussia above referred to, the system has been abolished. This was one of the chief results of the strikes that occurred in 1889. The workers complained that the sales by auction resulted in low wages, even though a ' normal contract' was supposed to be kept in view. The auction sales were replaced by monthly contracts, the terms being agreed to by both parties. I is to be hoped that Mr. Price will continue his inquiries into the origin of the system he describes, and extend his investigation to the Continent. The German and the Cornish customs in all probability have had a common origin. In the meantime all students of the economic history of our country must feel very grateful to him for his valuable contribution to our knowledge of how wages are fixed in our leading industries. J. E. C. MUNRO Les Bud#ets Co,tvars des da,s "Les Ouvriers Eurojens " et "Les Morales." Avec une introduction pr M. collaboration vec M. AL) TokyO. cent Monop'ajhies de Fa,illes 1ublies O uvriers des Deu.r E. CEsso en Paris nd Roe, 1890. Pp. 160, 4to, 5 francs. de l'Institut Internatioal livraison, 1890.) (Reprinted from the Btlletin de Statistique. Tom. ., I TM WHEN the century now drawing to a close had reached its dividing line, and the young Renan "looking before and after" pronounced its function to be the preparation of monographs and mwires lour servir, Le Play was already toiling like an economic Nethinim to collect the trivial and otherwise unrecorded facts of humble family life, fulfilling the ideal of Renan's scientific hero who constrains himself arduously and ingloriously to prepare trustworthy materials for builders yet unborn.