Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/785

 REVIEWS 763 regard to our neighhours, though at the same time they were to have (in the eyes of our neighhours) all the appearance of a real sacrifice. But (in spite of Sir T. H. Farrer, vr Fr a 'air Fre, 1887, p. 218), statesmanship seems to have demanded what abstract principles refused, and the Manchester school showed that they could on occasion be practical politicians. The ' Manchester' view of the extension of the British Empire was perhaps never more ably presented than in the letter on 'Egypt' printed in this volume and dated March 1878. Vith that and with the letter to Mr. T. B. Potter on ' Reciprocity' the distinctly' Manchester' portion of the book ends; and we have a series of papers on subjects about which members of the School may be supposed to differ among themselves like other people. In chapter VII., for example, Bimetallism is recommended, on the basis of a fixed ratio and a general internationa agreement. If (it is argued) any large international combination failed, its failure could only be due to ' causes which would obviate the nain practical evils of monometallism ', for it could only come from the expulsion of silver by such supplies of gold as would make a single gold standard quite possible' (153)i. It may be observed, in this connection, that the disciple disagTees with the views of his master in regard to the regulation of paper currency (p. 39). The long paper on ' National In- come and Taxation' (ch. VIII.)criticises Mill's dictum that the sums paid as interest to the fundholders ought not to be counted as part of the ns riohal income; and our author's contention is that as ' debt represents value for service rendered, it ought to be included in any estimate of national wealth in the same way that the value of the services rendered by the servants of the State or by any other class of the community ought to be so included' (p. 169). Mill's argument would apply to 'everything of the nature of a second-hand income, which, having been paid by those whose incomes are already included in the estimate cannot, as it is urged, be again separately specified, as in that case they would be included twice' (174). Mallet seems right in rejecting this view. Ve can only estimate the country's income by the several incomes of its inhabitants. If a given income, say that of a private secretary, is said to be counted twice over, this really suggests that the employer has an income and the secretary has none. But the devotion, say, of 300 to the keeping of a private secretary is one of the privileges of the employer's income, which consists, say, of 50,000. If he had spent 300 on a picture it would have remained his income, though it would be part of the picture-seller's also. The wages of labour are, no doubt, employer's cost and not his income;but to the employed workmen they are income, and should be counted so in any estimate of the national income. In the case of the fundholder, not the debt but the orp (so to speak) of the payment of it, is national wealth, and it does not cease to be so when paid to the fundholder. In other words, the wealth paid to the public creditor is to be deemed