LITERARY NOTICES. 



4!5 



sian doctrine is flouted in some quar- 

 ters, and particularly in the region of 

 the Anti- Poverty Society, the sober 

 thought of the more instructed portion 

 of mankiud will incline them to believe 

 that there is something to be said on 

 behalf of prudence in incurring what is 

 simply the most solemn and important 

 responsibility than can be assumed by 

 any human being. That poverty has 

 been greatly promoted by carelessness 

 and indifference in this regard a blind 

 trusting to chance or Providence few, 

 we think, would deny. 



But perhaps the most important sin- 

 gle aspect of the whole question is the 

 sanitary or hygienic. As long as there 

 are debilitated frames, enfeebled wills, 

 and morbidly developed passions, there 

 will be poverty. On the other hand, 

 of course, poverty tends to increase and 

 perpetuate these evils. This aspect of 

 the subject has lately been treated with 

 much force in the body of the " Month- 

 ly," and we shall not dwell upon it to- 

 day. The main truth we wish to em- 

 phasize is that poverty results from 

 unfitness for social conditions, and that 

 the true mode of conducting an anti- 

 poverty campaign would be to attack 

 at every point those errors and vices 

 that tend to depress human beings be- 

 low the level at which they can fulfill 

 the conditions needful for their main- 

 tenance in health and well-being. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Public Debts: An Essay in the Science 

 op Finance. By Henry C. Adams, 

 Ph. D. New York : D. Appleton & Co. 

 Pp. 407. Price, $2.50. 

 The purpose of this treatise is to por- 

 tray the principles which underlie the use 

 of public credit. While it is neither pri- 

 marily statistical nor historical, it relies up- 

 on statistics, and makes frequent appeals 

 to history ; and in these points, the experi- 

 ences of our national Government, so com- 

 prehensive and recent, and of our State and 

 local governments, so various and often so 

 impressive, afford a rich fund whence illus- 



tration and the "clinchers" of argument 

 are drawn. The peculiarity of our Federal 

 Constitution necessitates a distinction in the 

 treatment of the subject as between national 

 deficit financiering and local deficit financier- 

 ing (State and municipal) which is not recog- 

 nized by European writers. Of the three 

 parts into which the treatise is divided, the 

 first is devoted to the general subject of 

 " Public Borrowing as a Financial Policy." 

 The immense development of public indebt- 

 edness which the world is now witnessing, 

 which has reached an aggregate for the civ- 

 ilized states of $27,000,000,000, has taken 

 place since 1848, when the total stood at 

 $8,650,000,000. Searching for the causes of 

 this accumulation, they are found to lie main- 

 ly in the greater strength and effectiveness 

 of the feeling of nationality, for the main- 

 tenance of which large expenditures are 

 necessary, and in the spirit of socialism, or 

 the disposition of states to legislate and un- 

 dertake in the interest of the social well- 

 being of their peoples. Concerning the 

 political and social tendencies and industrial 

 effects of public borrowing, it is held that it 

 tends to obviate the free workings of consti- 

 tutional governments, to endanger the auton- 

 omy of inferior states, and to introduce com- 

 plications between the larger powers. So- 

 cially, public debts render permanent such 

 class relations as spring from disparity of 

 possessions, and introduce conflicting inter- 

 ests between citizens. The industrial effects 

 are complex, and depend upon the nature 

 of the loan, the conditions under which it is 

 contracted, and upon the fund of capital 

 from which it is filled. They are harmful 

 in proportion as the placement of the loan 

 disturbs the market value of commodities. 

 Public credit may be advantageously em- 

 ployed as opposed to material increase of 

 taxes to cover running deficits, to assist 

 in meeting unforeseen emergencies, and to 

 provide revenue for carrying on public im- 

 provements. In the second part " Nation- 

 al Deficit Financiering" the first topic is 

 the " financial management of a war," the 

 principle of which, as summarized, is " that 

 reliance can not be placed wholly upon loans 

 nor wholly upon taxes, but fiscal administra- 

 tion should be so adjusted as gradually to 

 change the burden of expenditure from cred- 

 it to clear income." As between the differ- 



