524 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Chinese Workers' delegate, it appears that there are only about two or three 

 thousand Chinamen in the Red Army. He was also fortunate enough to be able 

 to talk with a " bourgeois." 



It seems strange to think that so many theatres are open, and, what is more, 

 filled, in Moscow. But at the time of the September Massacres in Paris was it 

 not the same ? 



The Right Social Revolutionaries seem the most hopeful of the more extreme 

 opposition parties. The Left Social Revolutionaries are hopeless, as are the 

 Menshevists. Mr. Ransome does not mention the Cadets. 



C. C. R. 



Papers for the Present. Third Series. No. 9, The Drift to Revolution. 

 [Pp. iv + 52, with 7 figures.] (London : Headley Bros., Ltd., 1919. 

 Price is. net.) 



" The Drift to Revolution " is one of a series of papers on contemporary social 

 •evolution published by the Sociological Society, and the object of this particular 

 paper appears to be to present a study of present-day problems, and suggestions 

 for many necessary reforms. The first section of the paper presents a decidedly 

 unflattering picture of the modern utilitarian as personified by Messrs. Herbert 

 Spencer and Jeremy Bentham. This class of person seems decidedly unpopular 

 just now; but, all the same, we must give them their due. They went too far, of 

 course, but that is no reason why we should rush the other way and hold up all 

 their ideas to ridicule. 



The writer seems to assume that the doctrine of laissez faire was ushered 

 in by the Industrial Revolution and the " Wealth of Nations." Hardly so. Both 

 Bolingbroke and Walpole had been stealing along the paths of Free Trade, and 

 it is not improbable that Adam Smith's ideas would have been enunciated even 

 without the stimulus of the industrial revolution. Neither did the creed of 

 " Liberalism " begin then. There has always been a party of reform in Church 

 and State, and is it likely that the motives of Lord Grey in 1832 were any more 

 disinterested than those of Thomas of Gloucester in 18 13? The bulk of the 

 manufacturers and aristocratic Whigs supported the first Reform Bill for their 

 own selfish ends, not because they hoped that the millennium would follow, as 

 their poor ignorant dupes did. But it is true enough to say that all classes took 

 part in the Reform agitation, and that the joint efforts of the Liberals (or Whigs) 

 and the Radicals secured Free Trade. On p. 9 occurs a slight mistake : 

 " From these newly-enriched classes " (of the Industrial Revolution) " had arisen 

 political families like the Pitts. . . .'' The Pitts were never particularly rich. 

 The younger Pitt had gained much of his -popularity from the fact that, although 

 poor, he had refused the remunerative sinecure of the Clerkship of the Pells. 



The next section of the paper deals with the relations between Capital and 

 Labour, and most of it is admirable. There is an excellent description of 

 " Production," " Distribution," " Consumption," as Karl Marx saw it. 



There follows a section on the growth of Imperialism, and, incidentally, of 

 Bureaucracy. There is a somewhat disparaging account of the latter. With the 

 growth of Empire offices are bound to multiply. If we conquer India, we must 

 expect to find an India Office on the heels of the conquest ; but there is no doubt, 

 as the writer says, that the average bureaucrat is not particularly observant. 

 Why should he be, indeed ? The writer correctly points out the close relation- 

 ship between Junkerdom and Social Democracy. 



