REVIEWS 165 



undertaken by the Italian Mareographic Commission. The present volume is in 



the nature of a prospectus and summary of the work contemplated and already 



performed. For the details reference should be made to the works mentioned in 



the bibliography. There is a short description, with plans, of the vessel built for 



the oceanographic work by the Co-operative Society of Sampierdarena. All this 



work has obviously been terminated, we trust only temporarily, by the war ; but 



enough has been outlined in the volume under review to show that the Italians 



are keenly alive to the importance of oceanographical and marine biological 



research. 



J- T. J. 



MISCELLANEOUS 



The Limits of Pure Democracy. By W. H. Mallock. [Pp. xx + 397.] 

 (London : Chapman & Hall. Price 15J. net.) 



In these days, when democratic government is considered by many to be the 

 panacea for all ills, it is as well that the meaning of a word in such common use 

 should be fully understood by those who profess to be adherents to democratic 

 forms of government. The whole aim of the book is to prove that democracy 

 is possible only in small communities, and that oligarchy is the ideal, and indeed, 

 the only possible form of government in large states. For example, the theory 

 that democracy is government of the people, for the people, by the people, a 

 theory that never fails to produce instant cheers, may be reduced to the following 

 propositions : that democracy in any concrete case — in the case of France, for 

 instance — is government which is exercised over the French people — that is, 

 exercised by the people of France ; and that it is exercised by the people of 

 France with a view to their own advantage. The chief attraction of these 

 otherwise barren platitudes, says the writer, appears to be the word " people," 

 though the word in itself has no real meaning whatever. The writer cites several 

 arguments to support his theory that a pure democratic will is possible only as 

 to very simple questions. Even in an argument in the taproom of a public- 

 house, two or three individuals with a better knowledge of the affair concerned 

 or with shrewder intellects are able to sway the opinions of the remainder of 

 the debaters. 



The fifth chapter of the first section (which deals with Political Democracy) 

 is perhaps the most interesting and considers revolutionary oligarchies. That 

 trade unions have developed into oligarchies in England is well known, but that 

 Lassalle and Proudhon admitted that purely democratic wills must be merged in 

 those of the leaders is much less widely known. The Gallic tribes which existed 

 in the times of Caesar were democracies in times of peace, and oligarchies in 

 times of war. 



The second section of the book deals with democracy as applied to technical 

 production. Mr. Mallock scrutinises the meaning of the word "industry," and 

 questions the Marxian doctrine that manual labourers are the sole and equal 

 producers of wealth. 



The next section deals with the distribution of wealth. The enormous amount 

 of unearned income which haunts the brain of many a socialist is shown to be 

 about threepence a day per inhabitant of the United Kingdom. Many of the 

 other figures are also very interesting. 



In Section IV. the second chapter dealing with the' various socialist experiments 

 is also interesting ; most of these experiments were in the United States, but all 

 were unsuccessful. Some, like the Rappites, developed into wealthy plutocracies, 



