LITERARY NOTICES. 



559 



strated, and Mr. Atkinson adds his word to 

 that of others who have written upon the 

 subject. 



He thinks that the effect of the tariff on 

 wages has been greatly overestimated by 

 both free-traders and protectionists. The 

 number of those who can be directly bene- 

 fited in their wages by a tariff is for the 

 country as a whole not much over five per 

 cent. Wages have steadily risen in the last 

 twenty-live years, and the rise has been much 

 more rapid in the non-protected than in the 

 protected industries. The tariff cuts but a 

 small figure as a factor in determining 

 wages, and so far as it is an element its tend- 

 ency is to lower wages. Mr. Atkinson con- 

 siders that the important factor in raising 

 wages is the steady improvement in the tools 

 and processes of the mechanic arts, agreeing 

 entirely with Mr. Schoenhoff that a high rate 

 of wages is the necessary concomitant of 

 high efficiency and low cost of production. 

 His discussion of bimetallism, though brief, 

 is clear and to the point. He arranges it in 

 the form of a number of propositions, as the 

 readiest means of exposing the essential 

 elements of the question to the understand- 

 ing of the reader. It is perhaps unneces- 

 sary to state that he shows clearly the folly 

 of the silver advocates. Taken as a whole, 

 this discussion is one of the strongest and 

 clearest presentations of the tariff question in 

 all its bearings which the current interest in 

 the subject has brought forth, and it can be 

 unreservedly commended to those seeking 

 light upon this important issue. 



Experimental Evolution. By Henry de 

 Varigny. London and New York : Mac- 

 millan & Co., 1892. Pp. 271. Price, 

 $1.50. 



Prof, de Varigny has gathered together 

 in this volume five lectures delivered by him 

 before the Summer School of Art and Sci- 

 ence at Edinburgh, advocating the desirability 

 of experiments in organic evolution to prove 

 in a direct way the birth of new species of 

 plants and animals out of antecedent ones. 

 In his discussion of the character of the 

 proofs we now have of evolution, he points 

 out that they are all inferential, and, while 

 they are convincing to the great body of 

 naturalists who have studied the facts, he 

 thinks that the main contentions of the evo- 



lutionist can be demonstrated beyond ques- 

 tion by direct experiment. Already much 

 experimenting of this kind has been done, 

 which has resulted in the production of a 

 great number of varieties, but this has not 

 been carried on systematically through a suf- 

 ficient period nor simply with reference to 

 the scientific value of the experiments. The 

 lectures are very suggestive in an important 

 line of scientific work, and will doubtless re- 

 ceive adequate attention from the naturalists. 



The Farmers' Tariff Manual. By Daniel 

 Strange. New York : G. P. Putnam's 

 Sons. 1892. Pp. 363. Price, $1.25. 



Mr. Strange has given in this volume a 

 very excellent tariff talk to the farmers. 

 He is himself a farmer, and is therefore able 

 to bring to the attention of the farmers in 

 an effective way the things in our tariff med- 

 ley which bear most directly upon their in- 

 terests. The author's method of dealing 

 with the subject is to take a quotation from 

 a speech or the writings of well-known pro- 

 tectionists and comment upon it. As such 

 quotations embody the points made by pro- 

 tectionist orators in the current discussions of 

 the tariff issue, this method has considerable 

 advantage over the systematic treatment of 

 the subject by economists. The work is di- 

 vided into four main parts, devoted to a 

 Tariff for Revenue, Theories of Protection, 

 History of Protection, and the Practical 

 Results of Protection. The author deals 

 with the first of these divisions very briefly. 

 He does not believe in such a tariff on ac- 

 count of its extreme inefficiency, but holds 

 that all taxation should be direct. In the 

 division devoted to theories of protection 

 he disposes in very short order of the ri- 

 diculous claim of the latter-day protection- 

 ists that the foreigner pays the tariff tax. 

 He also considers Mr. Blaine's wonderful 

 reciprocity scheme, and once more endeavors 

 to make clear to the average man the mean- 

 ing of a " balance of trade." In the histori- 

 cal division he gives a brief account of the 

 successive tariffs from the foundation of the 

 Government down, which the protectionist 

 farmer, who is at all open to conviction, will 

 find very instructive reading. The book 

 closes with a review of the practical results 

 of protection, and an earnest appeal to the 

 farmers of the country to drop all side issues, 



