272 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The book is primarily addressed to working 

 electricians who have charge of alternating- 

 current apparatus, but it may be read under- 

 standing^ by any one who is sufficiently in- 

 terested in the progress of electricity to have 

 taken the trouble to acquire a rudimentary 

 knowledge of the subject. 



The book opens with a brief consideration 

 of the phenomena of induction and its appli- 

 cation to the transformer. A chapter is given 

 to a mathematical consideration of it, one to 

 the changes it has undergone to fit it for 

 commercial use, and one each to its construc- 

 tion and its use in practice. The book closes 

 with a description of the chief commercial 

 transformers. Various miscellaneous sub- 

 jects, which could not well find a place in 

 the body of the book, are noticed in an ap- 

 pendix. 



Induction Coils. By G. E. Bonnet. New 

 York: Macmillan & Co., 1892. Pp. 231. 

 Price, $1. 



The author has essayed in this volume 

 to give such practical knowledge of the 

 methods of constructing and operating in- 

 duction coils as will be of use to the ama- 

 teur coil-maker. After considering briefly 

 the theory of induction, he gives directions 

 how to construct spark-coils, devotes a 

 chapter each to Accessories to Coils, and 

 special forms of coils. Some of the other 

 chapters are Batteries for Coils, Repair of 

 Batteries and Coils, and Useful Notes on 

 Coils. He also devotes a chapter to some 

 of the famous coils, such as that constructed 

 for Mr. Spottiswoode by Apps, of London. 

 The book is provided with a general index, 

 and is quite fully illustrated. 



The Economy of High Wages. By J. 

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

 Sons, 1892. Pp. 414. Price, $1.50. 



In a time like the present, when a cam- 

 paign of education on the tariff question is in 

 progress, and when not only the great mass 

 of the people, but many of the supposed bene- 

 ficiaries of the tariff, are awakening to the 

 fact that prosperity by taxation is not quite 

 what it is represented to be, a book like the 

 present one is a very welcome addition to the 

 current literature of the subject. The pro- 

 tected classes have succeeded in maintaining 

 themselves in the enjoyment of their present 



gratuities by their appeals to the workingmen 

 to support protection as the sole guarantor 

 of high wages. Protectionists have never 

 tired of contrasting the day rate of wages in 

 this country and Europe, claiming that they 

 were due to the tariff, and that, if American 

 manufacturing industries were deprived of 

 the benefits of protection, wages must fall. 

 In all their discussions of wages they have 

 assiduously represented that the difference in 

 wages corresponded with the difference in 

 labor cost of the goods made here and abroad. 

 It has been pointed out a good many times 

 by tariff reformers that high wages do not 

 necessarily mean high cost of production, but 

 no one has heretofore taken up the question 

 and dealt with it in such detail as the author 

 of the present work. Mr. Schoenhof is pecul- 

 iarly well fitted to undertake his task. He was 

 commissioned by the late Secretary Bayard 

 to make a study of the question in the trade 

 and manufacturing centers of Europe while 

 in the diplomatic service under the Cleveland 

 administration, and has himself had an ex- 

 tended experience as an employer of labor. 

 He not only controverts the proposition that 

 a high rate of day wages necessarily means a 

 high labor cost in production, but maintains 

 that a high rate of wages is necessarily asso- 

 ciated with a low labor cost of the goods. 

 High wages mean high efficiency of the worker 

 and low wages low efficiency, and the essen- 

 tial condition of the payment of high wages 

 is that the worker is so much more efficient 

 and has the command of so much better tools 

 that he can produce goods more cheaply. 

 Our high-priced American labor, therefore, 

 has nothing to fear from the cheaper labor 

 of England, and the relatively high-priced 

 labor of England nothing to fear from the 

 low-priced labor of the Continent. The real 

 cheapness of high-priced and therefore effi- 

 cient labor, when measured in commodities 

 produced, which is the only consideration 

 that has any bearing on the question of the 

 competition of producers, can be readily ap- 

 prehended and arrived at deductively. Mr. 

 Schoenhof does not content himself, however, 

 with an argument, but examines in detail the 

 chief trades and industries of the world, 

 finding that everywhere a high rate of wages 

 and a low labor cost in production go hand 

 in hand. He gives schedules in the pottery, 

 glass, iron, cotton, and woolen industries, 



