iSS 



NA JURE 



[A/a7r// 1 8, 1886 



harder than to form any one self-consistent sc/iema of the 

 line within which distribution falls. The common com- 

 plaint that the fundamental categories of rent, interest, 

 wages, and profits, have in popular usage a meaning not 

 that assigned to them by the economists, only expresses a 

 small part of the difficulty. There is hardly an econo- 

 mical treatment of the subject which altogether evades 

 the consequences of the peculiar difficulty that these terms 

 are indifterently employed to mark the remuneration 

 which, in a hypothetical or actual state of society, falls 

 to distinct industrial functions, and the shares which, in 

 like circumstances, are enjoyed by distinct industrial 

 classes. Hardly anywhere is there sufficient recognition 

 of the important distinction between the proximate and 

 the ultimate conditions through which the distribution of 

 produced wealth comes about. Illustration of these 

 difficulties can be given only from Prof Walkers excel- 

 lent and most instructive treatment of profits. Here, 

 following, or at all events coinciding with, some of the 

 best Continental economists, Prof Walker develops the 

 notion of the entrepreneur and his industrial function, 

 and assimilates the remuneration of the entrepreneur to 

 rent, from which follow certain important general propo- 

 sitions. Profit, apparently, is regarded as the title of the 

 share falling to the entrepreneur. Now, undoubtedly there 

 is a portion of the share falling at any given time to the 

 entrepreneur which in its origin and laws is identical 

 with rent, for rent is a quite general consequence of any 

 inequality, howsoever arising, in productive sources at 

 any moment needed for the satisfaction of social wants. 

 But it is impossible to identify this with profit at large, 

 — an identification which Prof. Walker appears to reject 

 in S 25;, but which he accepts without qualification 

 in the proposition that there is a class of no-profit entre- 

 preneurs. There is doubtless a class of no-profit entre- 

 preneurs, but the immediate inference is that the term 

 profit is not equivalent to remuneration of the cn'.re- 

 preneur, while it is a further conseq^uence that, in quar- 

 ters where it has not generally been looked for, there 

 is precisely the same rent-element, in wages e.g., and in 

 payment for the use of capital. What conceals it from 

 us in many cases, and makes it disappear in particular 

 conditions, is the greater perfection of the market for 

 services, which tends to remove the inequalities out of 

 which rent essentially emerges. Prof Walker's analysis 

 of the entrepreneur lemuneration seems thus to be far 

 from adequate, though it is on the right track. He has 

 not sufficiently recognised that, if we take entrepreneurs 

 as a class, then, by whatsoever name we describe it, their 

 remuneration will be a complex quantity, proximately 

 determined by the conditions under which the exercise 

 of the entrepreneur function at any moment meets a 

 social want, ultimately breaking up into a number of 

 distinct remunerations, each having its own natural 

 origin and laws. So with wages. To begin the analysis 

 of wages with the conception of the hired labourer, 

 though it keeps one closer to practice, is only to make a 

 first step, and ought not to conceal from us the essentiall)' 

 complex character of the payment so-called. I believe 

 that fundamentally I am in agreement with Prof. Walker 

 in his view of the ultimate condition determining wages, 

 but I cannot assign such importance to it as he seems to 

 do, and I wish that he had observed his own prudent 



caution (§ 9) regarding the word property, and not 

 thought it necessary to say (§ 273) that, after deduction 

 of rent, profits, interest, " thj whol; remaining body of 

 wealth daily or annually created i; the property of the 

 labouring class " ! This is either one of the many truisms 

 that abound in theoretical economics, or it is a dubious, 

 ambiguous, and incautious rule for practice. It is to be 

 added, however, that Prof Walker's practical observa- 

 tions about wages in §§ 27S-239 are excellent and to the 

 point. R. Ad.\mson 



ALG.^ 

 Till Alnemes Systematik. Nya bidrag af J. G. Agardh 

 (Fferdeafdelningen). VII. " Florideae." Lunds Univ. 

 Arsskiift, torn. xxi. 4to. {Proceedings of the Univer- 

 sity of Lund, Sweden, 1886.) 



'P'OR more than forty-five years the venerable author 

 ^ — now a septuagenarian — of the work mentioned 

 at the head of this notice, has continued to produce, at 

 brief intervals, a succession of standard works on Algas. 

 We hope this will not be the last. The present work is a 

 fourth instalment of Dr. Agardh's " Contributions to the 

 Systematic Classification of Algs." The three preceding 

 parts have been already reviewed in N.^ture.'^ 



The recent part, which consists of 1 17 pages, is devoted 

 to the Floride.'B. Besides observations elucidating many 

 genera and species already partially known, it contains 

 descriptions of three new genera and between fifty and 

 sixty species. Of the new genera, Titanophora, which 

 belongs to the Nemastomese, contains two species — T. 

 incriistans, J. Ag. {Halynienia incrusttins, J. Ag.), and T. 

 Pikeana {Galaxaura Pikeana, Dickie) — both from Mau- 

 ritius. The other new genera belong to the Rhody- 

 meniacese, namely, Glaphyrymenia, of which there is one 

 species — G.pustulosa (see Fig. 4) — and Merrifieldia, which 

 also contains one species — M. ramentacea. The last-men- 

 tioned alga is one among several instances where the 

 algologist has had to wait many years before he had 

 amassed sufficient material to enable him to give an 

 accurate description of the plant, and to decide on its 

 place in the system. Every one who has collected algs 

 must know how frequently it happens that plants are 

 dredged or cast ashore in an imperfect state. In some 

 the lower part may be absent ; in others the apices of the 

 ultimate branchlets may be broken off ; in others, again, 

 the plants may be sterile ; or, in the case of the Florideae, 

 they may bear but one species of fruit. Until, therefore, 

 perfect plants, bearing ripe cystocarps, and others bearing 

 sph.-erospores, have been thoroughly examined, neither 

 the genus nor the species of the plant can be accurately 

 determined. M. ranientacea was first partially described 

 by C. Agardh, in the " Systema," upwards of sixty years 

 ago, under the name of Ctiondria ramentacea, ai.d after- 

 wards by his son. Dr. Agardh, in the " Epicrisis " (p. 661), 

 as Hypnea ramentacea. The examination of subsequent 

 examples, with fruit of both kinds, has induced Dr. Agardh 

 to consider this alga as the typical species of a new genus. 



1 The first part, containing a revision of (0 Caulerpa. (2) Zonaria, and 



(3) certain groups of Sargassum, was published in 1S72, in vol. ix. of the 

 Proceedings of the University of Lund : the second part, containing 



(4) Chordarieae, and (5) Dictyotea; in vol. .xniI. ; and the third part, 

 containing (6) Ulvacea; in vol. xix> of the Proceedings of the same 

 University. 



