706 KEPORT— 1889. 



made, down to the minutest particular, for economising space and cost of erection 

 and of working. The stove has been tested and proved capable of giving a renewal 

 of the atmosphere every hour, twice the 300 cubic feet supposed to be sufficient for 

 a whole night ; so that, whilst, without such arrangements, the adequate space of 

 the statute is a delusion and a snare, with them, any space, legally adequate or not, 

 may be kept at all times, and without intermission, in atmospheric purity and 

 comfort. 



4. The Increase in Europe and America of Nominal or Fictitious Capital. 



By Hyde Clarke, F.8.S. 



The writer referred to the history of the joint stock system in the United 

 States, France, and England, under which fictitious values in shares or stocks were 

 created for goodwill or other matters, which did not represent real or effective 

 capital. Of late j-ears these sums had reached very large amounts, and, being 

 treated by statists, economists, and journalists as real amounts, led to erroneous 

 conclusions. Thus, in England, month after month large columns of figures were 

 given adding up the capitals of projected companies, which, if they represented real 

 aums would suggest the danger of a panic time after time. No such panics occurred, 

 because these amounts were chiefly transfers of nominal sums from one individual 

 to another in the purchase or sale of breweries, gold and other mines, patents, 

 mercantile businesses, &c. In many cases such companies were mere family 

 arrangements to avoid the mercantile risks of individual liability, and where no real 

 change of condition or constitution of efiective capital occurred. These operations, 

 carried on by promoters and adventurers, had reached such an extent that they 

 demanded the careful consideration of economists. In a time of panic, although 

 no real destruction of the national capital may take place, the sufiering to individuals 

 from fluctuation of price will be very great. Even where a profitable business is 

 carried on, great depreciation of the market price of shares and debentures will 

 take place. At the present time the rate of investment is little above three per 

 cent. ; and a brewery returning 100,000^. per annum would be marketable on the 

 scale of the rate of interest on investments advancing to five per cent., but there 

 would be a great change and large depreciation. Still more would this be the 

 case when, as in recent panics, six or seven per cent, was required as a return on 

 investments. 



MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16. 



The following Papers were read : — 



1. The delations "between Industrial Conciliation and Social Reform. 



By L. L. Price, M.A. 



The paper was devoted to some general considerations on the character of the 

 relations existing between the various methods of securing the peaceful settlement 

 of industrial disputes known as (1) arbitration, (2) conciliation, and (3) the 

 sliding scale, and general social reform. The study of social and industrial 

 questions leads to the conclusion that social and industrial reform is dependent on 

 moral reform. But this is often forgotten, and more importance attached to the 

 * machinery ' of reform than to the ' material ' of human nature with which 

 reform has to deal. The neglect of the fact that human nature changes slowly, 

 bit by bit, leads to extravagant optimism and excessive pessimism with regard to 

 the methods of securing the peaceful settlement of industrial disputes. We must 

 expect that this ' machinery ' will sometimes fail, but this expectation has its com- 

 pensations as well as its drawbacks. A change has taken place in the ' material,' 

 and theory and practice testify to an improvement in human nature as between 

 masters and men. This is specially illustrated by the position of trades-unions in 



