prices when there is a deficiency of a given product can similar goods be attracted from abroad, enterprise and capital be stimulated to enter upon increased production, and capital thereby drawn into the channels of its greatest efficiency. While it might be desirable from a theoretical point of view to secure an ideal fixity of value for the metallic standard, none of the processes for producing this result are effective or desirable. If gold could be given a fixed intrinsic value, as it is conceived of already by the mass of men who are not economic students, undoubtedly the evils which flow from its fluctuations would diminish. But fixity in the value of gold in this abstract sense would not prevent constant fluctuations in its value in relation to other things. The interplay of the demand and supply for tens of thousands of other classes of articles and for variations of particular articles in each class, caused by changes in taste, in seasons, in degree of culture and numbers of the population, would make it impossible that at any single moment the prices. of all things in the world expressed in gold should be the same as the prices thus expressed at the next moment.

Whether or not an article exchanges for a sufficient amount of gold to pay the cost of producing it is in a broad sense the factor which determines whether the production of that article shall cease or continue; whether substitutes for it shall be invented or produced, or whether capital shall be attracted for the creation of the machinery of such production. Even if the value of gold in an abstract sense remained fixed from one year to another, and the aggregate mass of commodities did not materially vary in volume, or in the amount of labor required. to produce them, the widest variations in the exchange value of these commodities in gold would occur from differences in the state of credit. The pursuit of an ideal money which is unchangeable in its relations to other things is as idle as the search for the philosopher's stone, or the attempt to find a fixed point in the solar system. It is not an ideal, moreover, which it is desirable should be attained, because it would destroy the barometer which money affords of the relation of things in their usefulness to men. It is not desirable even that the project

should be realized that a given amount of labor will command the same amount of gold on one day as on another, for if that labor is applied to the production of things which are not useful to the community, it is only by the fall in the amount of gold earned by such labor that the warning can be given that it should be applied in directions which are most useful. CHARLES A. CONANT.

NEW YORK.

HISTORY OF THE WORKING CLASSES AND OF

INDUSTRY IN FRANCE.

THE ROMAN PERIOD.

CASTING aside tradition and authority, and the theory of revelation and inspiration, and strictly following the inductive method of experiment and research, science has been enabled to change conditions of life to a degree hardly conceivable half a century ago.

Even the writing of history begins to undergo transformation. Even here the shovel and the pick-ax are undermining transmitted beliefs, turning libraries into waste heaps or bringing corroboration to discredited stories of the ancients by disentombed evidence of facts. It may, however, safely be charged that historical writers still confine themselves too exclusively to the great affairs of state. Wars and destruction are always more dazzling than construction and society building.

Investigation into the history of civilization of nations is only of recent date. Some important works, however, have been contributed. in Germany, Austria, and France. Inama-Sternegg in his Geschichte des Entstehens der grossen Grundherrschaften in der Karolinger Zeit has given us material assistance in forming ideas as to development of modern society in the formative period of its history. But none of the authors that might be named — Waitz, Schmoller, Inama-Sternegg, in Germany and Austria; Dareste de la Chavanne, Duruy, Fustel de Coulange, and D'Avenel in France; Thorold Rogers and Cunningham in England-throw more than side-lights on the life of the working classes and their development from a state of slavery up to their present position.

It was as early as the year 1858 that Mr. Émile Levasseur, then a man of thirty, published his Histoire des classes ouvrières. The work was the result of a call for a prize essay from the Academy of Moral and Political Science, and was received by this body and the critics of the press with the highest expressions of appreciation. In his report to the academy, August, 1858, M. H. Passy says: "Up to here [seventeenth century] nothing so complete has been published, nor has Based on LEVASSEUR'S Histoire des classes ouvrières en France depuis la conquête de Jules César jusqu'à la révolution.

anything thrown so much light on the economic state of the provinces under the reign of Louis XIV."

A second competitive call by the Academy induced Mr. Levasseur to revise his work and to carry his investigations down to the present time, i. e., to 1867. This work has been out of print for more than twenty years. Our author, busy with other work, was not able to devote his time to the efforts that a new edition such as he planned would entail. He was sent by the French government to America in 1893, on the occasion of the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, to study the industries and labor conditions of the United States. One volume treating of agriculture in the United States and two large volumes entitled L'ouvrier Américain give testimony of his erudition and penetration. A man so burdened with work at a time of life when mental strain falls heavy on the frame is scarcely expected to give the world shortly after the appearance of the two volumes of L'ouvrier Américain two new volumes in the second edition of his Histoire des classes ouvrières et de l'industrie en France avant 1789. These two volumes are not a new edition of an old work, but a completely rewritten work. It follows the old lines, as is self-evident, but otherwise has little more to remind one of the first edition than the more general historical facts that make the skeleton of the two works. The size of the work is fully three times that of the early edition, and this alone shows the character and completeness of the recast and the amplitude of the researches of the author. The two volumes of the Histoire des classes ouvrières contain about 1,700 large octavo pages. But Mr. Levasseur had his eye for a number of years on this recast of his first achievement in the world of letters and was accumulating data with this object in mind. When he came to carry out his long intended plans, the chief work, the work of the investigator, was done.

In order to understand modern conditions and institutions we have to understand the Middle Ages from which they have sprung. In order to understand the Middle Ages we have to understand the time and the institutions on which they stand. Writers treat with easy contempt the question of a bottom for the tortoise, upon which stands the elephant, who, according to Hindoo lore, carries the world. The events of the period give them sufficient grounds upon which to develop theories and build the structure which for us represents the history of the Middle Ages. Mr. Levasseur found it necessary to go deeper, and to discover, if possible, a footing for his tortoise solid enough to carry all the burdens he has on his back. This he finds in

the institutions of Rome, to which he takes his readers in the initial chapters of his history.

France, like England, lived for five centuries under Roman institutions. In England the Briton withdrew to the western part of the island, and the towns and institutions disappeared with those that had supported them. In France this was different. In the southern provinces especially Roman institutions prevailed for many a century under Frank and Visigoth. But Provence was laid waste by the religious fervor of the thirteenth century, and Guienne, far superior in wealth and culture to any other part of France north of the Garonne, continued in its ancient institutions to the time of its destruction by the savagery of the English invaders under the Black Prince. The importance of inquiring into labor and industrial conditions in Rome and the provinces becomes evident. But we should get lost in the maelstrom of events, were we to follow this current alone. We have other forces to consider that were equally powerful in the forming of medieval France and medieval Europe in general, i. e., the contributions by the Germanic conquerors to the social fabric. Only by giving to each of these contributive forces its full share of influence is it possible to present a picture that will do justice to the theme. Our author leaves some gaps open in this part of his narrative, which might be filled by matter supplied by writers of German nationality, of whom a thoroughgoing example is Inama-Sternegg in the work mentioned above.

The origin of Rome determined the organization of its government: an aristocracy based on an agricultural community in constant readiness for war. But such were all the city-states of antiquity. Even Athens confined the ample rights of democratic government to the full citizens, of whom, according to Boeckh, there were but 20,000 in a population of 400,000. (Wallon, revising Boeckh and Letrònne's estimate, puts the free population at 67,000 of whom only about half, however, were citizens in a total of 310,000.) A city which from its start has to stand sword in hand on the defensive against its neighbors has the form and organization of its government pressed on it. Even had it not been the tendency all through antiquity, Rome would have encouraged agriculture and considered commerce and industry as of a degrading character. It remains a proof of the high patriotism of the Roman citizen that he was always ready to give his life to the defense of the city, and even be led beyond the confines of Italy when the security of Rome demanded it. Though the patrician looked with