approaching large and satisfying improvements of social conditions. This is indicated in his closing paragraph. "It is my belief that the future belongs neither to the prophets of individualism, nor to the ideals of the social democrats. Its next phases belong to social reorganization. And the probability is that this will show a corporate character, and will be sustained and controlled by public supervision."
I have not given so much space to the expression of a favorable judgment upon these books because they are altogether free from inaccuracies as to fact, or because I indorse their conclusions. Taken together the three volumes set a high standard for investigators of social conditions. They exhibit a worthy conception of what is involved in qualification for judgment either about the quality of present industrial relations or about the directions in which or the means by which we should seek for change. The books may be used together as a very valuable concrete exhibit and application of the abstract principles of societary exposition which some of the most sagacious contemporary social philosophers have adopted as parts of their working hypothesis.
Industrial Evolution of the United States. By Carroll D. Wright. 12mo., pp x. + 362. Flood & Vincent, the Chautauqua-Century Press, 1895.
Not often is a valuable popular book written as is this by one whose past work is the chief original authority for much of the contents. In preparing this volume, Mr. Wright gets much of his best material from his past reports as chief for many years of the Massachusetts and later of the United States departments of labor statistics and from his other special researches. This popular condensation of such investigations by the leading labor statistician of America, and probably of the world, will be of great value not only to the general public but to many specialists. The author describes the development in colonial and subsequent epochs, and the magnitude as revealed in our various census reports of some of our leading manufacturing industries.
Many interesting facts are marshaled to prove that wages were much higher in both money and purchasing power in 1890 than in 1860 or 1840, or any previous period, though it is conceded that amid such natural resources and inventions, labor should have gained still more. The common claim of the wage-worker that machinery displaces labor and increases the number of the involuntary idle, is met
