800 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
Two New Social Departures in England. — These are the {ounding of the
Industrial Union of Employers and Employed, and the holding of the first International Cooperative Congress. In the first were present twenty-six representatives of employers and forty-seven of workmen. The object of the Union is the promotion of mutual understanding between the two parties, promotion of arbitration and concilia- tion, the discussion and suggestion of means for bettering the condition of labor with- out detriment to business, and the publication of the results of experience in this direction. This movement has grown out of the successful experience of the Boards of Conciliation and Arbitration. Sixty-eight of these boards dealt with 1440 cases in l8g3 — later reports being incomplete. These, however, are only palliatives. The only solution of this great problem lies in some form of cooperation. The International Cooperative Alliance marks not only a new epoch in this great struggle, but introduces a new principle into trade — a moral one. The objects of the alliance are : (i) to make known the cooperators of each country and their work to the cobperators of all other countries; (2) to elucidate by international discussion and correspondence the nature of true cooperative principles; (3) to establish commercial relations between the cooperatives of different countries for their mutual advantage. (Two New Social Departures, by J. M. Ludlow, in The Atlantic Monthly, March 1896.
Facilitation of Marriage in France and Belgium. — The agitation for this reform began to bear fruit in the modification of the Belgian code in 1887. Several points have since been gained ; for example, such as lowering the age at which con- sent of parents is necessary, and simplifying many of the civil requirements. The immediate aim of the reform is now to lower the age at which the consent of parents is necessary from twenty-five years to twenty-one, for the man, as it already has been for the woman, and to make the consent of the father alone essential instead of that of both parents. The same reforms are advocated in France, but with less success. The Chamber of Deputies has recently given to them more consideration. These reforms are chiefly to benefit the laboring classes, since economic conditions frequently prevent the necessary consent from being given. Moral gains are hoped for as well, in the decrease of illegitimacy and "parisian marriages." (Les Projects de Reforms pour Faciliter le Marriage en France et en Belgique, by H, Lesur-Bernard, in La Reform Sociale for March 1896.)
Social Science as Based on the Method of Observation. — A forty-page dialogue, in the form of an exhortation to the younger generation of students, gives the arguments for and against the positive method as held by Le Play. The substance of the article is that such a method forms the only scientific basis for a social science. Not but that the results of such a method need to be rectified and modified from time to time, but the method of observation forms the only means (or doing this. By this method errors are eliminated as far as they can be by fallible men. This methodic study is limited to actually existing societies; one cannot apply it retrospectively to societies that have ceased to exist, as a zoologist may use palaeon- tology. But it is not the inexactitudes of the past that so trouble us : it is the doctrine of modern life that we desire. Social progress is not realized by movement according to abstract principles ; and the educated youth of today need to recognize not only this truth, but also the positive one — the need of exact investigation and social activity based upon the results of this investigation. (La Science Sociale et la Jeunesse Lettree du Jour; anonymous, in La Science Ss^'a/f, February 1896.)
Tendencies in Penology, — In general, these are "to strengthen repressive action, and, at the same time, to introduce more humanity in the laws, to ask for indulgence rather than vigor, without abandoning any of the indispensables of social order, to revive in the soul of the criminal and the delinquent the notion of right, of duty and of justice." Perversity is coming to be considered as an exception. Environment, as a cause of and a remedy for crime, is being taken more fully into account. The interrelations of social problems is recognized, and societary investiga- tions of a wide scope are now made preliminary to theories concerning penology. This also necessitates the marked tendency towards specialization. The question of
