Cost of Living of the Working Classes. Report of an Enquiry by the Board of Trade into Working Class Rents, Housing and Retail Prices, together with the Standard Rates of Wages prevailing in certain occupations in the principal towns of the United Kingdom. London, 1908. [Cd. 3864.] Price 6s. Pages liii + 616. Industrial. Cost of Living in German Towns. Report of an Enquiry by the Board of Trade into Working Class Rents, Housing and Retail Prices, together with the Rates of Wages in certain occupations in the principal industrial towns of the German Empire. London, 1908. [Cd. 4032.] Price 4s. 11d. Pages lxi + 548.

I. The decline has taken place, for the national banks, by abrupt drops in periods of business revival, with steadiness in intervening periods, 697.—Has extended to all classes of banks, 698.—Due proximately to rapid increase of deposits, with stationary capital, 699.—II. The main cause has been an increase of lawful money supplied to the banks by the general public, 703.—III. The same tendency appears in the English banks, the Canadian banks, the State banks, 708.—IV. The decline not necessarily an indication of weakness, 712.

Durinlg the recent presidential campaign the people of this country, especially those in the W'est, heard a great deal about the guaranteeing of blank deposits. The idea is not a new one. It has frequently been advocated in the past, and a few of our states long ago tried the experiment: New York in I829, Vermont in I83I, and Michigan in 1836. In all these cases the experiments ended disastrously. In fact, it would be difficult to find a single example of the successful operation of such a scheme in this or any other country. Yet the advocates of the proposed plan, with varying degrees of inaccuracy, cite Germany's siystem of municipal savings banks, Canada's 5 per cent. guaranty of bank notes, Georgia's "chain-of-banks" system, and other unwarranted analogies, as ample evidence of their wisdom. Now comes the new state of Oklahoma, and under the inspiration of Mr. Bryan and Governor Haskell, the world is given another guaranty law-a sure preventive of any future financial disasters. Fortunately this is the only recent measure of the kind thus far enacted, but it is greatly to be feared that it will not long retain its solitary position, unless the spread of the false doctrine throughout the West is speedily checked.