Knowledge that Transforms

M. LEVASSEUR'S second volume' is, if possible, even more enjoyable and suggestive than the first. Several leading economists called his work, when it appeared in its first edition, a model of acculracy. The present edition deserves this praise even more absolutely. The material on which M. Levasseur bases his presentation of the vicissitudes of industry and the laboring classes is in every respect excellent and amply jtustifies his views. If the reviewer, while examii]ing the wealth of illustration contained in the first volume, felt conmpelled to keep in abeyance any dissenting opinion of his, he feels still more so as he penetrates into the contents of the second volhme. with its vast storelhouse of information and the careful investigation on which it rests. The following pages will be, as before, an attempt to give the general reader and the student an idesq of the interesting contents of the volume. M. Levasseur in hiis work goes as much as possible into detail, and repeats himself frequently in an endeavor to be perfectly clear and simple. Our review is but a rapid summary of the most prominent features of thils importanit production, and has sufficiently served its purpose if it induces students to examine the volume for themselves. Wlihen the French crossed the Alps in I494, M. Levasseur tells US, they found in Italy manners more elegant than theirs, a refinement of civilization unknown to the North. Italy was to them like the discovery of a new world. It was then the richest country in Europe. Lombardy resembledl a garden; in the cities large numbers of the inhabitants were busy with industry and trade. Silk goods, gold and silver brocade. glass, fayence, perfumery, and other luxuries were fabricated tlhere. The satins and velvets of Venice and Genoa, the fayence of Bologna and of Urbino, the jewelry of Florence, Rome, and Venice, the glassblowers of Murano, were all renowned. Italy had become the international market of two worlds, and the general prosperity and the rivalry between

RECENT investigation has disclosed the fact that our reciprocity legislation in the past has not been the result of any systematic comlmercial policy. On the contrary, reciprocity has been clearly shown to have been the outgrowth of political expediency. Its origin has been traced in most cases to the exigencies of party politics. It has been pointed out, for example, that the reciprocity legislation of the I\IcKinley and Dingley laxvs wvas niot adopted for the purpose of inaugurating a regime of less restricted trade relations in which the tariff burdens of the consuminer woul(l be lightened, but that the provisions for reciprocal trade in both instances were clever political exDedients devised to placate those interests which wTere clamoring for tariff revision and the expansion of American trade. The irrisistible conclusion is, in short, that reciprocity has suffered in the past as a political makeshift in the hands of our politicians and statesmen, who, from an econoimic standpoinlt, have used it with a fine disregard of what the name is gelerally supposed to imply.' It may be addecd further that our reciprocity experience has had a broader political significance. It has been concerned with external as well as internal politics. Detailed investigation reveals important tendencies and results in the field of world-politics. From the point of vTiew of international relations the developments that have grownl out of our reciprocity history have been even more significant than the economic considerations or the questions of domestic politics involved. Some of our treaties, such as the convention with Hawaii, have led to controversies with foreign governm-nents regarding the most-favored-nation clatuse of existing treaties, and have given rise to an interpretation by our State Departm, ent of the favored-nation clatuse, entirely distinct from the European idea, in which it is held that reciprocity agreements are special arrangements to secure the advalntages of which another governmient 1mutst make grants similar to those conceded by the country with which the reciprocity treaty is made.2 The principal factor of international import, however, to be