Knowledge that Transforms

THE Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Commerce has issuied a most timely publication 1 on the present economic condition of Russia. It is probably not too mtuch to say that most of what has heretofore been written on that subject in the English language is worse than worthless. Gentlemen very successful in various walks of life where scholarship is not a prerequisite for eligibility, as a rule ignorant of any language but their own, and too busy to familiarize themselves with whatever literature there is on the subject in English, undertake to write on the economic, political, social, religious, and intellectual life of a nation with a territory twice as large as that of the United States, with a population of some one hundred and forty millions, composed of 1nore than a hundred national and racial groups, speaking as mniany languages, and having, in many cases, a long historical career preceding their incorporation in the colossal empire. It is therefore very gratifying that at this moment, when public interest in Russia has been stimulated by the war, the Bureau of Statistics has found among its specialists one able to draw for information upon original sources. The author of the volume in hand, Mr. Morris Jacobson, has given in his monograph a much broader view of the economic condition of Russia than the conventional title Commiercial Rtssia suggests. The principal subjects treated are: industrial development; state finances and public credit; public debt; currency; railways; agriculture; the depression of I900; domestic industries; coal; iron and steel; mineral oils; the textile industries; sugar; foreign commerce and trade with the United States; Siberia; and commercial effects of the Siberian railwav. The appendix contains detailed statistical tables, the most important of which relate to the following subjects: population, according to the census of r897, by geographical and administrative divisions; the movement of population at each of the eleven censuses beginning with that of I722; the population of cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants; the number of schools, teachers, and pupils; the imperial budgets for 1893-I904; area and ownership of land, and area under cultivation; production, exports, and consumption of

FOR the second time in the history of the federal census the statistics of wages have been made the subject of an exhaustive special report' prepared under the direction of an expert statistician. The publication of this volume marks an important point in the development of wage statistics in the United States, and it seems worth while to consider at some length certain questions regarding it: (i) How does the scope of the inquiry differ from that of previous census investigations into wages? (2) In what respect is the method of presentation and tabulation new, and what are the relative advantages or disadvantages of this method of treatment? (3) What conclusions are reached regarding the trend of wages during the decade? The one other census volume which gives a detailed presentation of wage statistics is the work of Mr. Joseph D. Weeks for the Tenth Census. Many of the data collected are for a period of fifty years, and while the scope is much broader than that of Professor Dewey's report, which presents returns only for i890 and i900, the latter is immeasurably superior in the completeness and accuracy of its statistics;2 and, indeed, it would be saying that there had been small progress in statistical method in the last twenty years if this were not so. Except for this work of Mr. Weeks, all wage statistics in the census up to the present time have been included in the Census of Manufactures, and in general their purpose has been to show the