Abstract The article presents information on the comparative survey of professional organization and practice in various parts of the world. International meetings in all professional fields have become part of the normal pattern since 1945, but there is something deeper, more significant than social intercourse which draws accountants together. It is the desire to ensure the widest possible exchange of principles and procedures and to work toward the achievement of international auditing and financial reporting standards which will advance the finance and enterprise of both mature and underdeveloped countries. It is increasingly apparent that members of the U.S. profession must familiarize themselves with international profess- spinal developments as well as with international economic and political affairs. Without this specialized knowledge they cannot make a full contribution to the efficient operation of U.S. companies domiciled in foreign countries and to the encouragement of venture capital to flow overseas.

Abstract This article discusses the teaching of social accounting. In the last ten years, the two fields--accounting and economics have been drawn closer together, because professional accountants and professional economists increasingly utilize the same data in their work. The highly technical literature on depreciation policy and inventory valuation is sufficient to indicate that an unequivocal concept of either business income or national income is scarcely possible under current conditions. In other words, an accountant or an economist frequently must outline his own set of definitions, the over-riding consideration being the usefulness of the definitions, with the long-term aim of achieving greater uniformity. In the development of useful accounting principles, the practitioner has not confined himself to transactions made within business enterprise. Generally speaking, practicing and teaching accountants have not devoted enough effort to the bold experiment of correlating their discipline with that of the many-faceted field of modern economics.

Reviews the book "The Golden Book of Management: An Historical Record of Seventy Pioneers," edited by Lyndall Urwick.

Reviews the book "The Accounting Field," edited by Donald Cousins.

Reviews the book "Individuals' Saving: Volume and Composition," by Irwin Friend and Vito Natrella.

Abstract The article focuses on the centenary of the Scottish Institute of Chartered Accountants. The one hundredth birthday of the oldest accounting body in the world, The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland was celebrated by two thousand people, including representatives of fifty-four professional societies, in Edinburgh in June 1955. In the welcome address by the president of the institute, the president stressed that the facts that a grant of a charter to a body was no warrant of monopoly and that the future of a great profession was not created by letters after a name, but by industry, integrity and service. That Institute members could say without fear of contradiction that their founders had created an honorable profession and a designation, 'chartered accountant,' known and respected all over the world. The Scottish Institute had a great tradition of service to the community, not only in Scotland but in every part of the world and it is with a full consciousness of our responsibilities that chartered accountants dedicate themselves to those higher aims.

Abstract The article focuses on the accounting education in Australia. Upto the year 1954, only the University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, had a well established curriculum of accountancy. A full-time student normally takes four subjects a year. The honors course is a four-year one in which the compulsory subjects are covered in the first two years, after which the student enters the final division, comprising special honors lectures and seminars, with examination at the end of the fourth year of his studies. During this last year he is also required to submit a thesis on a subject within a specialized field of his own choice. The first of these courses is regarded as an introduction to accounting method, with students required to maintain a small set of double-entry records. It covers the theory of accounting and interpretation of transactions, ledger, journal and its subdivisions, trial balance, control accounts and subsidiary ledgers, preparation of reports, balance day adjustments, unsystematized records, non-trading enterprises, partnerships, joint stock companies, closing accounts of vendor, funds statement, departmental accounts, branch accounts, consignments, joint ventures, columnar accounting, analyzed journals and auditing.

Abstract The approach to courses for all fields of accounting, public, private, cost, tax and governmental, represents something of a paradox today. Viewed by some as too practical for admission to the cultural-centered liberal arts curriculum, by others as a field of graduate study, these courses on many campuses have been sustained largely by the intellectual prowess of faculties and the ever-increasing demand of students for practical training in areas of employment arising from the war and post-war economics. Even the most cursory glance at recent college catalogues reveals that accounting courses appear under a variety of departments, most frequently under business administration or social science, but sometimes correlated with instruction in mathematics, statistics or secretarial studies, and less frequently as part of the pre-engineering or pre-law curriculum. Teachers of all phases of accountancy in liberal arts colleges, and indeed in other institutions of higher learning, have made a valiant, if at times a somewhat ineffectual, effort to train students to cope with the rapidly shifting economic climate, and to relate the complex technical knowledge of this age to human progress.

Abstract British accountants have made an important contribution to the Commonwealth, in recent years, as a result of the Labor Party's plan to nationalize 20% of the economy. This section included the Bank of England and seven major industries-civil aviation, cables and wireless, coal, electricity, gas, cotton and transportation. In each of the fields named, public corporations were set up to operate the enterprises concerned in the national interest. Parliament placed the entire responsibility for operation of the coal industry upon the National Coal Board with no reference to divisions or areas, but area boards were appointed in the gas and electricity industries and in the transport field a number of executives were appointed to serve as the Transport Commission's agents. Compensation was not on a uniform basis. For the Bank of England and Cables and Wireless PLC, for instance, it was established on the basis of net maintainable revenue; for railways, air transport and electricity it was set on stock exchange quotations at stated dates and for collieries, on a global amount fixed by a tribunal.

Abstract One of the most important reports in recent British experience is that of the Company Law Amendment Committee appointed by Great Britain Board of Trade in June 1943, to consider and report what modifications are desirable in the Companies Act 1929, as of January 1946. This document not only provides the best available resume of traditional and contemporary accounting and financial practice in Great Britain but offers eighteen major sets of recommendations for the improvement of company law. Although the detailed testimony of experts appearing before the committee may not merit the consideration of American accountants, specific proposals offered for the improvement of auditing and business procedures provide interesting contrasts between current English and American accounting techniques as well as vital areas open for improvement. Asserting its belief that the system of limited liability is essential to the nation's prosperity, the committee envisages the necessity of protecting the investor and enhancing his control over company managements without imposing unreasonable restraints upon ethical business.