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ment is according to faculty, and so in each widening circle of dimin- ishing benefits. Professor Seligman cites the decisions of the federal courts in support of his contention; but in his discussion of "the police versus the taxing power" he condemns their decisions as con- tradictory and confusing. But passing from the name to the sub- stance, one needs not to look to the corrupt management of our great cities to see much that is evil in the essence of the special assessment system. Even in our small municipalities where politics and boodle are yet unknown the system is anything but satisfactory when tested by the doctrine of equivalents, and none are less charmed with it than the municipal authorities who make use of it. There is at least an open question whether a system of local areas of general taxation would not work more equitably, such as is the basis of the rate for sewers in English towns. Taxation according to faculty for such improvements as special assessments cover in America might well tend to a diffusion of benefit according to faculty.
Exception has been taken to some of the minor details of this vol- ume, but in its emphasis of the trend historical, scientific and experimental toward the incidence of taxation upon faculty, it has done good service for the student of finance. JOHN J. HALSEY.
Studies in Economics. By WILLIAM SMART. Macmilian & Co. 1895. Pages 322. Price, $2.75.
DR. SMART is an economist and a disciple of the Austrian school who has also been an employer of labor. It is interesting to find a writer with such intellectual and business antecedents presenting groups of studies in Wages, in Currency, and in Consumption from a stand- point that is distinctly that of sociology. Of the ten essays contained in the book, the title of the last but one "The*Socializing of Con- sumption" gives the keynote to the whole series, whilst the closing thought of the last essay " Industry in the Social Organism" thus reproduces it :
"No considerations of the sacredness of private property or freedom
of bequest should be allowed to obscure the fact that the birthright of
human soul in a civilized country is an education, a training, and
finally, an occupation, that will make it possible for him to n
himself in what we know to be the only true life the life of thought."
Utility rather than value is emphasized as "the last word in Polit-
