German industry certainly at the beginning greatly feared the burden, but up to date there are no reliable statistics to show whether such fears have been justified by experience. The financial charges, however, are of considerable account, and indications as to who are paying the bills must some day be made clear. As regards the relation of insurance laws to public charity, Mr. Brooks believes that there are as yet no pertinent facts to prove that the actual burden of charity has been lightened, but he also admits that it would be unjust to the legislation to discredit it for not having produced such results up to date.

Mr. Brooks asserts that certain confident claims which were made by early advocates for compulsory insurance legislation have not only not been fulfilled, but there is scarcely a sign that they will be. Bismark's idea that laborers would be made contented, the hope that certain classes of the insured would more readily go to the country, checking social-democratic propaganda, lightening the charity burden, inculcating habits of thrift, and creating harmonious relations between employers and employed, have none of them to any important extent materialized. These disappointments are of little consequence as compared with indications that results of the widest social advantage are to follow. The influences of organization of the highest social forces on such a magnificent scale are beginning to be felt, and judgment on ultimate effect must be delayed until a sufficient time shall have elapsed to give this profoundly ethical scheme a fair and impartial trial under the favorable conditions which Germany offers. Mr. Brooks believes that no mere material or strictly economic test can be applied to this legislation, and he would therefore rather direct the judgment to essential moral and educational influences which are beginning to be definitely established. Arousing the social conscience of a great nation, and training the national mind to grapple with this grave problem cannot fail to awaken distinctively hopeful influences elsewhere. All industrial countries will now watch in critical expectation, and if, as seems probable, labor and social insurance in some form will make the tour of the civilized world, others will gain wisdom from the pioneer experience of Germany.

E. R. L. GOULD.

Die Bauernbefreiung und die Auflösung des gutsherrlich-bäuerlichen Verhältnisses in Böhmen, Mähren und Schlesien. Von KARL GRÜNBERG. 2 vols. Pp. 432 and 497. Price, 16 marks. Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot, 1894.

German works dealing with the history of civilization have been directed recently with particular interest to the study of those great

social revolutions which, from the middle of the last century to the middle of the present one, have worked themselves out in most countries of continental Europe, especially in Germany and Austria, and which have been designated by the general expression, "the emancipation of the peasants." Knapp's book, "The Emancipation of the Peasants in Prussia" was the pioneer. The present author follows its example in picturing this social revolution in the three Austrian countries (Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia), which have been spoken of latterly as "the lands of the Bohemian crown. Here, as in other European countries, there existed from very remote times the institution of serfdom; that is, the agricultural peasant population was subject to the noble proprietors of the soil, and owed them services or dues in kind (feudal services). The state, as such, in the beginning did not trouble itself about this "subjected" population, the immediate control of which was exercised by the proprietors, who belonged to the nobility. This arrangement was not disadvantageous to the state, so long as the burden of carrying on war rested exclusively on the knights and lords; that is, on the nobles. It was, so to speak, the primitive political economy of nature. The state was defended by an unremunerated, noble proprietor class, and it ceded to them in return the use of the labor of the peasants. When, however, with the changed conditions in the conduct of war from the time of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it came about that the state could rely less and less on the knights, and was compelled to raise and pay its own armies, it was more and more to its interest to protect and uphold that class from which it derived its soldiers and revenue; that is, the peasant class. It was therefore natural that the state had to uphold this class more and more, and that it could not suffer the exploitation of this class at the hands of the lords and knights, who were emancipating themselves from taxation as well as from military service. From these causes originated those political measures which aimed at making the peasant population a free class, protected from the oppression of the nobles. These measures consisted in an interference on the part of the state with the relations between the nobles and peasants, the state's imposing ever contracting limits upon the oppression and on the exploitation of the rural population by the nobility, till finally, in our century, the government accomplished the complete emancipation of the peasants.

This whole development in "the lands of the Bohemian crown" is described by the author in the first volume on the basis of the material derived from the entire collection of the statutes and archives, while in the second volume he lays before us verbatim the material taken from documents. He begins, indeed, with an explanation

of the rural constitution (agrarian constitution) of these countries in the eighteenth century, draws us a true picture of "hereditary subjection," of the position of the land power, of the different "subject classes," and of their obligations to this land power. After he has shown us, in an historical review, the origin of these conditions in the previous centuries (before 1689), he takes up the political reforms which were set in motion at the time of the Empress Maria Theresa, and which consisted in the regulation of the obligations of the serfs. In this effort the Austrian government had to have some hard struggles with the representatives of the nobles, with the so-called “estates," who resented every interference of the government in this matter of the compulsory services as an unjustifiable usurpation. The energy of Emperor Joseph II. did, indeed, succeed in breaking the opposition of the estates, and especially in abolishing serfdom; but after his death a reaction set in, and the old order of things continued in only slightly ameliorated form till 1849. The abolition by compensation of compulsory services and the final "emancipation of the peasants" first came after 1848, as a consequence of the revolution in Austria.

This whole social development in the lands of the Bohemian crown is presented to us by the author on a basis of abundant material, and by this work he has rendered a lasting service, not only to the history of civilization in Austria, but also to the history of civilization in Europe. It is to be hoped that the next subject of the emancipation of the peasants in the other Austrian countries may find an equally thorough and careful investigation. Who will follow the author's example?

LUDWIG GUMPLOWICZ.

[Translated from the German by ELLEN C. SEMPLE.]

Ueber die Entwickelung der australischen Eisenbahnpolitik, nebst einer Einleitung über das Problem der Eisenbahnpolitik in Theorie und Praxis. Von Dr. MORITZ KANDT. Pp. xxxiv and 159. Berlin: Mamroth, 1894.

The history of the railway policy of Australia is of interest to Americans, because, starting under circumstances similar in some respects to those of the United States, that country has adopted a very different policy. The monograph before us is the beginning of a more presumptuous work. This part covers simply the experience of the most important colonies, especially Victoria and New South Wales, down to the time of the establishment of government ownership and operation. Dr. Kandt promises us later a discussion of the workings of

the government system to the present, with special reference to the way in which a competent body of officials was obtained by a democracy.

The Australian settlers were Englishmen who carried with them into new homes English institutions, English law and English laissez faire theories as to the proper functions of the state. Yet such has been the force of circumstances that they have moved in the direction of the extension of state functions more rapidly, perhaps, than any other part of the world. A careful, guarded, scientific exposition like the one before us, of the successive steps and struggles by which Australia arrived at her present system of railway operation, cannot fail to be instructive.

The first railway project was brought up in 1846 in the colony of New South Wales. At this time Gladstone was Secretary of State for the Colonies, and a dispatch sent by him to the governor of that colony, in that year, outlines the policy that the English cabinet had been, and was at that time, pursuing in relation to railways, and instructs the governor to follow, so far as possible, the same policy. Briefly stated, the main points of the scheme thus outlined by the eminent English statesman for the young colony were:* 1. That every law granting to a private company the right to build and run a railroad should be subject to revision and repeal at any time.

2. That in accordance with the principles of the general statutes then in force in England [7 and 8 Victoria, Chap. 85], the colonial government should retain the right to revise the rate of tolls and fix a new scale in cases where, after twenty-one years, the profits shall exceed fifteen per cent on the basis of seven years' business.

3. That the enabling act should contain provisions for the purchase of the road, if it shall be thought fit by the government, after a certain lapse of time and on definite terms.

4. That while numerous regulations may be necessary, they should not be so used as to hamper private enterprise.

But the realization of the hopes implied in this scheme was to be hindered by the weakness of private enterprise. The demand of the railways for land grants moved the British government to further interference. At the time of the adoption of the new constitution of New South Wales in 1842, an act had been passed regulating the acquisition of public land. By the provisions of this act, such land was to be sold at auction at not less than one pound sterling per acre. Despite much discontent with this method of disposing of land, the British government could be induced to make no greater concession than that the companies might acquire land without an auction at the minimum price.

* The whole dispatch is printed in the Anhang.

The first actually incorporated road was chartered in 1846. The important provisions of this charter were in accord with the suggestions of Gladstone's dispatch. The company was obliged to keep their accounts open to public inspection, and the rates could be revised if the dividend exceeded fifteen per cent. After twenty-one years the government had the privilege of purchase of the road at a price equal to twenty-five times the annual earnings on the basis of an average taken from the preceding seven years. In case the government guaranteed the dividends on the stock of the road, it should have a lien on the property of the road. The only clauses of the law not suggested by Gladstone were details such as the provision as to fencing and gates, to keep stray cattle out-a necessity in a stock-raising country. Other colonies introduced roads about the same time. Some of the regulations adopted by them are of interest in passing. In South Australia it was ordered that the company should allow each shipper to use his own cars and locomotive.

The chief interest, from this time on, centres in Victoria, which began to build roads in 1852. "To write the history of the private roads of Australia," says Dr. Kandt, “is to write the history of failures, since nearly all the private roads which arose on Australian soil led a miserable and short life; and the few which had a longer existence maintained themselves only by the help of extensive support from the state." The author regards the experience of Victoria as typical, and follows it hence through all its course. Unable to obtain

case.

land grants, and with weak credit, poor management and small traffic, private roads one after another fell into the hands of the government, to satisfy the claims which arose under the guarantee of interest. Most of the roads were acquired by the government soon after their completion. From 1868-78 there was only one small private road in Victoria. After 1878 the state road system was fully established. Dr. Kandt traces in detail the misfortunes of thirteen roads, and shows the precise grounds for the purchase of them by the state in each In conclusion he says, "The difference in conditions in the colonies rendered an imitation of the railway policy of the mother country impossible. Left to themselves and dependent on their own strength, no private roads could prosper in Victoria. Yet even with the support of the government within the bounds of a wise policy which kept the public interest in view, and did not allow railway building to be made the preliminary for land speculation, railway undertakings of great extent were not capable of life. It was not possible, therefore, for the colony of Victoria at that time to create a railway system, following the policy of England, and depending on private companies."