THE YALE REVIEW A QUARTERLY JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC DISCUSSION OF ECONOMIC, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL QUESTIONS. Vol. X. No. 2. CONTENTS August, 1901 COMMENT, Friedrich List and German Nationalism; The Retirement of Von Miquel; The Functions of the Modern Exposition; A Postal Anachronism. THE SUPREME COURT AND THE INSULAR CASES, PAGE 121 129 Simeon E. Baldwin DIRECT TAXES AND THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION, III, 144 THE MEASUREMENT OF UNEMPLOYMENT: A STATIS- 188 William F. Willoughby NOTES, 203 Concentration in Retail Trade; Municipal Electric Plants in Massachu- BOOK REVIEWS, Böhm-Bawerk's Capital und Capitalzins; Cheyney's Industrial and Social 211 THE TUTTLE, MOREHOUSE & TAYLOR CO., 125 TEMPLE STREET, NEW HAVEN, CONN. Entered at the Post-Office, New Haven, Conn., as Second-Class Mail Matter. THE YALE REVIEW A QUARTERLY JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC DISCUSSION OF ECONOMIC, POLITICAL, AND SOCIAL QUESTIONS. THE YALE REVIEW is owned by The Yale Publishing Company. It is edited by Professors HENRY W. FARNAM, W. F. BLACKMAN, E. G. BOURNE, JOHN C. SCHWAB, IRVING FISHER, and HENRY C. EMERY. Committed to no party and to no school, but only to the advancement of sound learning, it aims to present the results of the most scientific and scholarly investigations in political science, but contributors alone are responsible for the opinions expressed in the articles. It is published by THE TUTTLE, MOREHOUSE & TAYLOR Co., 125 Temple Street, New Haven, Conn., to whom all business communications should be addressed and all subscriptions paid. All communications relating to articles, book reviews, exchanges, and editorial work in general should be addressed to THE EDITORS YALE REVIEW, YALE STATION, New Haven, Conn. Copyright, 1901, by The Yale Publishing Company, New Haven, Conn. THE YALE REVIEW. AUGUST, 1901. COMMENT. Friedrich List and German Nationalism; The Retirement of Von Miquel; The Functions of the Modern Exposition; SIXT A Postal Anachronism. IXTY years ago, in 1841, List published his "National System of Political Economy." The work appeared on the eve of the complete triumph of free trade in England, and the reception given it in the author's own country seemed to him but a continuation of the misunderstanding that had followed him through his life except for the brief interval of his residence in America. Five years later List died by his own hand, a broken-hearted man, his last years embittered by the consciousness that "the School" had triumphed. It remained for a later generation to recognize his service to his country, and seldom has such recognition been accorded in fuller measure than to the great German agitator. He is now regarded as the clear-sighted prophet of the modern German nation. For List's "protectionism" was but an incident in his doctrine of "nationalism." In his scheme protection was to be but a temporary means to the desired end. What he prophesied was not a mere system of high tariffs, but a national German policy, which should combine a uniform commercial policy and a uniform foreign policy for all Germany, and which should secure not only a flourishing manufacturing industry, but an expansion of commerce and a complete economic independence by means of a national system of currency and banking, a national system of weights and measures, a national diplomatic and consular service, a national system of railroads and canals, and a national fleet. In the modern German state these prophecies are fulfilled, and it has been well said by a modern economist, in relation to List, that history is in league with genius. The recent growth of nationalist feeling in Germany has naturally increased the admiration for List, and the questions that have aroused most public interest have been questions in which his influence could not fail to make itself felt, on one side or the other, the naval question, the canal question, and the question of protection and commercial treaties. A good instance of this influence both on style and on argument is found in the two small volumes of essays that appeared last year, contributed by leaders among both the older and the younger economists, to the popular agitation for the naval bill. In these essays a vigorous German "Handels-und Machtpolitik" was advocated, and the unscrupulous craftiness of the Anglo-Saxon was denounced in a manner which even List might have envied. It is, however, interesting to note that List's specific arguments for protection have undergone a marked change. The most important tariff question in Germany to-day is that of a high or low tariff on agricultural products, and the agrarian party seem able to resist every attempt at compromise. But List maintained that protection to agriculture would always be useless, and that the corn-laws had proved themselves the only great mistake in England's wise commercial policy. When List wrote, however, Germany was an agricultural nation without a developed manufacturing industry and List's ideal state required a combination of the two, or, in Carey's phrase, a union of the loom and the plough. With the growth of Germany the loom has triumphed, and in the opinion of many the plough is in grave danger. It cannot be said that under such conditions List would have modified his views, but the most conservative agrarian sympathizers argue that List's own ideal of a balanced condition of agriculture, manufactures and commerce, that is a complete economic independence, now demands protection to agriculture. And to them the condition of England, which to List was an example, has become a warning. Again List, who recognized the wisdom of England's adoption of free trade, looked forward to a period when all leading nations should adopt free trade on a basis of industrial equality. Protection was advocated as a temporary aid to Germany and the United States during the tutelary period. Now, however, that the leading nations do stand on a practical equality, this condition is urged as a chief reason for the maintenance of some degree of protection. So far as any protectionist feeling is to be found in England, it rests on the fact that the United States and Germany have become her industrial rivals. It is urged that a profitable international division of labor is not secured when several nations compete in producing the same goods for the same markets. The present fate of these two theories of List, though the time for their justification may be approaching, furnishes interesting illustration of the manner in which arguments, used at one time on one side of the protectionist controversy, become under changed conditions arguments for the opposing side. The retirement from office of the Prussian statesman Von Miquel under conditions that hardly add to his reputation, cannot fail to recall his great services to the cause of tax reform. The fact that a minister of his force and ability has seldom been removed with so little disturbance to the course of public affairs makes it all the more desirable to give credit where it is due. A contrast is at once suggested by the recent retirement from the leadership of his party of the other great finance minister of the decade, Sir William Harcourt. The latter retired because his stubborn adherence to the principles which he had so long and so ably defended made him unacceptable to a party which had become demoralized by a lack of definite principles. Von Miquel, on the other hand, had followed such a tortuous course regarding recent questions of principle and policy that he finally lost the confidence of all parties and of the Crown as well. The Prussian minister, however, as a financial reformer will stand even higher than the more consistent Englishman, and that he was the latter's equal as an astute parliamentarian was shown by his skillful political handling of the reforms of 1891 and 1893. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that Von Miquel has proved |