BOOK REVIEWS: Ashley, Economic History, Part II.-Fowler, City-State of the Greeks and Romans.-Sloane, French War and the Revolution.-Walker, Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism.-Fuchs, Handelspolitik Englands.— Juglar, History of Panics in the United States.-Ripley, Financial History of Virginia.-Mahan, Influence of the Sea Power upon the French Revolu- THE YALE REVIEW A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE. THE YALE REVIEW is owned by The Yale Publishing Company. It is edited by Professors GEORGE P. FISHER, GEORGE B. ADAMS, HENRY W. FARNAM, ARTHUR T. HADLEY, and JOHN C. SCHWAB. 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 history and political science. It is published by Messrs. TUTTLE, MOREHOUSE & TAYLOR, 371 State 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 PROF. JOHN C. SCHWAB, New Haven, Conn. Copyright, 1893, by The Yale Publishing Company, New Haven, Conn, Government for the Minority and by the Minority: Clearing House Loan Certificates: Professor Jowett as an Educator. THE HE conduct of the minority in the Senate in opposing the repeal of the silver purchase clause is the worst case of the kind with which we have had to deal in American politics; but unhappily it does not stand alone. The same sort of thing has been repeatedly done near the end of Congressional sessions, when a few members have had it in their power to defeat action by talking against time in the closing hours. There was an historic case of this kind in connection with the Wilmot Proviso, and a threatened case, which served its purpose, in the tariff legislation of 1883. Such obstructive tactics are the logical outcome of a theory which makes members of Congress responsible to their districts or their States, rather than to the country as a whole. Condemn as we will the conduct of the senators from the silver states, for thwarting the wishes of the country for the sake of a locality,-they are only doing in a flagrant case the same sort of thing which is done over and over again in River and Harbor bills and other expenditures of public money. The average congressman thinks of the good which comes to his district, and not of the harm which comes to the public treasury. If the district can gain at the expense of the nation, he deems it his duty to promote such gain. We have had a case of this sort in Connecticut in the last few weeks, where certain towns had paid a large sum of money to have a certain bridge transferred from the charge of the towns to that of the State. The circumstances attending the payment of the money were suspicious; yet most of the towns concerned refuse to investigate the matter, for the thinly disguised reason that they got more than their money's worth out of the State treasury. So dear is the privilege of appropriating general funds to special uses, that the beneficiaries of such a process shut their eyes not only to the real character of the transaction, but to the means by which it is brought about. The silver question in its present form offers an instance of the same general sort. The silver mining districts seem to gain by the continuance of silver purchase; therefore the senators exhaust every means to continue such purchase in defiance of the expressed will of the rest of the country. But in the light of Congressional traditions, why should they not do so? If it is right to convert the capital of the country to local or partisan uses under pretext of legislation, it is a very slight sin to exhaust every parliamentary resource to prevent the majority from repealing such legislation. The long continued existence of a treasury surplus, and the outrageous pieces of special legislation connected with it, have so undermined Congressional ethics that representatives and senators both have very hazy ideas of the application of the eighth commandment to public moneys. Many of them, to all intents and purposes, believe that it is right to take public money for district uses, if the majority votes that way; and they are no doubt honestly shocked at the silver men, who want to continue the same course when the majority does not vote that way. But respect for majorities will never take the place of respect for the Ten Commandments, even though it may appeal more forcibly to the average politician. The only safe thing to do in the long run is to take strong ground against stealing in all its forms; even against stealing from the nation, in behalf of a district, under cloak of law. The financial troubles of the past summer will not have been without their uses, if they can be made to throw light upon the best method of solving some old problems of finance. One of the troublesome problems of the last crisis was that of meeting a sudden demand for loanable funds at a time when the usual supply was locked up. It is obvious that an increase in the total money supply of a country renders practically no aid at all in meeting this difficulty. The circulation of our country, for instance, has been steadily increasing during the past thirty years. In 1863 it amounted to $17.84 per capita, in 1883 to $22 91, and on October 1st, 1893, it amounted to $25.29. A large amount of currency in a country does not, therefore, imply a large supply in the vaults of the banks. A resort can, of course, be had, under our national banking laws, to national bank notes, and the effect of the crisis of July was to create a demand for additional issues, the national bank circulation having risen during the single month of September by $9,700,000, and during the twelve months preceding by $35,900,000; but this is at best a slow method, and is not available on short notice, nor is it easy to contract the issues when the crisis is over. The banks of New York, and some other cities, therefore, resorted to a measure which had been adopted occasionally before, though never on so large a scale, and issued clearing house loan certificates. These are certificates of deposit issued by the clearing house to any bank that needs them, and secured by such securities as may be acceptable to the managers of the clearing house. They are available for paying clearing house balances, but not for any other purpose. They are, of course, not legal tender, and they are only good among the banks that agree to accept them. Nevertheless, they have the effect of releasing, for general banking purposes, the currency that would otherwise be held back to pay clearing house balances. They have, therefore, the effect of increasing, as far as they are available, the loanable funds of the banks, and they do this on a very large scale. The maximum amount of certificates issued in the three cities of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, was over |