illuminating suggestions and timely warnings, meant to promote the scientific character and practical results of their work.

"ac

Measurements are frankly regarded as means to an end, i. e., curate and comprehensible description that makes possible the visualization of complex phenomena." It is this that the scientific investigator, the social worker, or the social reformer needs in order to comprehend the magnitude of his problems and their relations. The reading of the latter part of the book will promote a better understanding and a more common-sense discussion of the problems connected with standards of living and economic progress. Economic phenomena are included under the term "social," which is to be distinguished from biological phenomena. The task is to "determine what are the facts which it is essential to know and devise a means of ascertaining them."

The discussion covers such topics as the following: the relation of persons to geographical area, and the significant subdivisions of area for purposes of enumeration; the classification of individuals within a group according to occupation and industry, and according to social position as determined by occupation, income or habits; the classification of individual and family incomes; the nature of family income; the methods of measuring the consumption of individuals and families, and the difficulties in securing and interpreting family expenditures; the meaning of standards of living, and the relation of minimum standards to poverty; and the significant elements involved in the measurement of economic progress.

The illustrative material is drawn from English sources but the principles developed have a far broader application. The chief merit of this book appears not so much in the author's statement of what it is desirable to measure in precise terms, as in his scientific limitations of the things which can be measured with sufficient accuracy to warrant conclusions of value. The need for well-understood definitions of the things measured, and for comprehensive classifications within which the specific thing measured finds its proper place and relations, are emphasized by illustrations from actual data.

Difficulties and pitfalls are clearly set forth in terms of concrete material. It is by such methods of procedure that statistical data may be rendered more accurate at their sources, in the collection and tabulation. No amount of effort expended on refined methods of handling data after they have been gathered and tabulated, can compensate for vague and ill-defined terms and inadequate classifications which have already hopelessly confused the raw material of an investigation.

ROBERT E. CHADDOCK.

Depositenbanken und Spekulationsbanken. Ein Vergleich deutschen und englischen Bankwesen. By ADOLF WEBER. München und Leipzig, Duncker und Humblot, 1915.-xvi, 384 pp.

Bankpolitik. By FELIX SOMARY. Tubingen, J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1915.-xi, 289 pp.

Das Depositengeschäft der Berliner Grossbanken. By GUSTAV Munchen und Leipzig, Duncker und Humblot,

MOTSCHMANN.

1915. xxi, 662 pp.

Covering, from quite different angles, some of the latest developments of both theory and practice in German banking, these three volumes offer an excellent review of the situation in that branch of business existing prior to the European War. Dr. Weber remarks that, while it proved impossible to add to the contents of his volume subsequent to the outbreak of the struggle, much that had occurred prior to the time of his last writing had confirmed, and little or nothing had tended to disprove, his conclusions. The other volumes frankly deal with conditions as they were before the opening of the contest. All, therefore, relate to what, in the rapid march of recent events, must be regarded as a past era in banking abroad; for, however farsighted and able the analysis and conclusions offered, much that has happened could not have been foreseen, much will call for further description and explanation, and some at least of the material is already behind the times. The group of volumes, nevertheless, affords an excellent body of basic information for the use of those who would thoroughly examine from an historical standpoint German and general European banking problems as they will exist at the close of the struggle. They must, in the light of recent events, be regarded as incomplete, and their conclusions must be received with some caution at important points, but they supply a distinctly useful body of data. Very interesting comparative statistical matter is embodied in each of the studies, either as appendices or as additions to and illustrations of the textual discussion.

Dr. Weber's work is probably-to American readers at least-the most interesting of the three volumes. Chiefly devoted to a comparison of the merits and demerits of the German and English systems of banking, it contains a sufficient amount of introductory historical matter to enable the general reader to follow the theoretic analysis of current practice with intelligence. The first portion of the study is devoted to the development and tendencies of note-issuing institutions in

the two countries; from this attention is shifted to the organization and business of the Spekulationbanken -the commercial banks as we should call them-of England and Germany. From one standpoint the book may be described as a comparison of the note-and-reserve systems on the one hand, and of the commercial and investment banking institutions on the other. Dr. Weber discusses with special care the drift toward the concentration of business in the hands of the "great banks" a tendency regarded as the necessary outgrowth of the steady increase in the size of the business unit all over the world-the development of the branch system, the various forms in which commercial loans are being currently made, the capacity of the various types of institution for earning dividends, the degree of safety they afford to customers, and finally the points at which reforms are needed.

It would be impossible to do more than mention one or two of the more striking points developed by the author, but among these should be noted his argument designed to show the growth in recent times of an over-expansion of credit in both countries through the use of the acceptance, and the failure, particularly in England, to guard the liquid condition of the bank assets with adequate care. As to the former point Dr. Weber makes it clear that great as is the utility of the bank acceptance in the development of the discount market, very slight errors in judging credit may make it an exceptionally dangerous element in the situation at almost any moment. The great recent expansion of the acceptance business in England has, according to the author, been carried to a point which promises that it will early equal that of the German banks, although the development even with the latter "nicht so erschreckend ist wie es manchmal dargestellt wird." A point of difference more important than the mere amounts of the acceptances is that, whereas in England the acceptance is chiefly used to effect transfers or shipments of goods, in Germany it serves also the purpose of a means of making production loans. The general expansion of credit obligations as compared with cash has been a notable feature of banking development in both countries for several years past and indicates a condition of declining " liquidity." Various ways of overcoming this danger are noted and special stress is laid upon the need of better bank examinations. The English system of examination is, however, regarded as far from affording a pattern for other countries.

Dr. Somary's work, Bankpolitik, is more dogmatic and general in character than the descriptive discussion of Dr. Weber. Nevertheless it is by no means abstract, since it affords a good many practical illustrations and analyses. The author first analyzes the idea of the bank