be shown on separate maps. A special department dependent on the Finance Minister created technical and judicial commissions, and instituted central and provincial commissions; a regular hierarchy set to work on a task to which that of Sisyphus was a trifle. In valuing the land, no account was to be taken of special culture or high farming, or of partial or total neglect. The value of the land was to be estimated according to its actual production, each product being rated at its minimum price during three years between 1874 and 1885, and the difference between specie and paper money being taken into ac count. The revision of the land-tax was to take effect in thirty years. The provinces were to pay the expenses of the technical boards and of the provincial commissions, to furnish house-room, furniture, and fuel for the necessary offices; the communes to pay the cost of measuring and defining the boundaries of their respective territories, and to pay their local officers and agents for the publication and notifications necessary; the proprietors to pay the cost of measuring and defining the boundaries of their several estates. All the other expenses were to be borne by the Government. Such were the chief features of the famous bill, the framers not hesitating to fix 7 per cent. as the land tax to be levied on the net income derived. It was provided that any province wishing to accelerate the operations and advancing half the expenses, should be allowed to do so, and, if the task was completed in seven years, should be allowed to apply the 7 per cent. rate provisionally. The Government would reimburse the provinces for their advances.

The debate on the bill was serious and animated. Venetian Lombardy, Modena, and other heavily taxed territories instructed their Deputies to support it, and at once demanded accelerated operations; but the opposition of the lightly taxed provinces was strong and cogent. Perfectly impartial persons maintained that while a land survey was necessary to ascertain the actual quantity under cultivation and the incidence of taxa. tion, it was imprudent then and there to fix the rate to be applied. Agriculture, especially in Sicily and some of the Neapolitan provinces, was progressing; the low price of wheat, the enormous competition of America and Russia in those days when protection was heresy, had led many proprietors and even peasant farmers to plough up their fields and plant vines, especially when the phylloxera had destroyed so large a portion of the French vineyards, and the treaty of commerce with France was so favorable. Others declaimed against the injustice of estimating the value of the land by the actual produce, so that a landowner who had spent time, money, and intelligence in draining, manuring, and tilling his land would be highly taxed, whereas absentee owners of latifundia, or feckless farmers who had let their land run to waste and neglected its culture altogether, would come off lightly in direct ratio to their negligence. The members of the advanced Left opposed the whole project on financial grounds. Cairoli, Baccarini, and Crispi demonstrated that the bill as it stood would entail on the country hundreds of millions, and would occupy half a century, so that when the object was attained, when the quantity of land possessed by each individual with its net income in 1856 should be ascertained, such would be the transformation of agriculture-owing to scientific culture, amelioration of agricultural appliances, the varia. tions in the nature and demand of foreign

markets-that the rate of taxation paid in 1886 would be unjust and insupportable in the next century. The Marquis di Rudini, a large landowner of Sicily, then a pillar of the moderate church, joined in with the dissenters, prophesying that instead of equalizing the burdens the bill would double the inequalities, and produce a fatal regional agitation between the northern and southern provinces.

Crispi, on December 7, 1885, demonstrated the fallacy of the estimative catasto, admit ting the wisdom of "taking stock of the true state of the great factor, land." The estimative operations, he said, will not result in equaliz ing the land tax, and, reviving painful memories, will arouse such distrust in the country as will prevent their being brought to a success. ful conclusion. The estimates as to the productive value of land will always be hypothetical, will never be able to fix the actual income subject to taxation; and when the operations are concluded, the real income from land will differ essentially from the official es. timates. He returned to the charge in January, 1886:

"If, letting the value of produce and the estimate of income alone, confining yourselves to a cadastral survey of the land, you ascertain the amount of cultivable soil and the present owners thereof, you will have data which will enable you to arrive by other methods at an approximate system of equable taxation."

So ardent was the discussion that a yea-andnay vote was insisted on, the Opposition being determined that their hostility to the bill should pass down to posterity. The majority voted for the Depretis-Magliani bill; the chief Liberals voted for Crispi's amendment. Operations were commenced with alacrity, and millions have been lavished during the last nine years. The project was modified in 1894, but it was clearly seen that the wheels were clogged and the machine would not work. Sonnino, on the 25th of November, quietly observed that, without taking into account the expenses devolving on the provinces and the communes, the state would have to spend 182 millions more, provided the work con tinued at its present slow rate, whereas the transformation of agriculture is so great that the estimates of 1886 no longer apply, so that the whole work ought to be accelerated to avoid further injustice. This the finances of the country do not permit. More than 7 mil. lions have to be repaid to the provinces which have accelerated the cadastral survey; other 10 millions for the estimates of value. The

application of the fixed rate of 7 per cent. already reduces the land tax by more than 10 millions; ergo, increased expense, decreased income. Can we, he asks, continue on this perilous path? In some provinces the reform of the land tax will be effected in a few years; in others, thirty or thirty-five years may pass before it can be completed.

"Already," he continued, "the agricultural conditions of the country are transformed; the vine culture is in a deplorable state, owing to the cessation of the French market; wheat is again grown on a large scale, owing to the protective duties on foreign grain. Moreover, in the application of the law of 1886 intrusted to local bodies, the estimates presented by neigh boring provinces are so diverse that it is evi dent they are neither true nor just. We must halt while there is yet time on this path that leads to ruin. The Minister of Finance will present a bill for the continuation of the ca dastral survey, for the cessation of the estimative catasto, for the reimbursement to the provinces of the sums expended with 5 per cent. interest from the date of the advances. These sums amount to fourteen millions, the interest to two millions, which will be paid in seven years. The annual sum of three millions

will be set aside for the cadastral survey; no term for its completion can be fixed."

Boselli, Minister of Finance, presented the draft of his bill in conformity with the speech of his colleague of the Treasury. Its provisions are, that the cadastral survey shall be completed first in the provinces which demand acceleration in the proceedings; in the Modenese territory the provinces will not be called upon to advance further sums, but will be repaid for all outlays in the past-the land tax to remain at its present incidence until another bill for estimating the actual value of product and the net income derived from it shall become law. All estimative valuations are to cease; those already made to have no immediate effect.

The sudden, violent agitation produced by this bomb raged for about a week, threatening to sunder the ministerial majority. Out of the nine offices, or committees, whose duty it is to examine ministerial or private bills, six rejected it in toto. The Economista of Florence had a furious article on the "iniquitous project." But already the agitation is calming down, and to this have contributed not a little some of the few survivors of the old Radical party, who have ever sought the true interests of the country, and not their own aggrandizement.

The suggestions for arriving by economical and expeditious methods at a general idea of the land-tax now paid on every 100 lire of net income are numerous. Two seem to us rational, if not original. G. B. of Ravenna proposes that the Government fix the sum to be exacted from the land in the form of a tax, nominate a commission to apportion the quota among the various agrarian regions, taking its data from the reports of the Agrarian inquiry; then, that the provincial and communal authorities proceed to the distribution of the sum total among the landed proprietors within the given districts, who must supply the details of their net income. The writer is of opinion that the work can be accomplished in two years. At present all the collectors of the land-tax have an approximate roll of the actual incomes of each landowner, which they take care to rectify if understated, so that to apportion the contribution of each with a view to make up the sum total does not seem an impossible achievement. Deputy Canzi, well versed in agricultural matters, who from the first opposed the estimative valuation, proposes to base the land-tax on the declarations of the respective landowners, after due exami. nation and rectification. The venerable patriot Gabriele Rosa approves this proposal. The Sole, the best Milanese commercial and industrial newspaper, says that this system is gradually gaining the approval of landowners in Venetian Lombardy. Meanwhile, the parliamentary commission, with Luigi Luzzatti for President, is in daily communication with Sonnino and Boselli, whose latest proposals are to repay the sums advanced, to lessen by two millions the land-tax at present paid by the provinces which accepted the accele rated survey, to augment by 50 centimes the duty on the importations of foreign grain. As yet the ministers and the commission have not

come to terms; but it is certain that Sonnino will resign rather than recede from his abolition bill, nor do we believe that any other ministers of the Treasury or of finance could be found who would dare to burden the country with the payment of 130 unproductive millions. The debate on the bill by the Chamber of Deputies will scarcely be entered on during the present year. J. W. M.

tury, and not ask your readers to ramble with me farther among these relics of the eighteenth century, even though under the breath of intelligence these dry bones regain life and significance in the present time.

MONCURE D. CONWAY.

Correspondence.

THE MAIN QUESTION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION:

SIR: In your excellent issue of December 19 you say:

"For what do obedience to the law and reliance on the law mean if not the surrender of one's own will, the concession to others of the power of deciding disputes in which one knows one is right?"

Very true; and at this particular juncture many people will apply it to Lord Salisbury's refusal to submit his case to the decision of others, even though he may be absolutely sure that within the Schomburgk line he is clearly within his irrefutable rights. True, he is not herein amenable to courts that can enforce their decrees; but there is the forum of enlightened and Christian opinion, which we trust will make war more and more impossible between civilized countries. I am not arguing that he ought to have submitted the matter to arbitration-especially to a nation that came at him with bristles up-but your weighty sentence will be applied to this case by very many of your readers.

As to the President's motives. Has he not shown his sturdy integrity and unfaltering courage too often for us to assume that all this was done as a political scheme for a renomination? Has he not deserved too well of the republic to be arraigned on such a terrible charge? It seems to me that he has. And while very many of his enthusiastic admirers have to cut loose from him now on this policy, we need not go to the extreme of accusing

him of a crime so heinous.

The best we can say for him is bad enough; but that need go no further than to dissent from and strenuously oppose his new doctrine. The writer had sincerely hoped to vote for him as our next President; but all that is gone now. Moreover, he has, I take it, lost the sup port of the Herald; for it can hardly continue to favor his renomination after saying in its editorial of Friday, December 20, that the Monroe Doctrine applies to the present case only by the most "mischievous and violent stretching."-Yours respectfully,

SOUTHERNER.

[There can, in international dealings, be no obedience to a law which does not exist, and the nations have never yet agreed to formulate the cases in which they will rely on arbitration to the exclusion of the very thought of war. To promote such an agreement in the existing state of civilization, efforts to secure arbitration in any given instance must be limited to friendly advice with purely moral insistence. No nation, by its behavior after arbitration had imposed definite obligations upon it, has more disqualified itself for thus helping on the cause of arbitration than has the United States; and this is what makes the present situation a tragi-comedy.

Mr. Cleveland's motives we leave for time to reveal. His political opponents in Congress notoriously regarded his action as a partisan manoeuvre, which they could foil only by rushing madly to the support of it. In other words, the Republican Congress, like the nation at large, did not really want war with England. This explanation, strange to say, does something to redeem the national character. But then, what did Mr. Cleveland really want? Was it war buncombe which the House is now following up with tariff-for-revenue buncombe ?-ED. NATION.]

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION:

SIR: Although I esteem the Nation very much, I cannot refrain from telling you that your paper, in my opinion, has done more to necessitate a war with England than all our Jingoes combined.

The influence of the Nation is far greater in England than in this country. Being read exclusively by very intelligent and highly educated people, the English statesmen are compelled to presume that the opinions and judgments published by it are those held by the American people. For, in England, the classes of society corresponding to the circle of your readers control the Government. They will, therefore, think that all steps taken by the American Government, the message of Cleveland, etc., concerning the Venezuelan controversy are but campaign tricks, especially as they are used to similar manoeuvres in their own elections. Consequently, they will treat the demands of the United States in such a way as suddenly to be confronted with the necessity either of sacrificing their personal and national honor and prestige or going to war.

As a matter of fact, as soon as the question of war-and of war against England-arises, you are perfectly powerless. Since we have waged, during the first century of our national existence, four wars, our history is a history of war. Young America leaves school and enters life with two impressions, that England is our hereditary foe, and that the greatest thing a man can do is to fight for one's country. Besides, a very considerable portion of our people, almost one-third, is of Irish descent and looks upon a war with England as a

holy war. The greatest inducement, however, is that war brings not only honor, but also pensions. For these reasons more than ninetenths of all Americans, women included, will seize with the greatest enthusiasm the first pretext for a war against England.

We may be sorry for this state of affairs, but we have to recognize it if we try to preserve peace. Whoever strengthens and confirms Great Britain in her resistance to fair and just demands on the part of the United States unchains the dogs of war.

represented the people of the United States as In the Venezuelan controversy you not only a peace-loving nation, but also did everything to convince the Englishmen of the justice of their claims against Venezuela. They must say: "Why should we submit to arbitration ? All intelligent Americans are with us. tell us that, even if the land occupied by us originally belonged to Venezuela and not to

They

us, we nevertheless ought to hold it, because we enjoy a higher state of civilization than and ideas will not render the British statesthe Venezuelans." That such presumptions men more fair and engaging in their responses to the notes of our Government goes without

saying. As a kind of umpire you might have shown from the beginning the weakness and the danger of the English position. By weak. ness I mean the apparent injustice in their in the awakening of the war spirit in America dealings with Venezuela. The danger consists for it is certain that England in such a war has nothing to gain, but much to lose.

Yours respectfully, WM. WEBER.

BELLEVILLE, ILL., December 24, 1895.

[We commend our correspondent's portrait of the American people to whom it may concern.-ED. NATION.]

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION:

SIR: I have read every number of the Nation since I first subscribed for it in 1872, but it has never elicited my esteem and admiration more than it has done by its righteous indignation and protest against the war "craze " now possessing the American people and their rulers. I heartily sympathized with the contempt the Nation expressed for the political prayer of the new Congressional chaplain, and with the wish of your correspondent, Rev. A. A. Berle, that the chaplaincy be abolished as a sacrilegious nuisance.

It has pleased Providence to teach some na. tions only in the bitter school of experience the lessons of righteousness and common sense; and it may be that the "bumptious" conceit of Americanism will be relieved, and its foolish delusions dispelled, by the disastrous consequences of a war with England, in which we should lose far more than England, and gain nothing. Egyptian and Indian cotton would more than ever supplant our Southern staple in European countries; their planters would get from ten to fifty cents for their cotton, our planters could not get more than three or four cents for theirs. Our exports of all kinds would cease, for they are mostly carried in English vessels. We should be helpless to prevent England supplying itself with all the cereals it needed from Argentina, Russia, and

Hungary, not to speak of Canada. By the time one of our "commerce destroyers" (the very name indicative of mediæval barbarism) crossed the Atlantic to attack England's com merce, her bunkers would be depleted of coal and she would lie, a helpless hulk, at the mercy of her enemies. England has coaling-stations and war-vessels everywhere; we have no coal

ing-stations, and our few war vessels would have to protect our own exposed coasts. So

clearly in the wrong are we that we could not count upon the sympathy or coöperation of a single European nation. The more we consider the numerous questions raised by the possibility of war between Great Britain and ourselves, the more are we astonished at the

fatuity of those who are egging it on.

The sentiments expressed by the Nation in discussing this question seem so like those I ex.

pressed in an impromptu speech made in the

session of the National Educational Association at Toronto in 1891, that I take the liberty

of cutting them out of the Journal of Proceedings and sending them to you. The ques

tion discussed was whether we teachers should celebrate a "Patriots' Day" and encourage Jingoism:

"True patriotism is the endeavor to elevate my country's standard of honor up to that which is right and true, and I should love my country for that in her which is devoted to righteousness. I should love the truth and righteousness which God has given us, and seek to bring my country up to it. I am not to make patriotism, therefore, the end, but rather the means by which I may hope to

bring the nation to a love of truth, to a love of righteousness. I do not think the observance of any Patriots' Day will ever attain that result. The time wasted or spent in that could be better spent in educating the young men in those moral truths and principles which will make the citizen seek that which will be for his country's highest good; hence it is not patriotism in itself we are striving to attain, but it is love of truth, of right and righteousness. Patriotism is nothing more than this; that is the highest patriotism."

WM. R. ATKINSON.

S. C. COLLEGE FOR WOMEN, COLUMBIA, S. C.

NEGRO FOLK-LORE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION:

SIR: In your recent review of Prof. Edwards's 'Bahama Songs and Stories,' I was interested in seeing the persistence of an old formula for closing a story,

"E bo ban, my story's en'," which is, with apparent probability, traced back to an ancient English form,

"Be bow bended, my story's ended."

I may add to this that, when a boy in Virginia, I was familiar with a similar expression, invariably used in stories partaking of the marvellous, which ran, in atrocious rhyme, "Be bo bum, my story's done."

ROLLA, Mo., December 27, 1895.

Notes.

C. DE K.

MACMILLAN & Co. have in press 'The King's Peace,' by Mr. Inderwick, Q.C., in the Social England Series, The Spraying of Plants,' by E. G. Lodeman of Cornell University, 'Alternating Currents and Alternating Current Machinery,' by Prof. Dugald C. Jackson of the University of Wisconsin, and 'Brown Heath and Blue Bells,' by William Winter; and in preparation a translation, by Dr. W. B. Shober of Lehigh University, of Dr. Ludwig Gattermann's Die Praxis des Organischen Chemikers,' and a new edition of Sir Thomas Browne's 'Hydriotaphia, and the Garden of Cyrus,' edited by the late Dr. Greenhill.

David Nutt, London, announces 'Greek FolkPoesy,' being annotated translations from the whole cycle of Romaic folk-verse and folkprose, edited by J. S. Stuart Glennie, who also contributes an introduction on the science of folk-lore, and a conclusion on the survival of paganism. There will be two volumes, for the prose and verse respectively.

'Old Faiths and New Facts,' by W. W. Kins ley, will shortly be published by D. Appleton & Co.

W. B. Clive, 65 Fifth Avenue, is about to issue 'Inductive Logic,' by J. Welton, M.A., lecturer on Education in the Victoria University.

That dialectical differences in the language of a nation may lead to practical difficulties, is illustrated by the circumstances which have induced the Allgemeiner Deutscher Sprachverein to offer two prizes for essays on the naming of plants. Some of the common plants of Germany bear more than a hundred different names in the various parts of the country, and the want of a generally recognized popular denomination has made itself felt in the schools, where botany forms an important and attractive branch of study. A thorough discussion of the whole subject, and especially of the principles according to which names

should be selected, is to be the task of the essayists.

The Almanach de Gotha for 1896 (Gotha: Perthes; New York: Westermann) has been kept within bounds, partly by the ingenious device of omitting from the genealogical portion such families as have been slack in returning their proofs to the editor. This rod will regularly be held over the delinquent hereafter. On the other hand, the editor enlists in his behalf as purveyors of information the attachés of embassy or legation, who have never before been honored by being named in the diplomatic lists, though in the European service at least their turn is assured of ultimately becoming secretaries and chiefs. The colonial world has been yet more carefully described, as one may see by reference to Italy's African possessions, now in so much peril. The four portraits embrace President Faure, Prince Hohenlohle-Schillingsfürst, Chancellor of the German Empire, and the Duke and Duchess of Aosta-she that was the Princess of Orleans.

'Hazell's Annual' for 1896 (London: Hazell, Watson & Viney) deserves the customary commendation for its useful contents, arranged both on the dictionary plan and to a certain extent in classes; see, for example, the more than fourteen pages given under Engineering to railways, canals, sewers, harbors, dams, bridges the Boston subway, the Bournemouth Undercliff Drive, the Niagara utilization, the Manchester water-supply, the Simplon Tunnel, etc. The personal and statistical information displayed in this "cyclopædic record of men and topics of the day" is of the most extensive and varied character, and will supplement any book of reference of its kind. There are several new maps possessing timely interest.

Mr. William Tallack, the Secretary of the Howard Association of Great Britain, has prepared an enlarged edition of his well-known work, 'Penological and Preventive Principles,' which is published in London by Wertheimer, Lea & Co. For thirty-seven years Mr. Tallack has, through his connection with the Howard Association, been in a position to observe not only the opinions of those accustomed to deal with criminals, but also the practical working of many different systems and theories of reformation and punishment. While the dif ferences, both practical and theoretical, that prevail in these matters are notorious, there has been much progress made toward unity of methods, and in some directions practical unanimity has been attained. Certain readers, as Mr. Tallack adnits, will deem his frequent references to the influence of Christianity to be irrelevant. We do not find ourselves of this number, but at all events such references may be omitted by readers who dislike them, and the chief substance of the book will remain unaffected. On the whole, we are not acquainted with any book better adapted to the use of those who are interested in the study of the modern methods of repressing crime.

We are glad to see that Dr. William Smart of the University of Glasgow has published (through Macmillan) a collection of his essays; the title of the volume being 'Studies in Economics.' The author is perhaps best known by his work in translating and expounding the theories of the Austrian economists, but these essays show that his own capacity as a thinker is of a high order. Whatever opinion we may entertain of the Austrian theory of value, we can say that it has no particular effect on the discussion of the problems here considered, which are in the main of a practical nature. The chief topics are the problem of wages in various aspects, the relation of prices to gene

ral production and to that of gold, and the economic results of different modes of consumption. We have not recently had the pleasure of examining any economic treatise in which the reasoning was more consecutive or more exempt from fallacy; and the spirit in which contentious matter is handled is worthy of the science developed by Smith and Ricardo and Mill.

verse.

Prof. Ewald Flügel of the Stanford University has just issued the first volume of his 'Neuenglisches Lesebuch' (Halle: Niemeyer; New York: Westermann). The volume is devoted to the time of Henry VIII., and contains about 350 large pages of text and some 250 pages of notes and indexes. The contents are selected on the basis of a remarkably thorough knowledge of the period and with excellent judgment. They embrace every kind of literature, religious and secular, in prose and in When extracts only have been printed, these are usually long enough to give the student a good idea of the style and character of the whole work. In this respect the editor has followed the excellent example of Mätzner's highly esteemed 'Altenglische Sprachproben.' The texts of the manuscripts or of early printed editions are reproduced with scrupulous accuracy. The notes, though necessarily uneven, contain much valuable information. No one who understands the importance of this transition period of English literature-a period commonly neglected on account of the inaccessibility of the materials for its studycan fail to feel profound satisfaction that so competent a scholar as Prof. Flügel has been willing to subject himself to the great labor of making such a book. The 'Reader' will at once take its place as an indispensable part of the outfit of every student of our language or literature.

A translation of the third German edition of Prof. Menshutkin's ‘Analytical Chemistry" has been made by Mr. James Locke, and is published by Macmillan & Co. The work which is thus made available to American and English students of chemistry is entirely worthy of their attention. It covers both qualitative and quantitative analysis, including under the latter short sections on volumetric and organic analysis. The treatment differs from that of many works on this subject in possessing a distinct pedagogic value. It is not a "cook book." Discussion of the methods of analysis and of the theory of the reactions which are involved, and the absence of analytical tables, stimulate independent thought and work, and lead the student to a broader understanding of chemistry. Analytical chemistry has been (and is still) too often taught in colleges as if it were an end in itself, to the neglect of its larger educational possibilities. A certain degree of ac curacy in manipulation and ability to execute correctly a certain range of analytical work according to set schemes is acquired; but too little stress is laid on the development of power to grapple with new problems. Menshutkin's point of view is indicated by this extract from his introduction: "Analytical chemistry teaches the art of chemical thought, which is the most important object of practical work. . . . Mechanical study affords no benefit whatever." We heartily recommend this book to the careful examination of all teachers of analytical chemistry. Mr. Locke's translation is fairly good.

We have already reviewed in these columns Prof. George L. Raymond's 'Art in Theory,' and commented, not very favorably, on his doctrines. In 'Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture as Representative Arts' (Putnams),