To write a charming book upon " economic problems "
is not an easy task. Mrs. Fisher has, however, accomplished it I Her object is to throw a light upon modern economic problems by describing those which beset this country, after the war, a hundred years ago. Readers, even though they have no interest whatever in economics, may delight in her picture of town and country life before and after the Napoleonic wars. " There is something about the agricultural question which makes it difficult for many people to think coolly," as she truly says. If we could but do so we should " surely feel that our difficulties, _pressing as they may be, compare favourably with those of our ancestors." The housing question was far worse a hundred:years ago than it is now, when one-fifth of the population of Liverpool lived in what were practically cellars. Country roads, which had to be levelled each year by ploughs drawn by eight or ten horses must have made the transport of
goods difficult, and " flocks of sheep and cattle, droves of geese and turkeys, two and three thousand at a time, which slowly walked up to London from a radius of a hundred miles round," must in' themselves have created a serious traffic question. The whole book contains less than 120 pages, and though packed with information it is as easy to read as a short story. As a school book it might be a source of great pleasure and profit to this generation of girls and boys.
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