The Theory of International Trade. By C. Francis Beatable, M.A.
(Hodges, Figgie, and Co., Dublin.)—Professor Beatable expounds in this volume what may be described as the scientific basis of the Free- trade system. Free-traders ought to be able to give a reason for the faith that is in them, especially in these days when England is, as it were, Athanasius contra mundum. There are certain practical argu- ments which are sufficiently effective; bat we cannot afford to neglect the scientific side of the question.—In Speculations from Political Economy, by C. B. Clarke (Macmillan and Co.), various practical questions connected with the science are discusaed. Mr. Clarke propounds, for instance, a scheme of " Universal Free-trade." All Customs and Excise duties are to be abolished, and the necessary equivalent is to be raised by direct taxation. The sum he names is £40,000,000. But surely it should be more. All the branches of revenue that would be left would be Stamps, producing £12,500,000, House and Land-tax, 23,000,000 ; Post Office and Telegrams, £9,500,000; Crown Lands, £400,000; Interest and Miscellaneous, £5,000,000,—making a total of, in round numbers, £36,000,000. The Income-tax would have to be £50,000,000 to meet an estimated expen- diture of R86,000,000. As to the collection, would not the machinery required for getting eightpenee a week out of every wage of a pound be somewhat elaborate 2 We should like to know bow many receivers of weekly wages—we might say, how many outside the propertied, professional, and mercantile classes—pay the tax. He would be a hold man who would propose to extend the tax to incomes of twenty ahillings a week. Another scheme is a "National Rate- Book." Every owner is to value his land, and anybody else is to be at liberty to buy it at a certain advance in price. In "Making the Most of our Land," some very grave considerations are urged against peasant-proprietorship. Then we have "Free-trade in Railways!' Any person or company shall be free to make a railway wherever they please. Hardly " wherever," we suppose. Not through West- minster Abbey, for instance. Mr. Clarke's is an interesting volume.
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