"The Expenses of the Sovereign " Tins latest and m ost substantial
addition to a famous series is well up to standard. Like several other volumes in that series—Mr. D. H. Robertson's Money, for instance—it combines a clear and un- ambiguous statement of those parts of its subject-matter which are agreed common ground for all economists with an adventurous spirit in regard to the more controversial remainder. Such a spirit is particularly desirable in dealing with the subject of public finance, which under the impact of full-employment theory has shown many of the characteristics of a plant exposed to radio-active influences. One of the most satisfactory things about Mrs. Hicks's book is the way in which she indicates, clearly but without rigidity, the debatable frontiers of her subject. Here in the account of Parliamentary pro- cedure or the analysis of federal fiscal problems, it merges into political theory; here, in the discussion of socialised industry, it shades off into the as yet only half-explored realm of "public economy "; here in the matter of balanced and unbalanced Budgets, it impinges on Keynesian economics. This concept of public finance as something more than mere accountancy or the art of comparatively painless taxation is one of peculiar value from both the- intellectual and the civic points of view. Not that Mrs. Hicks neglects the hard central core of her subject. It is even arguable that the closely-knit analysis of the chapters in which she deals with the clissical problems of incidence, the varying effects of taxes levied at different stages of the productive process and the theory of consumers' surplus is disproportionately stiff consider-
ing the public to which the Cambridge Economic Series addresses itself—a public which, while not completely innocent of economic knowledge, is not exclusively composed of experts. A great deal of the book, however is written at a level of practical commonsense description and discussion ; the compilation and presentation of the national accounts, the nature and deficiencies of Parliamentary and departmental controls the relations between central and local govern- ments are subjects failing into this category. Mrs. Hicks's treatment of any of these topics would make an admirable starting-off place for any discussion group, from the tyro to the highly expert. Her attack on the problems of incentive is also particularly good; the passages in which she deals with income tax and especially PAYE should be required reading for anyone venturing to hold an opinion about Budget-making.
Her last section, entitled The Future of Public Accounting, con- tains a strong plea for the adoption of the Swedish system of the double Budget—on income and on capital account—and for such reforms in the presentation of the national balance-sheet as shall make it genuinely and accurately informative both to policy-makers and to the citizen at large. Here, as in so many fields, the feasibility of policy—in this case the policy of full employment—is seen to rest in the last resort no more on intrinsic theoretical soundness than on the humdrum foundation of adequate statistics and trained admini- strative personnel. Greatly as British practice has improved over the last half-dozen years, it has far to go before reaching the standards, in respect of the collection and use of economic data, on the one hand of Sweden and on the other of the United States. It should not be beyond the capacities of a country which has in the course of its history led the world in the solution of so many constitutional and administrative problems to solve this related problem also.
HONOR CROOME
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