Political Science

THE unrecognized influences of our late war in moulding and quickening certain of our American qualities, because of our nearness to the events, has been little considered; but it is quite clear that the effects of the struggle, working perhaps with other factors, are wide-reaching and important as touching our national character. There occurred a sudden and prodigious deflection of the nation’s energies from peaceful, private occupations to matters of great and vital concern to the whole country. Certain it is that the years since the war have given birth to a livelier and more energetic participation in civil duties and in the discussion of public questions, and have witnessed a very considerable diminution in that neglect of political duties, and the apathy arising from a good-natured submission to public abuses, which may almost be said to be synonymous with the word “ American.” The war plunged us at once into the settlement of extraordinary problems of taxation, government, international law, and political economy, and proved that we had no class of carefully trained men in this country from whom successful publicists could be recruited in the time of our greatest need. The ready adaptability of the American mind was shown clearly enough by the way these demands upon us were met, and by the discussions which, while often discreditable to our experience and honesty, were yet generally based on an honest desire in the mass of the people to face the difficulties; but the vast number of financial blunders with which the course of our war was strown were sad evidences of the lack of training in our public men, even though they were proofs of such unbounded resources as make gigantic blundering but a harmless diversion. The stimulating effect of great national necessities on our political thinking is undoubtedly to be seen in an increased avidity for instruction, attended by a corresponding increase in publication, and even by the endowment of special schools of political science in the great universities of the country. And now American publishers boldly offer large and costly works on these subjects.

The present book ¹ is an example in point, and so far as it answers our undoubted needs it should have a warm welcome. As a people we need instruction, and we need the best. It is always a question whether the lack of unity in treatment by a wide range of writers conduces as much to clearness of thinking as to breadth of thought; but in this encyclopædia we miss the guidance of a strong and vigorous editor, one who could so arrange the selection of articles as to lead up to a complete and rounded whole, and restrain the vagaries and hobbies of specialists within the limits of a general purpose. It is a reckless waste of space in a book of political science, intended for American readers, to admit papers on Bourgeoisie, Brahminism, Buddhism, Chivalry, Cæsarism, Crusades, Christianity, Churches, Congregations, Councils, even though they are written by men like Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, and Bluntschli. Had the account of Brahminism explained what life is in the inmost fold of the Boston social onion; had that of Chivalry pointed out why Blaine was “ a plumed knight ; ” or had Cæsarism disclosed the secrets of Washington political life in past administrations, it would have been quite another thing. But the articles on Brahminism and Buddhism, moreover, do not deserve a place because they are behind the times. The religion of the Hindus is spoken of as if it could have come from “a person who first conceived the system,” or as if we were to say that the Reformation was conceived by Luther, and took place at a certain date; while in fact Buddhism was a thing of gradual growth. The author maintains the old idea that Nirvâna meant annihilation of the soul, without hinting that later scholars, like Rhyst-Davids, think it was the extinction of lust in the human heart. We note great irregularity of spelling. The Hungarian Csoma de Körös appears as Cosma ; and, from ignorance that dh was one letter, we find such a division into syllables as Budd-hism (as if we were to write At-hens). The remark in the preface that “ there is no more a German, or French, or American political economy or political science than there is a German, or French, or American science of astronomy or chemistry,” is no explanation whatever of the presence of these articles in a work of this nature, for they do not belong to either subject. The articles over the signatures of French writers are, as a rule, translations directly from either Maurice Block’s Dictionnaire de la Politique, or the Dictionnaire de l’Economie Politique of Coquelin and Guillaumin. Within about a hundred pages there are perhaps a score of papers transferred directly from these sources, and with a corresponding flavor of age about some of them. It was well to select Lavergne’s account of Agriculture from Block’s work, rather than H. Passy’s from the other and older dictionary; but it makes one a little impatient to find that this title in a work intended, as the preface says, for “ members of our state and national legislatures ” should have not one word in regard to American agriculture, which is at present one of the greatest factors in our industrial activity. The unprecedented crops of a few years ago, by their effect on exports and the consequent flow of specie to this country, made resumption possible. Nor is a word said about the probable future of Western agriculture, nor about our competition with Europe in breadstuffs.

The general subject of American political history is in the hands of a most competent authority, Mr. Alexander Johnston, and the reader can always be assured of good fare at his table. The articles to be classed under political economy disclose a bias in favor of the historical school by the selection of the late Cliffe Leslie as a writer upon Definitions in Political Economy and Cost of Production. It is likely that ill health would explain much of the captious and quibbling, although keen, criticism which this lamented economist directed against the English school. While the subject of finance is treated in most cases by men of special fitness, yet it is a disappointment to find that the really essential points in banking are not clearly elaborated. Of the three functions of banking, issue, discount, and deposit, the latter is not considered worthy of distinct treatment; while in fact the experience of the Bank of England since the Act of 1844, which separated the issue from the banking department, has shown that the difficulties of banking rest not, as people have generally supposed, with issues, but rather with the management of discounts and deposits. The intimate connection between these two items in a bank account and their relations to the reserve are not discussed here, and but briefly outlined in a too short paper by Edward Atkinson. So important a question deserved fuller treatment. It is well within the truth to say that more than eighty per cent. of deposits in this country are credits arising from discounts. And without understanding this in its effect on the reserve, no one can intelligently follow the movements of foreign or American banks, and watch the changes in coin reserves. Moreover, the title, Discount, is simply treated arithmetically, and all the principles of banking dependent on these two functions are passed over, except so far as they receive incidental attention from writers on other topics. The fact that the short article on Alloyage is a direct translation from the work of Coquelin and Guillaumin explains why it is not stated that the amount of alloy in our own coins is 1/10, while previous to 1837 it was 1/12. In Director Burchard’s article on Coinage, he exhibits his little foible as to the cause which drove silver out of circulation subsequent to the act of 1834. He certainly knows that in this country the value of silver in the bullion market was so much higher than its value in coin, as estimated relatively to gold by the act of 1834, that silver was worth more as bullion than as coin, was melted to gain the profit, and disappeared from circulation. And this took place wholly apart from legislation, and because of changes in the natural value of the two metals. But the director of the mint holds that silver vanished from circulation only because France and other European nations had established different legal ratios, which made it profitable to send silver abroad. As a matter of fact the trouble arose from having two legal standards in metals which could not, in the nature of things, keep the same relation to each other. The change in value was the cause ; the journey of silver to France or elsewhere was a mere accident of trade and distribution.

The articles on the American Merchant Marine and Distilled Spirits by David A. Wells, Banking in the United States by Comptroller Knox, Functions of Banks by Edward Atkinson, Chinese Immigration by Henry George, Civil Service Reform by Dorman B. Eaton, Conseils des Prud’hommes by Joseph Weeks, Customs Duties by E. J. James, Debts by R. P. Porter, and the numerous contributions of Mr. Johnston are most excellent as showing the superior practical qualifications of American writers, and would of themselves make the encyclopædia worth having.