NOTES AND MEMORANDA.

AMERICAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION.-The Association continues the issue of its valuable series of monographs. The 1890 numbers are very varied in character. The most interesting is the account of the "Industrial Transition in Japan," by Dr. Yeijiro Ono. The political revolution in Japan seems to have left the industrial condition of the country almost untouched. It is still a "relic of feudalism; " each district produces for its own needs. The rate of wages varies enormously in different districts; e.g. "Osaka and Kioto have been connected since 1877 by a railroad of twenty-seven miles length, yet the rate of farm wages in the former is five yens per month, against one yen and seventy-two sens in the latter." The land-tax is the main source of revenue, and Dr. Ono calculates that it is equivalent to an income-tax of 16 per cent. on agriculture. The farms are exceedingly small, the usual size being about five acres. At present the tendency of population is to flow from the towns into the country, although the proportion of the people living in towns of over twenty thousand was in 1886 only 11 per cent., as against 60 per cent. in England. Manufactures are quite undeveloped. What manufacturing industry there is, is chiefly of the domestic type. There are only 217 factories in the country, and the wages of artisans are considerably below those of agricultural labourers. Dr. Ono expects the industrial change to take the form of a complete remodelling of the agricultural system, accompanied by the development of manufactures, especially in silk and porcelain, on a great scale. In agriculture what is needed is the application of the principle of division of labour as between different parts of the country, so as to substitute a diversified production for the present uniform system. But there is no such passion for agriculture as in England in the eighteenth and earlier half of the nineteenth century, and rich landowners to make agricultural experiments are badly wanted. Dr. Ono feels strongly the need for exportation of cereals on a large scale to keep up the price, and so to give a stimulus to farming. The progress of manufactures will be best promoted, he believes, by free trade rather than a protective policy; but he speaks strongly on the need for the abolition of the existing commercial treaties with foreign states, "forced upon Japan by the cupidity of England." This

is a necessary preliminary to a thorough reform of taxation, with the aim of lessening the incidence of the land-tax on agriculture, by imposing higher import duties, and at the same time of relieving agricultural products of all export duties. The revision of the commercial treaties would not only make fiscal reform possible, but also, on the other side, promote the influx of foreigners, and of foreign business ability and foreign capital, into Japan. No doubt this will involve a rapid dislocation of the whole industrial system, for industries still "in the feudal stage" will be exposed to the competition of European entrepreneurs. The danger is serious, and the blow is likely to fall heaviest on the unskilled farm-labourers. Dr. Ono in general is not at all in favour of government regulation of industry. "Great social or industrial reforms. cannot be imposed from without," he tells us. "They spring rather from the awakening vigour of society itself, the result of conditions which are largely independent of artificial stimulus." But he thinks that, in Japan, Government may relieve the dangerous pressure which threatens in two ways: first, by fostering in every way the mobility of labour; and secondly, by adopting a gradually developing legislation to regulate the relations of labour and capital. The whole paper is well worth study. The facts are set out in a lucid and orderly fashion, and are in themselves of exceptional interest. Lastly, the paper is adorned by a thoroughly Japanese map.

The rehabilitation of the canal is the aim of two essays published as a single volume: "The Canal and the Railway," by Dr. Edmund J. James; and "Canals and their Economic Relation to Transportation," by Mr. Lewis M. Haupt. The writers think that the tendency at the incoming of railways to throw on one side the waterways as an exploded system of communication went much too far, partly in consequence of the supposed interest of the railways in their abolition. Dr. James shows that to a great extent the system of water-carriage is recovering lost ground, and both writers desire its extension. One important function of the canal is as an automatic regulator of railway tariffs. Thus the Erie Canal directly or indirectly determines railway rates throughout the States down to a line where the cost of ocean carriage from New York to the Gulf cities becomes the regulator of railway fares. Another point brought out is that the canal is not to be regarded simply as a competitor with the railway, but rather as a valuable accessory. By the cheap passage which it offers, the canal. stimulates industries, large parts of whose produce, as soon as they are established, are carried by the railways.

Two other essays combined in a single volume are those of Mr. W. Willoughby and Miss Clare de Graffenried on "Child Labour." VOL. I.-No. 3.

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According to the admirable practice of the Association, a prize was offered by a private donor (through the Association) for the best essay on this subject. Two essays were bracketed first, and they are here published together. They deal with the matter from very different points of view, and are, to a certain extent, supplementary to one another. Mr. Willoughby treats the subject as a systematic inquiry, to be approached with the aid of reports, statistics, and so forth; Miss de Graffenried gives the result of her own observation and inquiries in a less systematic form. Both essayists concur in looking to legislation of the type of the English factory legislation as the best remedy for the evils which they point out and deplore. One point which comes out is that the American system is not nearly so effective in securing the education of children, as might be expected.

The "History of the New York Property Tax," by Dr. J. C. Schwab, is a learned and full investigation, mainly of local interest, into the history of finance in New York State and City, while Dr. Simon N. Patten discourses with clearness and emphasis on "The Educational Value of Political Economy." Dr. Patten has an interesting theory that the best sciences for educational purposes are not the purely deductive sciences, like mathematics, nor again the purely inductive sciences; but the sciences which are in process of transition from an inductive to a deductive stage, and therefore give examples of both types of reasoning. Such a science is Economics at the present time, and he therefore looks forward to the supersession of the older training in mathematics and physics by a training in economy and social science. It is to be hoped that the newly-formed British Economic Association will see its way to doing in this country some of the work which the Association is doing so well in America, and especially as regards (1) the printing of monographs of scientific interest, which no ordinary publisher would undertake, and (2) the encouragement of younger economists by the occasional offer of prizes.

DOMESTIC SERVICE IN CANADA.-It is related by General Booth ("Darkest England," p. 189) that, “in Canada, the girls are taken out of Rescue Homes as servants, with no other reference than is gained by a few weeks' residence there, and are paid as much as £3 a month wages." This statement would, perhaps, have been correct if, instead of Canada, General Booth had said in some parts of Canada; but of Canada as a whole it is absolutely incorrect, and likely to do harm by raising exaggerated ideas of the wages to be obtained here. In all those portions of Canada which lie within comparatively easy reach of England, and which contain nineteen twentieths of the population of

the whole country,-in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario, a thoroughly trained and competent woman with excellent references would find it impossible to secure wages at £3 a month. According to the Report issued by the Bureau of Industries of Ontario for 1889, the average monthly wage of domestic servants living in farms throughout the province was $6 61 cents, or £1 7s. 6d. No statistics of the kind have as yet been collected in relation to service in cities and towns. The wages there are certainly higher. Toronto they probably reach their highest level. A general servant, who can undertake washing and ironing as well as cooking and housework, usually receives ten dollars a month; though, in exceptional circumstances, where especial competence or skill is shown, this is raised to twelve dollars. A girl who cannot undertake the family washing must be content with nine dollars. A nurse or house-maid earns from seven to nine dollars. Girls going to a place direct from a home of the kind General Booth refers to are usually ready to take a lower than the average wage; though, doubtless, after a short time, if they prove tolerably competent, they are able to get the same as other women. It is certainly easier for a servant without good references to get a place here than it would be in England. I gather that, in Montreal, wages are, if anything, lower than in Toronto; in Halifax they are lower by one or two dollars a month, and this is the case in the smaller towns of Ontario also. The journey to Manitoba or the North Western Provinces, and still more to British Columbia, is so expensive that few domestic servants find their way there. In British Columbia I am informed that women servants receive twenty-five dollars,= £5 4s. 2d., a month, which is the usual sum paid to a Chinaman undertaking the same work.

But in Ontario, as I have pointed out, ten dollars, = £2 18. 8d., are the highest wages that a girl without any special training could possibly acquire. If she were only fit for farm or country work, she would not earn more than from six to seven dollars a month.

There are other differences besides that of wages between domestic service in England and in Canada; and it is necessary that these should be understood by intending emigrants, and still more by those promoting emigration. First, in relation to the rougher class of girls, who are only fitted for work in farms. Owing to the length and severity of winter, the greater part of the work of the year has to be crowded into the five warm months; and during that season masters and servants, men and women alike, have to work exceedingly hard, and no one who is not very robust can at all support the strain. The stress of work in summer has other more unfortunate consequences.

Almost every farmer employs several additional men during the summer. These it is impossible to get from the adjoining districts, as no one settles in the country who cannot secure steady work for the greater part of the year. The extra labourers belong to a shifting homeless class, chiefly of unmarried men, who in spring go out into the country to seek work on farms or in the lumber trade, and who flock into the cities as winter comes on, and add to the already large crowd of unskilled labourers for whom there is not sufficient employment in the winter months. The "hired hands" are boarded and lodged in the farms where they work through the summer season. The accommodation is frequently quite insufficient; and farmer's family, women servants, and hired hands are crowded into a space that was originally intended for one family alone. Evils naturally result from this state of things, and it is most important that young girls who are sent out by philanthropic agencies to Canada should be regularly visited, and watched over by some responsible person other than their immediate employers. In a thinly inhabited country, with as yet no leisured class, it is far more difficult to arrange for such inspection and care than at home.

The drawbacks to domestic service in towns are nothing like so serious. Servants are, on the whole, treated with consideration; and the drudge of the English lodging-house, I suppose, hardly exists. A good deal of liberty is allowed both as to evenings or afternoons out, and in the receiving of a girl's friends in the kitchen on her evenings in. These advantages are to some extent counterbalanced by the amount of work expected from the average general servant. And it must be remembered that by far the greater number of servants in Canada are general servants. The girl who expects to receive ten dollars a month wages must be a fair plain cook, understand housework, wait at table, and do the whole washing and ironing for the family. She is, on the other hand, saved from one of the heaviest duties of the English servant in winter. The houses are usually warmed by hot air; the master of the family himself attends to the furnace by which the pipes are heated; and open fires are rarely used. Still there is little doubt that a trained English cook or housemaid would lose by coming out to Canada. The additional work demanded of her, and the increased cost of clothing would outweigh the advantages of a higher salary. A strong active girl, however, who is not fit for the highest kind of service at home, would do well by emigrating, especially if she fretted under the strict supervision and observance of class distinctions insisted on by most English mistresses.

But there is one drawback to emigration which is never fully