The Economic and Historical Meetings at New Orleans; The Northern Interest in the Negro Problems; The Demand for Commercial Educa- 346 360 The Theory of Descent and the Social Sciences; The Report of the Massachusetts Committee on Relations between Employer and Em- Webster's General History of Commerce; Jenks's Parliamentary Eng- land; Hart's Actual Government as Applied under American Conditions. Entered at the Post-Office, New Haven, Conn., as Second-Class Mail Matter. THE YALE REVIEW A QUARTERLY JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC DISCUSSION OF ECONOMIC, POLITICAL, AND SOCIAL QUESTIONS. THE YALE REVIEW is owned by The Yale Publishing Company. It is edited by Professors HENRY W. FARNAM, E. G. BOURNE, JOHN C. SCHWAB, IRVING FISHER, HENRY C. EMERY, CLIVE DAY and ALBERT G. KELLER. Committed to no party and to no school, but only to the advancement of sound learning, it aims to present the results of the most scientific and scholarly investigations in political science, but contributors alone are responsible for the opinions expressed in the articles. It is published by THE TUTTLE, MOREHOUSE & TAYLOR COMPANY, 125 Temple Street, New Haven, Conn., to whom all business communications should be addressed and all subscriptions paid. All communications relating to articles, book reviews, exchanges, and editorial work in general should be addressed to THE EDITORS, YALE REVIEW, YALE STATION, New Haven, Conn. Copyright, 1904, by The Yale Publishing Company, New Haven, Conn. THE YALE REVIEW. FEBRUARY, 1904. COMMENT. The Economic and Historical Meetings at New Orleans; The THE meetings of the American Historical and Economic Associations in New Orleans were notable in many ways. This was not only the first meeting held in a State of the Confederacy, but it was also the first one which involved for many members a journey of considerable length on a special train, and thus gave them at once the opportunity of doing some sightseeing in their own country and ample time for social intercourse. Both of these elements are important adjuncts in the meeting of a scientific society, for many subjects can be threshed out in informal conversation much better than on the platform. The program of the Economic Association included a number of papers by practical men, and thus helped to bring the association into touch with the business interests of the South, much as it was brought into touch with some of the prominent labor leaders at the Philadelphia meeting. The most significant feature of the whole trip lay in the fact that the great majority of the visitors were from the North, who thus had an opportunity -many of them for the first time-of seeing something of the southern land and the southern people. The indirect effect of such a meeting together is sure to be good. As regards the papers which were discussed, comparatively few of them suggested anything in the nature of a debate. The one which seemed likely to involve the greatest difference of opinion, and to lend itself most readily to a clash of conflicting views, was the trust problem; but it was rather remarkable that, though this was discussed from varying points of view by five members of the association in addition to Professor Adams-whose opening paper was read for him in his absence-there was, on the whole, a surprising agreement among those who spoke. Professor Adams's paper itself was the most pessimistic utterance of the day. All of the speakers in the discussion seemed to agree in thinking that there were some natural limitations upon the powers of the trusts to injure either the consumer by high prices or the producer by depressing the price of raw materials, and that, while the legal and moral evils involved in the development of trusts had been very great, these could probably be overcome without resort to extreme or radical measures. Not the least noteworthy outcome of the gathering was the formation of the American Political Science Association, a fuller account of which is published in another part of this number. The creation of such a society had been under consideration for some time. The increasing number of scholars who are devoting themselves particularly to the study of politics, public law, and administration, and whose special work touches only incidentally the spheres of the American Historical Association, the American Bar Association, the American Economic Association and the American Social Science Association, caused a real demand for a common meeting place in which their interests would be particularly considered. At the same time there was a very general feeling that the multiplication of independent societies was undesirable, partly on account of the increased expense, partly on account of the increased demands likely to be made upon the time of those who might be interested at once in several of them. It is significant that, although the step finally taken was the creation of a new association instead of the formation of a special division of one of the existing associations, it was understood at the outset that the new body would endeavor to work in harmony with the two associations at whose meeting its birth occurred. Any steps which may be taken in the future towards a federation or a closer union of the several societies working on allied lines will thus be made easier. The negro problem was hardly touched upon, excepting incidentally, by any one but President Alderman of Tulane University, who devoted the greater part of his address of welcome to the subject. Whether this topic was tabooed because of the fear that it might raise sectional or political questions, or because it was thought to involve too many other considerations besides those of economics, it was conspicuous for its absence from the program. For this question is not only the question of the South-it is perhaps the sociological question of the country at large. President Alderman referred to the discussion of the negro problem as a veritable disease, and thus emphasized the hold which it has upon the intellectual leaders of the South. Not only from what he learns in academic circles, but from what he reads in the newspapers and hears in casual conversations, the traveller from the North certainly gets the impression that this problem is ever present. But it is to be remembered that it is not merely a southern problem. If we contrast the population of the North and the South by taking typical figures from the North Atlantic and South Atlantic States, we see that, while in the former 51 per cent. of the population were of foreign parentage in 1900, in the latter less than 6 per cent. were so enumerated. In the North Central and the South Central States the figures were 44.2 per cent. and 7.6 per cent. respectively. We see from this how small is the stream of immigration which sets towards the South. Not only is the stream of foreign immigration small, but the migration from the North and from other States is also comparatively small, as is shown by the fact that of the native-born Americans in the South Atlantic States in 1900, 89 per cent. had been born in the section in which they were enumerated. The Southern States contain great possibilities in the way of production, not only in agriculture and forestry, but in coal and iron. The climate is in itself no serious drawback, and many sections are praised as being peculiarly salubrious. We should naturally expect a large part of our foreign immigration, especially from Southern Europe, to set towards the South, and in the early days of the nineteenth century, before the negro question became acute, this is said to have been the case. The extension of slavery kept out white labor and to a certain extent |