condemn civilization merely mean that modern life has outgrown its childish dress and has not yet found another to fit it (p. 55 ff.). And he sees, further, that this is "diametrically opposed" to what he calls Dunoyer's dominant thought, that man, the more he advances, has less need of government (p. 332). It is surely just this capacity to carry about with us all our life that fabric of rules and adjustments, but to do so without feeling the weight of it, that marks the amazing difference there is between the savage and the civilized man.

These are some of the good things in M. Villey, and there are not a few. He has the art which fortunately few Englishmen possess of taking you through a subject so smoothly that at the end, although you fully assent to the conclusion, you are only in the vaguest way conscious of the grounds for it. The consequence is that the easiest authors to read are the hardest to reproduce. It is only on re-reading M. Villey that you discover there is more in him than meets the eye. It should be added, finally, that this book has had the honour of being "recompensé par l'Institut."

LAWRENCE PHILLIPS.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND STATE AID. An Essay on the Effect on Local Administration and Finance of the Payment to Local Authorities of the Proceeds of certain Imperial Taxes. By SYDNEY J. CHAPMAN, M.A., Lecturer on Political Science in the University College of South Wales. [142 pp. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. Sonnenschein. London, 1899.]

Mr. Chapman's main thesis is to the effect that all subventions are objectionable unless they represent payment for work done-unless, that is to say, they cover either the cost of functions properly belonging to the Imperial Government but better discharged by local bodies, or else the proportion of imperial to local interest in such matters as elementary education, police, poor-relief, and sanitation, which concern the nation as well as the province. The former are "State" functions, the latter are called "compulsory," and both are distinguished from the "optional" activities which regard only the public convenience or culture, and have no claim at all on the Exchequer. Technical education, for instance, would be an optional subject, though Mr. Chapman does not clearly delimit the spheres. To the objection that a grant may serve for a stimulus, and can be justified by the amount of public life and intelligence which it calls into play, he objects that the use of a stimulus implies ignorance of the disease and impairs as often as it recruits vitality, that in any case it should only be administered for a

time, and experience shows that temporary expedients have a tendency to become permanent.

Turning to the objections to these views, he examines the taxing capacity of local bodies, the incidence and equity of the present taxation, and how far differential rates are a ground for differential relief. Briefly, his conclusions are: 1. That rates are a sufficient, and must always be the principal, source of local income. 2. That in the long run the incidence of the single tax on occupiers is threefold; it falls in different degrees on landowner, occupier, and consumer. It is required, then, to tax these three classes of persons in such a way that incidence shall follow close on impact. 3. This would not be feasible unless it were possible to value sites separately; but this is quite possible and often done. So that sites should be taxed in proportion to the value given them, residential occupiers according to ability, and business occupiers-i.e. of course ultimately consumers-according to the share which local government services contribute to production. The tax on building land must be laid in the first instance on the owner of the building, and he should be empowered to deduct from the ground-rent a portion of the tax equal to the portion of entire ground-value which the landlord enjoys under the contract. Similarly the farmer is to pay the tax intended to fall on the landlord, and deduct it from his rent. 4. The only ground for differential relief from the Treasury is low rateable value. Mr. Chapman proposes to extend universally the principle of the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund and the Equalization of Rates Fund, i.e. to lay uniform rates over large districts for certain purposes of local government, and out of the money so raised to make grants to the component communities on the basis of need or population. This would bring into effect a principle which has hitherto escaped the politicians, but which would "eject a good half of those puzzling inequities which trouble many a practical man, and drive him to attach himself to the vague agitation for some reform of some character in local finances." "Both these funds represent organized subventions which are not imperial but local. In a word, they are the systematization of neighbourly or provincial assistance. grounded on the admission of a large common responsibility. They mean a first step from the conception of society as made up of rigid mutually exclusive local units to that of an organic nation of organisms." And such an hierarchic ordering of the local government bodies and their powers is further recommended by the fact that interest and responsibility diminish with distance from the scene of work. With this improved and productive system of taxation, then, and with the licenses made over to the districts to which they belong, there is no reason

why the local community should not "live of its own." Finally, Mr. Chapman passes under criticism the whole series of Government measures which relate to this subject—the subventions prior to 1888, the Local Government Act of that year and its sequel in the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act of 1890, and the Agricultural Ratings Act. The points of the argument are admirably illustrated by a number of statistical tables. In fact, the essay touches in passing with a good deal of suggestion most of the difficulties which are known to local politics.

Mr. Chapman is well aware what are the objections to his views, and he generally states and considers them; so that the reviewer is free from the dangerous task of criticism on a work of great grasp and knowledge. Possibly, if we are to aim at creating a strong local interest in local government, it would not be a good thing to complicate the machinery and this Mr. Chapman is very ready to do (see p. 74, among other instances). It is also a little inconsistent to say first. that imperial subventions must be proportionate to imperial interests in the localities, and then that the money measure of these interests will vary with rateable value, "because of the diminishing utility of money," i.e. that while absolutely they will be the same, relatively and in cash they will be different. The fact that the essay was originally written for a prize at the Owens College, Manchester, explains the free use of technical terms and the general difficulty of the expression. A little more simplification would be a great improvement.

LE CORPORAZIONI

A. M. D. HUGHES.

PARMENSI D'ARTI E MESTIERI. Per GIUSEPPE MICHELI. [138 pp. 8vo. Battei. Parma, 1899.] An explorer of the history of old arts and crafts, which has become so favourite a subject alike with economists and historians, could scarcely have hit upon more promising ground to investigate than that which Dr. Micheli has selected, viz. the ancient city of Parma, the flourishing Chrysopolis of medieval times, in which the trade guilds have since early days played a most important part, helped to make and unmake dynasties and constitutions, and managed to hold their own as a democratic force against a powerful aristocracy. Muratori, in Antiquitates Italicæ Medii Evi, fixes the time of the first formal legislation on the Artes et Mysteria and the powerful Mercadancia somewhere in the twelfth century. However, Dr. Micheli will have it that as early as the year 49 of our present era, collegia of smiths (fabri) and shipbuilders (dendrophori) existed, as is said to be

evidenced by an inscription of Roman date on a marble slab still preserved in the Parma Museum. A later Roman inscription records the existence of sodalitates of lanarii (which subsequently grew to be a most important guild) and carminatores. Certainly by an early date in the thirteenth century, which was for the city of Parma the most eventful century and most pregnant with political and economic change, the guilds had developed great power. They already held very valuable real property, and were masters of the local trade in the surrounding territory. More particularly were the butchers, the shoemakers, the blacksmiths and armourers, and the fellmongers, who together were popularly known as the quattro arti, highly influential; and when Giberto da Gente set himself to pursue his ambitious course which led to the downfall of the republic, he began by cultivating the favour of these guilds-more particularly the butchers-and first had himself elected Potestas Mercadanciæ, after which he succeeded easily in having himself proclaimed Podestà del Popolo.

There appears to have been an instinctive disposition to combination for the vindication of common interests innate in the people of Parma of all classes. For we read of "colleges" of judges and advocates and medical men, as well as of common labourers, all of them organized on practically the same lines, having their elected antianus or rector to govern them, with the help of a number of consuls varying according to the size of the guild. Some important guilds even had a podestà. But the names of the guilds seem constantly changing. The cambiatores, napparii, boaroli, etc., disappear, and new guilds crop up in their places. There was a very powerful guild of cattle-dealers once, exercising much influence and possessing much wealth, but this in course of time entirely disappeared. The guilds appear to have fared badly under the government of the popes, and possibly still worse under that of Lewis of Bavaria and John of Bohemia, when the protectionism previously jealously fostered and maintained for their benefit was deliberately discarded, and foreign producers were carefully attracted. However, through rough times and smooth, they managed to maintain their spirit of solidarity," and it is interesting to know that one or two of them have, after a fashion, lived down to the present day.

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For most people the greatest interest attaching to Dr. Micheli's history of these corporate bodies will be found to consist in their quaint, old-world regulations and customs. Of these our author, in a volume which is intended rather as a summary than as a complete chronicle, gives some well-chosen details. Of course, religion played a leading part in the life and organization of the guilds. Every one of them was sworn to keep every one of the Church's holidays. Every

one of them had its own particular patron saint, whose calendar day was kept in great style, in addition to the calendar day of Saint Hilary, the patron saint of the city, on which all guildmen were bound to march to the cathedral in procession, exhibiting all their insignia. The jobmasters, it may be interesting to note, had selected Saint Richard for a patron saint, on the ground, not conclusively proven, that he, being an Englishman, at one time or other "kept a riding school." The sandal-makers, who were also tanners, looked to Saint Anthony for protection, and were strictly forbidden at any time to tan pigskin. The Cassonieri, who in Latin are called Asinarii seu Somarii, and whose universitas enjoyed immunitatem et exceptionem ab omnibus consulatibus et custodiis, in consideration of carrying a hundred cartloads for the city for nothing, took refuge under the shadow of Saint Hilary. Every obligation was sworn to on the sacrament, even such things as that the carpenters and masons or bricklayers would pay or take neither more nor less than the regular daily wage. And really nothing was done without an oath, though swearing in the popular meaning of the word was religiously tabooed. Thus the osti, or tabernarii, or innkeepers, whose houses are carefully distinguished from the inferior bettole, or "bush-houses," and who, for some reason or other, had the Madonna dei sette dolori for their special saint, were sworn on the sacrament to keep out of their houses and refuse to serve all "ganeæ, ruffiani, gaiuffi, latrones et alii mali homines," which oath it must have been rather difficult to observe, as well as to abstain from selling vinum adaquatum. One of the rather curious guilds which have lived down to the present day are the brentatori, or "wineporters" (carriers of wine in a vessel called brenta), who, together with the ordinary porters, or facchini, were bound to act as fire brigade for the city. This guild, the brentatori, enjoys the distinction of having provided its own patron saint out of its midst, in the person of the wonder-working San Alberto da Bergamo. They were allowed to sell wine of their own, but not to buy and re-sell. The facchini were legally authorized to boycott any customer who did not pay one of their number.

There appear to have been squabbles sometimes inside the guilds, as between the surgeons and barbers, who were grouped together in one guild, and required, among other things, to set leeches only in "canonical" fashion, and never to shave any but a stranger on a saint's day; and again between the shoemakers and cobblers, likewise unequally yoked together under the patronage of Saint Crispin, whom the cobblers did not consider good enough, wherefore they proposed to select Saint Berthold. However, the authorities would not hear of