Industrial Democracy by Sydney Webb; Beatrice WebbJournal of Political Economy, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Jun., 1902), pp. 499-500Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1819585 .

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BOOK REVIEWS 499

i'yp5f tic pa/tenle; efforts have been made to introduce this tax in To- ronto. Westimiount supplies its needs liberally, with rates of taxation only one-third as high as those in Montreal. Toronto has in part followed the New York plan of financial administration by establishing a board of control with sole power to prepare the annual budget; a two-thirds vote of the council is required to overrule this board. A simiiilar concentrationi of responsibility has been brought about in Mon- treal by the creation of a finance comiimittee in the council; a three- fourths vote of the council is required to change the action of the coln- in ittee.

these papers show that city governmlent is reasonably successful in Cmnada. "But it will not do," says Dr. Wickett, "for Canadians to boast. they are not yet out of the wood."

F. R. CLOW.

Ildustri'tl Deniocracy. B3y SYDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB. New Edition. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1902. 8vo.

P). Xi +[ 929.

Ic is utinnecessary here to say anything in commendation of Mr. and Mrs. Webb's great book. Its miierits and services are too well knowna to econoiimic students to call for renewed discussion. The pr-esent editioni differs from the earlier one in that it is in a cheaper forim -the two volumes of the fir-st edition being here reprinted as one -and in the addition of an " Introduction to the Edition of 1902." No chan-e is miiade in the body of the text, but the discussion brought up to date (Decemiiber, I90I), by the Introduction. " During the four years which have elapsed since its publication, the trade union world has not appreciably clhanged in structure or function." The record for these later years (given in a similar introduction to the 1902

edition of the auithor's History of Tr-adle Uiiiouisnm) shows that the notable chang,es have been a large increase in memibership and in funds. TIhis increase has come, chiefly, to trades which were already in a strong position tenl years ago, while the trades previously organ- ized but in a slight deg,ree, and trades comiprising low-grade work- meni have gained relatively little; while in som-le trades, as the clothing trades, the agricultural laborers, and the dockers, the unions have even lost ground. T'lme total imiembership of British trade unions now probably exceeds two millions (I,go5,1 i6 in Igoo, as against 1,502,358

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500 JOURNVAL OF POLITIC'AL EC ON7OMIY

in I892.) TFhe number of strikes, as well as the aggregate number of workmen affected by strikes, have, on the whole, also fallen off during the samne period.

The greatest change recorded in the position of the unions is that effected by a series of decisions of the judges, particularly that of the House of Lords (July, 190I) imposing corporate liability upon the unions for the acts of their agents. As a result of these decisions, the unions are now in a notably more precarious position befoie the law than they have been during the past quarter of a century.

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