Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 23.pdf/626

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586

The Green Bag

tinctly practical concern as the tariff schedules and the stamp tax. Almost the most useful part of the work to the practising lawyer is the schedule of forms in Spanish with the translations

lifework, designed to bring out in sharp definition the reasons for his being held

in such high esteem by economists. Ricardo "conceived a positive science of political economy constituted of the ten

appended.

dencies or laws prevailing with respect

Regarded as a whole the work is scholarly in conception, logical in ar

to a clearly defined group of phenomena."

rangement and thorough in execution. The correctness of the translation and the general reliability of the book as a work of reference are vouched for by the evident care taken in its preparation;

the method of its compilation (the whole being in the form of a condensation of sections of the several codes); and finally by the official sanction given the

compilation by the Republic of Mexico.

RICARDO David Ricardo: A Centenary Estimate. By acob H. Hollander. Ph.D.. Professor of Political oonomy in the Johns Hopkins University. Johns Ho kins University Studies in Historical and Pol timl Science. Series 28, no. 4. Johns Hopkins Press. Baltimore. Pp. 137 (index). (Cloth. $1.50, Paper. 81-)

N WRITING any commemorative address, there is always the temp tation to adopt a laudatory tone. There seems to be a canon of good taste which prohibits a stringently critical attitude, alike at centenaries and at funerals. It

These tendencies or laws, deduced with the aid of keen analytical powers sharp ened by his experience as a successful fin ancier, he assembled “into a coherent whole, enunciated in unsystematic ellip tical form, but characterized by all the essentials of a body of scientific doctrine.

By this service he raised economic study to a new dignity, giving it conscious

ness and impetus." It becomes very clear, from a reading of these interesting and informing pages,

why Ricardo's “Principles of Political Economy and Taxation" marked such a tremendous advance, in' scientific method, beyond Adam Smith's “Wealth of Nations," and why it achieved a

unique position in the literature of the classical political economy. The book will be found a helpful and stimulating introduction to closer study of Ricardian system.

the

NELLIS'S STREET RAI LWAYS was but natural, therefore, that these three lectures, delivered at Harvard to

mark the hundredth anniversary of the publication of “The High Price of Bul lion," should have been more bio graphical and appreciative in style than

frigidly technical and impersonal.

At

the same time, Professor Hollander, as

was to be expected, exercises a scholarly candor, and concedes, en passant, that Ricardo's “data may have been inade

quate, his method in part defective, and his conclusions sometimes misleading." He does not dwell on these defects,

deeming them suf’ficiently obvious. The book is chiefly a summary of Ricardo's

The Law of Street Railroads: a complete treatise on the law relating to the organization of street railroads. the acquisition of their franchises and property, etc. By Andrew J. Nellis. 2d ed. Matthew Bender 8: Co., Albany. V. 1, pp. clm (table of cases). 654; v. 2. pp. ix, 688 + 159 (index).

(813.)

HIS work belongs to that large class of specialized text-books with which lawyers are familiar, the manner of whose execution exhibits no remark able excellence or distinction, but which, nevertheless, because of the industry which has gone into them, may well serve practical needs of the profession to a very great extent.

Nellis's "Law of Street Surface Rail