dependencies and in allegiance to an old-world government and a parliament on the other side of the Atlantic. Once recognizing as inevitable the dissolution of the bond, we may all treat with historical dispassionateness the particular instrumentalities by which it was brought about, and calmly apportion the due measures of blame or praise to all concerned, considering that they were, as nearly as free agents could be, the ministers of Fate.

There can hardly be a greater literary offence than the infusion, through a school history, of false notions, unworthy prejudices and base passions into the hearts of youth. In the Report of the Commissioners of Education for 1894-95 there is a series of specimens of the methods of teaching American history in British school books. An Englishman reading these extracts is glad to find that they are laudably free from prejudice or passion; that they state the facts fairly; that they do not shrink from laying blame, when it is due, on the British government, or even on the British people; and award just praise to opponents. One of them says:

"The chief causes of this long and disastrous conflict are to be sought in the high notions of prerogative held by George III., his infatuated and stubborn self-will, and in the equally absurd self-conceit of his English subjects."

The same book says:

"The descendants of the old soldiers of the Parliament began to repeat the grand lesson of the long struggle of their English forefathers against the crown, and Taxation without representation is tyranny' became the watchword of the brave patriots who were to fight in America for the self-same rights that the Englishmen of old had wrung from the tyrant John, the haughty Edward, and the reluctant Charles I."

Washington deprecated the indulgence of inveterate antipathies to particular nations or passionate attachments to others, which, as he said, made a nation a slave to its antipathies and attachments. Aristotle two thousand years before had expressed the same sentiment in a general way, saying that it was slavish to be always acting with another person in one's eye. It makes that other person the arbiter of your feelings and actions, whether the case be one of unreasoning devotion or of passionate enmity. Moreover, with irrational and inveterate hatred a mixture of envy may generally be traced.

"I am not wanting in love of wanting in hatred of the Old."

the New, but I own that I am So said a citizen of one of the

American colonies of Spain the other day, when he was asked to curse his ancient mother country. Great Britain was a far better mother country than Spain, and every one who has a glimmer of historic sense must know that the Old had to be before the New could come into being.

To say that the school histories ought not to be patriotic would be wrong. But patriotism may be awakened without unduly dilating on the details of the revolutionary war. It may be kept alive by setting forth the magnitude and importance of the victory gained, the new departure of humanity, political and social, the hopes of the New World, and the part in the fulfilment of those hopes which the American child when it comes to manhood will be called upon to play.

On the whole, however, I am confirmed in my belief that the influence of the American books in stimulating international illwill has been overstated. It is too likely that if Great Britain persists in maintaining herself as a political and military power upon this continent Mr. Chauncey Depew's prediction will be fulfilled. But I cannot think that the catastrophe will be due to so great an extent as he and others suppose to the vicious influence of American school histories.

The special fault which, if I may venture to say it, I should be inclined to find with these books, is want of literary art. The writers may have thought that literary art would be wasted upon histories for children. At all events they have not bestowed it. The language is generally flat, and the story is not well told. It is partly, perhaps, by lack of descriptive power that the writers are driven to give so much space to war. If they were artists they might find a way of lending interest to the events in the achievements of peace. To tell a story well, so that it may impress the imagination and fix itself in the memory of the reader, the writer must have distinctly conceived it as a whole in his own mind. This is what masters of narrative have evidently done. Freshness, simplicity, and vividness of language-without turgidity or grandiloquence-are also indispensable in a narrative intended for the young. If any American would compose a school history combining these literary qualities with truthfulness, impartiality, and freedom from low passions, he might render no small service to the nation.

GOLDWIN SMITH.

THE RIGHT OF CONTRACT.

BY F. B. THURBER.

THE tendency of legislative and judicial bodies in this country just now to condemn sweepingly contracts which in any manner restrict or regulate trade makes it interesting and timely to inquire into the causes and reasons for this tendency, and to consider whether regulation of trade is "restraint of trade" in a legal sense.

Commerce is nothing but a body of contracts. Every purchase and sale, from a peanut up to a gold mine, and every transaction in the movement of merchandise, involves a contract either verbal, written, or implied between buyer and seller or between shipper and carrier.

No right is more sacred, and none has been more carefully guarded in our fundamental law. The Constitution of the United States, article 1, section 10, says: "No State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts." And yet the Congress of the United States prohibited pooling agreements between railroads and passed the so-called Sherman anti-trust law which declares every contract in restraint of trade illegal, and the Supreme Court of the United States in the Trans-Missouri Freight Association case took the extreme view (by the narrow majority of five to four judges) that even a necessary agreement between carriers for establishing and maintaining reasonable rates of freight was a contract in restraint of trade.

The Legislature of the great commercial State of New York, at its last session, enacted a law which provides :

"No stock corporation shall combine with any other corporation or person for the creation of a monopoly or the unlawful restraint of trade or the prevention of competition in any necessary of life. No foreign stock cor. poration formed by the consolidation of two or more corporations or by the

combination of the business of two or more persons, firms, or corporations for the purpose of restricting or preventing competition in the supply or price of any article or commodity of common use, or for the purpose of establishing, regulating, or controlling the supply or price thereof shall be authorized to do business in this State."

This law was the outcome of an investigation by the Judiciary Committee of the New York Senate, which was remarkable for the bias shown against incorporated capital and the disregard of economic facts developed by the evidence. The report, among other things, denied the right of a manufacturing corporation to choose agents for the sale of its goods and fix the prices and terms upon which they should be sold.

From time immemorial it has been a common custom in trade for manufacturers to select agents to sell their goods and to fix the price and terms on which they shall be sold; also for agents to agree that in consideration of these and a certain commission or rebate they will only sell the goods of one manufacturer.

Yet a New York grand jury found an indictment against the directors of the American Tobacco Company for doing the same thing, and in the trial of the case the judge charged the jury to the effect that this was a crime.

Another phase of it is illustrated in the attempt to use the legal machinery of the State of New York to prevent a reasonable regulation of anthracite coal production to the wants of consumption-a necessary business regulation which marks the dividing line between liberty and license, between reason and unreason. The result of unregulated production is shown in the bituminous coal fields where over-production has resulted in bankruptcy to carriers, operators, and miners, with strikes, lockouts, dislocation of industry, benefit to no one, injury to everybody.

In seeking the causes of this remarkable state of the public mind the student of the question inevitably reverts to the rivalries of political parties, who in seeking partisan advantage have appealed to the prejudices of the masses; and the competition of journalism for public favor has closely followed in the same channel. During the last session of the Legislature of New York two popular journals each employed experts to prove to the Legislature that the charges of gas companies in the city of New York were exorbitant, and the leading political organizations of the State vied with each other in denouncing the modern ag

gregations of capital known as trusts. If the economic results of these aggregations of capital had led to the oppression of the public, this would have been justifiable; but let us see what these results have been.

While there have always been aggregations of capital to a greater or less extent, they have become more frequent and prominent since the age of steam, electricity, and machinery, because these forces could not well be utilized without aggregations of capital, which could only be obtained through the co-operation of a large number of persons. Hence the great development of corporate life during the last half century.

The first prominent development of the trust organization in this country was in the consolidation of numerous lines of railroad into trunk lines, and there was a fear in the public mind that these combinations and consolidations would result in exorbitant rates for transportation and to the detriment of the public interest. What the result has been is shown by the following extract from a report adopted by the National Board of Trade at its annual convention in 1896:

"The average charge for sending a ton of freight one mile on thirteen of the most important railroads in the United States during 1865 was 3.08 cents; in 1870, 1.80 cents; in 1875, 1.36 cents; in 1880, 1.01 cents; în 1885, 0.83 cent; in 1890, 0.77 cent; in 1893, 0.76 cent; in 1894, 0.746 cent, and in 1895, 0.720 cent. These railroads performed one-third of the entire transporta. tion of 1893, and from the figures given it appears that 0.72 cent would pay for as much transportation over their lines in 1895 as could have been obtained for 3.08 cents thirty years earlier. This reduction, amounting to three-quarters of the average rate of 1865 was exceeded by that in price of but few even of those articles in the manufacture of which new inventions have worked the most radical changes. The entire transportation performed by the railroads of the United States during the twelve years ending June 30, 1894, was equivalent to moving 136,799,677,822 passengers and 807,935,382,838 tons of freight one mile. Had rates averaged as high as those of 1882 been collected on this traffic, the railroads would have earned $2,629,043,459 more than they actually received.

The next most prominent aggregation of capital in the commercial world is known as the Standard Oil Company, and the effect upon the price of oil is illustrated by the following statistics, compiled by the United States government, showing the wholesale export price for refined petroleum for the period extending from 1871 to 1896:

This table shows the prices of refined illuminating oils, per gallon, exported from the United States from 1871 to 1896.