The New York herald., 1922-12-17


THE WORLDS MONETARY PROBLEMS
By Gustav Cassel Z. 2. Dutton * Co.
THE TARIFF PRIMER. BY Lee Francis
Lybarger. Tariff Publishing Company.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FEDERAL RE-
SERVE POLICY. BY Harold L. Reed.
Houghton Mifiin Company.
SOME PROBLEMS IN CURRENT ECO
NoMICS. BY NJ C. Rorty. a. w. Shaw
Company.
PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING. BY Fred
E Clark. The Macmillan Company
THE a B C'S OF BUSINESS. BY Harry s.
Mckee. The Macmillan Company
THE LONDON MONEY MARKET. BY W.
F. Spalding. Isaac Pitman & Sons
WHY MANUFACTURERS LOSE MONEY.
By Robert Grimshaw. d. Van Nostrand
Company.
BAXTER'S ECONOMICS. BY Garrett Bax-
ter. The Economic Press.
III HERE is particular reason why, at
the present moment, we should
make a careful study of economic
and financial problems. For. while the
present age is in possession of unparalleled
facilities for economic organization and
progress. yet the finances of the world
have never before been so near to chaos
and ruin. Single countries. it is true have
occasionally gone bankrupt. but the world
has never before witnessed the spectacle
Of a whole great continent in which in
dustry and commerce have grown virtually
stagnant and the currency has deprecated
TO the point of worthlessness. 1t is time,
therefore, for us TO pause and take our
economic bearings. to try to determine
whether the principles that have guided
Us in the past have been valid or faIlacious
and by careful study of commercial and
financial questions, to seek to discover
some remedy. For this purpose the group
OF books under review will perhaps be
found of value
A brief but acute study of present day
monetary conditions in Europe is to be
found in Francis ". Hirst's book on The
Paper Moneys of Europe" The authors
opinion may be summed up in his charge
that the adulteration of the currency of
Europe constitutes fraud and robbery on
the most wholesale scale ever practiced by
governments with the style and title of
democracies!) upon the miserable victims.
called citizens" The astonishing thing. Mr.
Hirst proceeds to remark. is that the fraud
is not only tolerated by the more disrepu-
table politicians but openly winl1ed at by
statesmen OF renown. There is only one
real remedy. the author maintains, and
that is "the establishment of complete
peace, disarmament the abolition of con-
scription. the drastic reduction of bloated
bureaucracies. and a wholesale lowering of
tariffs"
Somewhat similar is the field covered
by Gustav Cassel in his volume on The
Worlds Monetary Problems" The author
believes that the financial problems of the
world are so closely connected with politi-
cal problems that we must settle the latter
before we can expect to adjust the former:
That the international Indebtedness in
herited from the war must first of all be
disposed of. and that. for that purpose a
small international committee of experts
should be appointed. on which the United
Stat should be represented, but wherein.
IN ge4sral. expert knowledge and expert
ence should take precedence over nation
atty
Various other outstanding financial prob
lens are discussed in the other books
under review. The Tariff Primer" by Lee
Francis Lybarger. is nominalIy a consid-
eration Of the recent tariff act; in effect it
Is plea for free trade. written to ex-
pound the thesis that Tariff taxes and
other forms Of indirect taxation have been
the means throughout the whole OF re-
corded history for the impoverishment and
oppression of mankind she Development
OF Federal Reserve Policy" by Harold L.
Reed. is a careful study Of the growth Of
the Federal Reserve system and defense