of hindering the Legislature striking a severe blow at a system of thrift which had admirably served its purpose, and which, by reason of its excellent work among a class who suffer greatly for the public good, had strong claim for consideration at the hands of the nation at large.

2. State Provision against Sickness and Old Age, and the German Invalidity and Superannuation Law. By LOUIS TYLOR.

The writer proposed to present the German law in an English dress and draw a slight sketch of what would be the experience of English workpeople were we to adopt the principle of State insurance in our own way of doing things by combining officialism with voluntaryism in much the same way as we have already dealt with education and military service. Among the proposed modifications of the German system are the adoption in England of a uniform standard of relief, in place of the fourfold classification according to wages which prevails in Germany, and the substitution of sixty-five years for seventy years as the limit of superannuation. Other readjustments are enumerated under several heads. The total cost of the scheme is estimated at 1s. 3d. per week, which the writer apportions between employers and employed. Further information has increased the estimate to 1s. 5d. per week.

3. On Some Economic Aspects of Life Assurance. By JOHN M. MCCANDLISH, F.R.S.E., formerly President of the Faculty of Actuaries in Scotland.

After referring to the growing interest of the public in this subject and to the fact that to Life Assurance are due the existence and the security of tens of thousands of families, the author defined Life Assurance as being, like Fire or Marine or Accident Insurance, a means of mitigating the pecuniary loss arising from an accident by distributing it among the many who are liable to the like accident, the accident in this case being that of premature death. The paper proceeded to show among other things that legitimate life insurance was the antithesis of gambling, and that the real gambler is he who refuses or delays to insure his life when he has no other means of providing for his family; while Insurance Institutions or Governments or Municipal Bodies gamble if they conduct insurance or annuity schemes on unsound principles. It was needful also to recognise that the advantages of life assurance must be paid for, and that while every man gets what he has paid for, namely, protection against loss to his family in case of his premature death, in another sense the advantage to the families of those who die soon must be paid for by those who live long. And in the case of annuities the advantages to those who live long must be paid for by those who die soon.

The paper dealt with the question to which Canon Blackley, and more lately Mr. Chamberlain, have invited attention-of how 'the masses " can be induced or compelled or assisted to provide for their own old age, so as to escape the degradation of pauperism and relieve the country of the cost of it. It was shown that by an extension and a popularising of the existing arrangements by which Government sells deferred annuities it might be made easy for almost every member of the so-called 'working-classes' to secure by means of payments well within his power, and extending over a limited number of years, a sufficient income for himself in old age. It was recommended that the necessary facilities should be given and a staff of men employed to promote the scheme, leaving it for future consideration whether any form of compulsion, as has been proposed, or any further inducements should be used to ensure its universal adoption. It was pointed out at the same time that any large contribution out of public funds towards this object, unless it could be shown to be for the benefit of taxpayers universally, would be simply an arbitrary transfer of money from the pockets of those who would derive no advantage from the scheme to the pockets of other people.

4. The Survival of Domestic Industries. By Professor GONNER.

The complaints at the time of the depression of home industries and their suspension by the factory system lay stress on four main points. 1. Machinery and steam power. 2. Currency changes and taxation. 3. Foreign competition. 4. Irregularities. These grievances exemplified from the Reports of Royal Commissions and Select Committees of the House of Commons. On analysis the chief causes of the change in mode of employment may be deduced from these. They

are:

(a) The effect of machinery.

(b) The economy of labour in the factory.

(c) The need of some centralised system of manufacture to counteract irregularity and uncertainty of demand. This owing to what may be termed the delocalisation of demand.

Importance of these two latter as showing that the tendency to change existed before, though it was much accelerated by the introduction of great mechanical appliances and the use of steam-power. Continuing the investigation it is necessary to observe separately the effect of the two systems (home industries and factories) on (a) the work produced, (b) the condition of the workers.

I. Industries in which the work is largely affected or which allow of factory organisation. Some other industries, viz., those requiring regular work and not demanding any unusual degree of skill, may be included with these. Where machinery can be used, the work produced by its aid is cheaper and often better. The condition of the workers in these trades does not seem to have deteriorated on their employment in factories. Reasons for this. The instance of the hosiery trade and the nail- and chain-workers in the midland counties.

II. Industries in which the three main causes of change are less operative. These may be divided into three classes

(a) Industries requiring individual artistic skill or in which the commodities produced require adaptation, e.g. carving, hand-lace making, brass-working, &c., of first kind; and of second, bespoke clothes trade, &c.

(6) Supplementary trades where a large portion of the labour is given by those who, by reason of domestic duties, &c., cannot or are most unwilling to work in factories, e.g. straw-plaiting, lace-making, &c.

(c) Local industries, where the demand is local and the industry local, e.g. crab-pot making, &c.

In some instances of the two former of these classes a tendency to factory organisation exists owing to the action of the third cause (see above c) and of a fourth cause (d), viz. the desire to restrict competition by combination. Conclusion. The need of further investigation. Its importance.

5. Free Travel. By S. M. BURroughs.

That it would be desirable to have railways throughout the country as free for use by the public as lifts or elevators in hotels are free for the use of the guests, there is no doubt. The only difficulty which arises in making them so is the construction and management of railways, which is a very costly enterprise.

The arguments in favour of free travel are numerous, and apparently unanswerable. It would relieve congestion in towns, it would greatly assist the commerce and industry of the country, would create a greater demand for labour, and so advance wages and the social well-being of the people, and at the same time tend to a great improvement in general healthfulness and morality.

If the cost of travel is not collected from passengers, it must be obtained by taxation. In the vicinity of Melbourne the children are carried to and from the free schools without charge, which, of course, makes it necessary that the amounts otherwise collected from them are collected by taxation in other ways. One aim in taxation should be to avoid taxing any class of individuals for the benefit of another class; in other words, making some rich and others poor by law.

There is a free ferry at Woolwich which carries any who wishes to travel between that place and North Woolwich without any charge whatever. It has been observed that until the ferry was started the land at North Woolwich was comparatively valueless; that the ferry created a rental value on the north side of the river which did not previously exist; and that when the ferry was made as free as a free bridge, the land values at North Woolwich increased still further in rental value, even more than enough to pay for the cost of maintaining the free ferry. It therefore appears that the occupiers of land in North Woolwich pay a higher ground-rent on account of the ferry being free, or in other words, that they pay in rent what they save in fares; and while they are saved some trouble in buying tickets, &c., the financial benefit of the free ferry goes into the pockets of the ground-landlords in North Woolwich. This instance points the way to secure free travel without burdensome taxation by simply taking the increased land values imparted by making travel free to pay the cost of the same. This would not be unjust or oppressive to anyone. It would not tax anyone's industry, but simply appropriate for public uses one of the effects of the public enterprise.

Until the several upper floors of a new building are connected with the ground floors by stairways, the upper floors are comparatively valueless; but when the stairways are put in the upper floors begin to have a value. If these floors are made still more accessible by free lifts or elevators, the value is still further increased. No company fitting up a large building for rental would think of letting another company put in lifts and charge a toll on their tenants. They would know that such a course would depreciate the rents of the upper floors. On the other hand, they make the use of the lifts free to the tenants, and more than recoup themselves for the cost by the increased rental value imparted to the upper floors. The situation with reference to free travel on railways and tramways is the same, only that passengers would not be carried up and down, but to and fro laterally instead of vertically.

Some years since, in Sydney, it became necessary for the municipality of Sydney to purchase certain lands for public purposes. When the holder was approached for a price, he charged a great deal more than the then present value, 'because,' said he, in a few years the value of the land will be considerably increased by the construction of railways and wharves in the vicinity of the land.' The Government decided that this prospective value could not justly belong to the landowner, and that it would be the result, not of his industry, but of the public progress. They therefore took the land, paying the then present value for it. If this principle could be applied to the free travel question, there would be no difficulty in securing it without direct loss to anyone. If certain landowners should fail to receive a prospective value, being the result of public and other improvements in their vicinity or the result of making their lands more accessible by means of free travel, they cannot claim that they have suffered loss, but can only say the the public have decided not to make them a present of such unearned increment, but rather to appropriate it to pay the expenses of making the land more accessible. It would not be difficult to imagine the great benefits that would result from applying this fair principle of taxation, because it would result in the payment of all costs of roads, sewers, lights, police, parks, by a tax upon the lands enhanced in value by these public expenditures. The question would simply be whether the unearned increment should be given to landholders, or whether it should be taken by the public, who create it, to pay the expense of creating it.

If this method of free travel should be adopted, the enormous expense of constructing and maintaining railways would be greatly lessened, (1) for the reason that the Government, in constructing railways, would only have to pay for the value of the improvements upon land which they appropriate for the purpose, the unearned increment being previously taken in taxation. (2) There would be another economy in the amount of taxes which are levied upon the plant and rolling-stock of railways, which would be exempt from taxation. (3) A good economy would be effected in the management of railways, as all the expenses of printing, selling, and collecting tickets would be avoided. If the carriage of goods were also made free, the expense would easily be met by a taxation of the increased

land values imparted by these means. The saving of time on the part of the public which is now spent in purchasing tickets and in booking merchandise would also be very great.

The author does not claim originality for this idea, as free travel has already been adopted in the few isolated instances which he has quoted. Mr. Cooper, of Norwich, has given some very interesting figures showing the great economy which would ensue to the public from the adoption of free travel.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 22.

The following Papers were read :

1. The Alleged Differences in the Wages paid to Men and to Women for Similar Work. By SIDNEY WEBB, LL.B.

The inferiority of women's earnings as compared with men's is notorious, but it is not so clear that this inferiority is unconnected with a real inferiority of work, either in quantity, quality, or nett advantageousness to the employer.

(a) Manual labour.- Statistics indicate that the average earnings of women in manufacturing industries are from one-third to two-thirds those of men. But it is difficult to find many cases in which men and women are engaged upon precisely similar work in the same place and at the same epoch. Thus, in the tailoring trade it is practically impossible to discover any such instance. A similar difficulty has been experienced in discovering crucial instances in the boot and shoe trade, paper making, cigar making, and all the Birmingham industries.

The clearest case is that of the Lancashire cotton weavers, where men and women perform the same work, in the same shed, under practically the same legal restrictions. Here the women, who are as strongly organised in Trade Unions as the men, have for at least two generations received the same piecework rates as the men, and skilled hands earn as much per week. Statistics are given showing that this equality prevails in the weaving of other fabrics, both in France and in England, but not in other branches of the textile industries.

On the other hand, women compositors (who are not trade unionists) habitually receive in Edinburgh and Paris, as well as in London, not only lower time wages than men, but also distinctly lower piecework rates for work of exactly equal quality. Facts given as to other occupations of women, where no organisation of workers exist, show a general inferiority of women's wages.

Where custom prevails, as in agricultural hirings by time, women, like boys, get less than men. But in competitive agricultural hirings by the piece, as in turnip-hoeing or harvesting, women and boys receive equal piecework rates with the men.

(b) Routine mental work.-Here the statistics quoted with regard to typewriters, clerks in the Post Office and a large insurance company, telegraphists, and teachers, both in elementary and in secondary schools, show that women habitually receive less than men for work of equivalent grade. Statistics of sickness in the Post Office show that women are away from their work more days than men.

The salaries of women teachers in the United States are less than those of men, but the difference is greatest where women have least independence, and it disappears altogether in Wyoming, where women have the suffrage, and the School Law enacts that no distinction of wages according to sex shall be made.

(c) and (d) Artistic and intellectual work.-Few facts of economic significance can be gleaned in these fields, but the cases of women singers and novelists, and those of the Paris correspondent of the Daily News' and the postmistress of Gibraltar, show that women of special skill obtain their full' rent of ability.'

The only general conclusion that can be drawn appears to be that the inferiority of earnings is nearly always connected with inferiority of work. As a rule the competition between men and women is a competition for kinds of work;

and women earn less not only because they produce less, but also because what they produce is usually valued in the market at a lower rate. This seems due mainly to (a) custom, (b) public opinion, (c) women's lower standard of life, and (d) failure to combine for their own protection. The remedies seem to lie in the direction of education, both of public opinion and of women.

2. The Taxation of Inventors. By LEWIS EDMUNDS, D.Sc.

There are few classes of the community, in a manufacturing and industrial country like Great Britain, to whom the nation at large is more indebted for its prosperity than the inventors. It would therefore appear to be to the interest of the Government to offer every facility and encouragement to inventors, and with this object to afford them full opportunity for the acquisition and retention of property in their discoveries. But the contrary is the fact. There is no species of property which is so heavily pressed upon or so burdened with taxes as the very limited one which the law allows an inventor to acquire.

Although distinctions may be drawn, the monopoly granted by a patent is in many respects of the same character as the copyright acquired by an author, and the word copyright might be almost equally well applied to the rights acquired by an author and by an inventor. But while the properties of an author and an inventor are very similar in their nature, the position of an author is immensely superior. He or his representatives hold the copyright for life and seven years after, or for forty-two years from the date of publication, whichever may be the longer term; and no fees of any kind are payable to the Government, except when for the purpose of securing rights in foreign countries, or of taking legal proceedings for an infringement, it is necessary to register the copyright at Stationers' Hall, in which case a small fee is demanded. There is no special taxation of authors of any kind, unless, indeed, we count as such the five copies which have to be presented to the British Museum and the University libraries, and this is a small matter. But an inventor is not so fortunate. By the nature of the case, he can only secure himself after complying with numerous formalities and making a full disclosure of what his invention is. This, of course, cannot be complained of. But even then the inventor obtains the monopoly of his invention for fourteen years only, and this is now subject, after the first four years of the term, to the payment of heavy annual fees, ranging from 101. to 201. and amounting to 1507. in all. It is contended that these renewal fees are an unjustifiable tax upon inventors, and also that the preliminary fees payable at the Patent Office in connection with the application for the grant of the patent and the lodging of the specifications being 47., and quite sufficient to cover the whole of the Office expenses, no further demand ought to be made by the Treasury.

If it were proposed to put a tax of 101. or more a year on every literary work, or else to abolish the copyright of the author, the suggestion would be scouted; yet inventors, with every claim to equality of treatment, are mulcted of these heavy fees or else lose their patent right.

Under the recent Patents Act of 1883, the total expense of a patent running for the full term of fourteen years was reduced from 175l. to 1541., but the whole abatement took place in the initial expenses, which were reduced from 251. to 41. What are now called 'renewal fees' to the amount of 1507. are payable as before, either in amounts of 501. and 100%. before the end of the fourth and eighth years, or in annual payments in the fourth and succeeding years varying from 10. to 201. As a matter of fact, the patentees, with few exceptions, elect to make the annual payments in preference to the lump sums of 50l. and 100%.

In the United States of America inventors are not discouraged as they are here. There, a patent may be obtained, which lasts for seventeen years, for a payment of about 77. 108. in the first instance, and no further fees of any kind are payable. A British patent which runs for fourteen years, therefore, costs more than twenty times as much as a United States patent which endures for seventeen years. Consequently, although there is a search as to novelty which weeds out a large proportion, there are twice as many patents issued in the States as there are in