CURRENT LITERATURE.
Perhaps the most generally interesting and popular paper in the new number of the Economic Review at the present time is Mr. Joseph King's, on " The Alcohol Monopoly in Switzer- land." Mr. King, while he allows that the drink problem in Switzerland has not yet been solved, claims to have proved—and certainly he makes a very deft use of statistics—that the con- sumption of spirituous drinks in Switzerland has been reduced 20 or 26 per cent, by the introduction of the monopoly, and that the quality of the spirits now sold is much better than it was before that introduction. The special tone of this Review, which is the organ of the Oxford University branch of the Christian Social Union, is well—if a trifle also sentimentally—indicated by three papers,—" The Ethics of Wills," by Dr. T. C. Fry ; " Edward Van- sittart Neale as Christian Socialist," by Judge Hughes ; and " The Special Importance of the Study of Christian Ethics for the Church in the Present Day," by the Rev. Mr. R. L. Ottley. They aro all right in drift, but the last, especially where it deals with the " moralisation " of amusements, is a trifle vague. The book-notices in the Economic Review are of considerable importance, and are generally readable. One of the most interesting deals with the Duke of Argyll's latest contribu- tion to the literature of political economy. The notice is rather a curious one, but the general conclusion arrived at is that "the book is about as unequal as a book can be; but it is always sug- gestive, often instructive, and, for all its iteration and diffuseness, never dull,"
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