The Unsolved .Riddle of Social Justice. By Stephen Leacock. (Lane.
5s. net.)—Mr. Leacock is best known as a humorist, but this thoughtful essay reminds us that he is by profession a teacher of political economy. He remarks on the power of the productive • machine, which, though deprived of the services of millions of men, continued at work despite the war. Evidently, he thinks, there is much waste of energy in time of peace. He criticizes the old economical theory of value and cost, on which is based the hypothesis of a " natural price." He devotes two chapters to the Socialist theory and to Edward Bellamy's pretty fancy of a Utopia which cannot be realized. Socialism, as he says with a premonition of Lenin's recent decree, is simply slavery. To the Socialist, who declares that people will all want to work under the proposed new order, Mr. Leacock replies that " in a popu- lation of angels a socialistic commonwealth "—or any other Government—" would work to perfection," but " until we have the angels we must keep the commonwealth waiting." In a concluding chapter on " What is Possible and What is Not" Mr: Leacock urges that Governments must maintain the high war taxes and extend social reforms, such as the minimum wage, a shorter working day, and unemployment insurance, taking care not to do too much at once lest the industrial machine break down under the strain. There is much good sense in this attractive book.
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