19 JUNE 1926, Page 27

CURRENT LITERATURE

THE ENGLISH BRASS AND COPPER INDUSTRIES TO 1800. By Henry Hamilton. (Longmnans. 18s. net.) Mn. IlastuffoN's book on the brass andcopper industries, with special reference to Birmingham, is an invaluable con- tribution to English economic history. Together with Mr. Daniel's monograph on the early cotton industry and Mr. Ashton's on the iron and steel trades, it throws much new light on the so-called " Industrial Revolution," which begun for sooner and was far more gradual than the ordinary text- books suggest. Mr. Hamilton's detailed account of the industry is most instructive. Our eighteenth-century ancestor*, it is clear, knew very nearly as much about combinations, syndicates and rings as we do.