CURRENT LITERATURE.
A Manual of Political Economy. By James E. Thorold Rogers. (Clarendon Press.)—We can say thus much for Mr. Rogers, that he writes in a clear and agreeable style, and that he is re idebts, which, after all, is the first qualification for being instructive. We may go further than this. On many subjects he accepts the sound views of the best political economists, and shows himself capable of grasping them firmly and stating them intelligibly. Nor when ho passes to specula- tions of which the truth may fairly be questioned does ho offend by
any violence of tone, though he does not conceal his own strong political prepossessions. Some of his views seem to us unsound, and some of his statements doubtful. He may be right, for instance, in his opposition to the shilling duty on corn, though it is an impost convenient for many reasons which financiers of opposite schools have joined in approving, but it is very doubtful whether this duty puts a shilling bonus on every home-grown quarter of corn grown. We have no particular liking for an income-tax ; but it seems an extravagance to say that no income is taxable but what is "devoted to a man's personal enjoyment," that what he spends, for instance, on the maintenance of children should be exempted. The average English head of a family hardly spends a fiftieth part of his income on his "personal enjoyment." Again, Mr. Rogers seems to be carried away by his prejudices when ho says of "assessments of real estate made for the purpose of local or imperial taxation" that the return is scandalously below the mark. The income-tax, to speak of one thing only, would present very different results if the returns of commerce came as near the truth as do those of land. But these blemishes in Mr. Rogers' book are not frequent, and do not prevent it from being a useful manual.
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