THE FINANCE OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR.
The Confederate States of America, 1861-1465 By John Christopher Schwab. (Edward Arnold. 10s. 6d.)—This is a valuable rather than profoundly interesting or eminently read- able book. The author, who is Professor of Political Economy in Yale University, has full command of all the authorities on his subject, which is " a financial and industrial history of the South during the Civil War," and sticks faithfully to his text. He tells at full detail the long and somewhat dreary story of bow the Confederate States existed on paper money during their troubled existence. It was a case not of " blessed" but of cursed paper credit from beginning to end. "The Southerners' sacrifices far exceeded those of the Revolutionary patriots. They lost everything in their desperate efforts to protract the war and avoid its inevitable conclusion ; it is probably of little comfort to them to read that something might have been saved from the wreck if the Government had adopted other fiscal measures." Although Professor Schwab has written-as an expert for experts, some of his general conclusions are worthy of attention. For example:—" If McLellan had been elected President, or if one of the foreign Powers had intervened in the conflict, the Confederacy might have escaped the immediate fate that befell it. But it is very questionable whether it would have avoided the inevitable results of the disintegrating forces which the organisation of its Government involved, and which the course of the war accentus sled. Texas's organic connection with the Confederacy was merely nominal. Other States resented the interference of a strong
2entral Government Of one thing we may be sure ; the Jonfederacy could not have survived in the form in which it was aistituted. This contained elements of weakness which the Southerners were forced by the exigencies of the war to correct, thereby contradicting their own cherished principles of Govern- ment." As a contribution to that literature from which the final and classical history of the American Civil War will be written, this volume will be found of the highest value.
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