CURRENT LITERATURE.
The new number of the Economic Journal is an exceptionally interesting one. Nor is it the less interesting that the chief articles are notable more for the information they supply, than for the theories they support. Such are " Statistics of Some Midland Villages," by Messrs. Joseph Ashby and Bolton King ; " The Survival of Domestic Industries," by Mr. E. C. K. Gonner ; and "The Consumption of Tea and other Staple Drinks," by Mr. C. H. Denyer. The careful paper of Messrs. Ashby and King is, on the whole, reassuring. What with allotments, moderate migration, the decrease of drinking, the spread of education, and other causes, these writers are able to come to the conclu- .sion that " some recent generalisations as to village morality and intelligence are seen to be the grossest libels. Perhaps nowhere is progress more rapid, or has such appearance of stability, as in many rural villages." Never, perhaps, have the advance of tea in England, and the staying power of beer, been more fully illustrated than in the paper by Mr. Denyer, to which allusion has already been made. The history of a burning question is admirably treated by Mr. F. C. Harrison in his paper on "The Past Action of the Indian Government with regard to Gold." Mr. Alfred Marshall defends hie views of rent in a paper in which—although this was perhaps inevitable—he makes too many allusions to the Duke of Argyll's " Unseen Foundations of Society." The notes and memoranda in this number of the Economic Journal are, as usual, valuable and informing, and the reviews of books are especially clear and terse. What Mr. Elijah Helm has to say upon "The
Alleged Decline of the British Cotton Industry" should be read. if only for the sake of its tone of optimism.
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