The Opinions of Dr. Chalmers concerning Political Economy and Social
Reform. Compiled from his writings by Miss Grace Chalmers Wood, with Preface by Professor J. Shield Nicholson. (Simpkin, Marshall and Co. ls. net.)—We have frequently drawn our readers' attention to the excellence of Dr. Chalmers's views upon economics and especially upon the Poor Law. Miss Chalmers Wood, his granddaughter, has now collected with an unbiased hand many of his most interesting observations and issued them in a convenient form. Although some of his opinions upon taxa- tion are scarcely in agreement with our own, the basis of his beliefs seems to us undeniably sound. "A commerce," he says, "which results from the free enterprise of individuals, each devis- ing and labouring for his own special advantage, is greatly more flourishing and more conducive to the real prosperity of a kingdom than a commerce which is nourished by the bounties and at the same time guided by the regulations of the Statute Book. The whole of political economy bears evidence to the perfection of what may be termed the natural system of human industry and human exchanges, in opposition to the artificial system that, whether in the form of encouragements or restraints, acts with all the mis- chievous influence of a disturbing force on the operations of a previous and better mechanism."
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