Politics for Young Americans. By Charles Nordhoff. (Sampson, Low, and
Co.)—There is no reason why Mr. Nordhoff's letters to his son, of which this admirable little volume is composed, should not be valuable and useful to young Englishmen, as well as to those youths of his own country whom he wishes to instruct in the duties of citizenship. The particular application of many of his precepts must indeed vary in the two cases, but the information which it imparts concerning active business, great material interests, and the principles and duties which govern all civilised communities, is equally good for the boys of our side of the ferry, who may learn therefrom "the meaning and limits of liberty, law, government, and human rights." The book is very amusing as well as instructive, the author is remarkably candid and plain-spoken respecting certain matters in which he thinka the ..Great Republic wants setting to rights—greenbacks figuring promi- nently among them—and he sometimes puts his points with epigram- matic nicety. Here is an instance. He is instructing his son, not without a strong dash of prejudice, in the matter of Trades Unions and strikes, and he winds up with the first thus:—" But, as I „told yon before, nothing is truer, or more plainly proved by the ■ ewhole experience of .society, than that no merely selfish policy can -Jachiere a rgrt or lasting success. God did not make the world so." The second he summarises thus :—" I cannot see how the conditions [of capital and labour] are changed by tho strike, except for the worse ; and a strike of this kind can, I imagine, permanently increase the prosperity of the workmen just as much as a man can lift himself from the ground by a vigorous tug at his coat-collar."
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