31 AUGUST 1918, Page 17

Selected Papers on Social and Economic Questions. By Sir B.

C. Browne. (Cambridge University Press. 75. 13d. net.)—The late Sir Benjamin Browne was an employer of the best type, and many people outside the engineering and shipbuilding trades will be glad to read the selection from his articles and addresses which has been edited, with a Memoir, by his daughters. We may commend, for example, the very sensible article on " The Ownership of Capital," in which it is pointed out that employers as a class are not very wealthy, that sudden increases of wages are bad for the employed as well as for the employer " on account of the tremendous power the world has of going without, what it does not think worth pay- ing for," and that " the -comfort of the working classes depends not only on the rate of wages but on how hard they have to work," so that workmen stand to gain by the introduction of labour. saving machinery. Sir Benjamin Browne, who worked his way up to a great position, prided himself on the fact that he was always on good terms with the workmen in his employ. His writings show that he was a wise and just man.