The Coal Question. By W. S. Jevons, M.A. Second edition,
revised. (Macmillan.)—We took up this new edition of Mr. Jevons' famous work with the hope that he might have seen reason to modify his Cassandra cry. We regret to find that he has nothing to retract, on the contrary, he has fortified himself and his position with the opinions of Sir John Herschell and Professor Tyndall, who express a general concurrence in his views. There seems to be but little doubt that the increasing expense of raising coal in this country will at no very distant period cause that transfer of labour and capital to the United States the absence of which at present seals up the American mines. We can only hope that the change will be gradual, and that labour in each succeeding genera- tion, if less in quantity, will be increased in efficiency by the improve- ment that shall have been effected in the social and moral condition of the people. We must do Mr. Jevons the justice to say that he spares no pains to point this moral, that now is the time, in the "approaching noon" of our national prosperity, that an effort can best be made to raise the character of the working classes by a general system of educa- tion.
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