devices tended more and more to make construction a machine affair. From Ohio came figures showing that, with 15 per cent. fewer men employed, contractors had put up 11 per cent. more square feet of finished buildings than in 1923. Already 71 per cent. of bituminous coal is mined by machinery. The companies claim that they can now dig a whole year's supply with little more than half the human labour needed in 1890. Moreover, the railways are using less coal, with more efficiency in their ton-mileage; last year the saving was in excess of 18,000,000 tons. Meanwhile, captains of industry point out the perplexing difference between this present portent and 'hard times' of the past, when business was merely bad and factories laid-off' their men until the prosperous hour returned. The new crisis emerges as an issue of national importance when, as one leader puts it, 'America's wealth and efficiency have become the wonder of the world.' Every human worker there, it seems, has already the power of four horses to help him, with endless millions of horse-power still waiting to be drawn upon, so that he must presently be 'fired' and sent round after jobs that do not now exist. A ship full of ore is now unloaded without the use of a single hand-shovel. The freight-car full of coal is automatically hoisted and turned upside down into the waiting barge or collier. At one end of a machine a man feeds a bar of steel; at the other end finished screws, with perfect threads and slots cut in the head, are counted out and packed in boxes ready for sale. Even that sale is often conducted over the long-distance telephone, between cities farther apart than London and Athens or Constantinople. So that even the suasive, hustling 'drummer' is thrown out of a job! Machines turn out glass bottles complete in one operation; others fill and solder cans of fruit and vegetables with almost incredible efficiency and zeal. No wonder Mr William Green, President of the Federation of Labour, urges a five-day week in the United States; and in this he is supported by Mr J. J. Raskob, Financial Executive of the vast organisation known as 'General Motors.' In the textile factories a single worker will now tend twenty or thirty looms, where a few years ago he had charge of a dozen at most. The economic result of all this is to merge small concerns into larger units; and in the plant of these a single new machine will be found doing the work of a hundred people. So the balance of power passes to the 'iron-man'; human skill is less and less in demand, and American labour is insensibly passing to mere automatic machine-tending. Immigration, as we know, has been sharply restricted; and America asks whether the future will find her victimised by her own mechanical genius, which day by day can and does turn out more and more wealth which must somehow be distributed. Naturally, therefore, foreign trade comes to the front as a solution, with sharp competition ahead for all rivals in every commercial field in both hemispheres. This brings me at once to the Jones-White Bill for a new merchant marine, with Government support to the tune of $250,000,000, which the Senate passed by 53 votes to 31, despite the strenuous opposition of President Coolidge, to whom Government ownership looms as 'a paralysing monopoly.' It is pointed out that heroic measures are called for if adequate outlets for American trade are to be found and for all the surplus manufacturers of this teeming, exuberant time. From 1921 to 1926 British shipyards turned out 3,500,000 gross tons, whereas in the same period the United States' construction was only 138,000 gross tons. The natural corollary of the merchant fleet projected is an adequate Navy, and for this the House recently passed a preliminary appropriation of $359,000,000. The agitation for these twin fleets is now of some years' standing, and was tersely summed by Mr Curtis Wilbur, Secretary of the Navy, shortly after President Coolidge's inauguration. 'Americans,' Mr Wilbur said, ‘have over 20,000,000 tons of merchant shipping to carry the commerce of the world, worth three billion dollars. We have also loans and property abroad-apart from Government loans-of over two billions. If we add to this our exports and imports for a single yearabout ten billion dollars-we have an amount almost equal to the entire wealth of the United States in 1869. And if to this we add the eight billions due to us from foreign Governments, we arrive at a total of $31,000,000,000. These vast interests must be considered when we talk of defending the Flag.' Since those words were spoken, output of all sorts from factory and soil has increased by leaps and bounds; so that it is more than ever imperative to find markets and outlets for the surplus, as well as protection for them afloat. And what of the surplus of men displaced by new power-schemes, such as those of the Colorado River, which seven of the States interested are now claiming in sections, of which the total represents no less than 4,000,000 horse-power? Many of these industrial bouches inutiles may be drafted into the fleets of peace and war, which it has been found extremely difficult to man in the past. Other openings are provided by the civil and military aerial services, to which young Lindbergh's exploits have given an astonishing fillip. Still further chances offer in the vassal nations, from Haiti and Cuba to the Central American Republics, where such concerns as the United Fruit Company of Boston have plantation empires' of their own, as well as whole fleets of ships to carry their produce. For American enterprise looks ever further afield, as may be seen from Henry Ford's vast rubber-schemes in the Brazilian jungle State of Parà, and the talk of cutting a new interoceanic canal in hapless Nicaragua. Meanwhile, America's genius, far from being dismayed by temporary 'bread-lines' and unemployment, will call more and more upon the deus ex machina of her imperial and commercial destiny. She will have little difficulty in reabsorbing the millions of men who are at present unemployed. And public doles are scouted as a national humiliation. For unlike all other nations, this familiar portent is here an index of abounding prosperity: this curious paradox leaps to the eye in the huge increase of national income during the past five years-$69,000,000,000 in 1923 as against an estimate of $89,000,000,000 for 1928. It is the coming lustrum which will see America's boldest bid for the commerce of the world, with her Government, Big Business,' and People all co-ordinated in new ingenious ways for the struggle: 'Now is my way swept, and my foot shod now, E Art. 5.-NEW MATERIALS FOR HISTORY. 1. Acta Cancellaria or Selections from the Records of the Court of Chancery (containing extracts from the Masters' Reports and Certificates, etc.). London, 1847. 2. A Collection of Law Tracts. Vol. I. F. Hargrave, 1787. 3. Table Talk of John Selden. Edited by the Rt Hon. Sir F. Pollock, Bt, K.G. Selden Society, 1927. 4. Reports of the Royal Commission on Public Records, 1910-1919. H.M. Stationery Office. 5. Reports of the Deputy-Keeper of the Public Records, 1840, etc. H.M. Stationery Office. 6. Public Record Office, Rules and Schedules governing the Disposal of Public Records by Destruction or Otherwise, 1877-1913. H.M. Stationery Office, 1914. THE time is not far off when the teeming seminars of British and American Universities will have urgent need of new materials for their historical studies; for new materials they must have, if they are to maintain the standards of study and research set up in published lists of academic theses which are to be the first drafts of maturer essays. Down to a comparatively recent date the supplies of both printed and unprinted matter seemed to be adequate; but even if it has kept pace with an increasing demand, the publication of the original sources of Economic and Social History during the last thirty years has not made up for the neglect of the subject by previous historiographers. This was perhaps inevitable, seeing that Economics and Sociology are relatively new subjects of scientific study. Indeed, the difficulty in question had been experienced with the beginnings of academic recognition of these subjects. While earlier researchers ploughed lone furrows in the field of agrarian and domestic economy, or made adventurous voyages on the ocean of commerce, political and constitutional historians were able to profit by the incessant labours of their predecessors, supplemented by the publications of learned societies and elucidated by the auxiliary studies of accomplished specialists. At last, inspired by the experience and example of Mr and Mrs Sidney Webb, instruction was provided in 1896 for the deciphering of the unequalled sources of Economic and Social History available in London archives, and from this beginning sprang a readership which served the requirements of the University at large. This preparatory instruction is now provided in most of the British or Colonial Universities, while in the United States the cult of archives is pursued almost as seriously as in the Continental 'Schools of Charters' or in the London Institute of Historical Research. We may hope, then, that assiduous research in the original sources will, in time, make good the heavy arrears that have accumulated. It is obvious, however, that these sources cannot be adequately described or profitably studied without reference to the printed literature of the subject. It is a mistake to assume, as many eager students have done, that the true interpretation of History is to be found only in the inventories of archives. The services of historical bibliography are equally essential as a guide to study; for apart from the time saved by using printed texts, students can best observe the relationship of the several sources from their printed literature, and they will at the same time keep in touch with historical method and criticism. Unfortunately the recent devotion of historical scholars and students to the investigation of archives has not been accompanied by equal attention to historical bibliography. To be candid, we must admit that this necessary discipline of study has been often shirked, and that the efforts made to remedy this defect have been somewhat feeble. In order to realise the position, we must go back thirty years, to the strong criticisms of our national shortcomings in respect of historical bibliography published by Frederic Harrison and Henry Tedder, followed by similar criticism of our neglect of archives by York Powell and Sir Adolphus Ward. The remedy available was promptly applied, though not by British hands. An American scholar, Charles Gross, had already published a needed bibliography of British municipal history in 1897, and in response to these appeals he compiled, single-handed, a bibliography of English medieval history in which, for the first time, the literature was co-ordinated with the original sources. |