use of the capital invested in merchandise is known as a 'turnover.'" A recent report of the Employment Manager's Committee of the Atlantic Coast Shipbuilder's Association states that out of more than 200 experts in employment management and others to whom the question was submitted only six dissented definitely from the proposition that the labor turnover cycle ends at the termination of employment and not at the replacement by another employee. It is not stated in this report whether answers were received from all of the persons to whom the query was submitted, but the statement that the "conclusion is overwhelmingly substantiated by nearly all experts in employment management," suggests that the voting was at least sufficient to be representative. Replacement, it seems, has nothing to do with the turnover cycle save to begin a new one. If our process of computing labor turnover is to be in accord with the obvious and accepted meaning of the term, it seems clear that it must be based upon separations, not upon replacements.

Practically, too, the advantage lies with the separations method. The percentage derived by this method is more significant, both to employers and to the public, than the percentage derived by the replacement method. The aspect of this question that the public is most interested in is the degree to which employment is continuous, that is, the degree of stability of the labor force. Dividing the total labor separations at a plant by the payroll will not give an ideal stability index, but it is much nearer to it than if the number of replacements were used instead of the number of separations, if these two should not be equal. The test of instability is separations; replacements depend upon either the desire or the ability of the employer to fill the places left vacant. Failure to fill positions does not give perfect stability to a labor force. Consequently, the replacements method will not tell us what we most wish to know.

Likewise the result of a computation based on the number of separations is much more significant to the employer than the result of a computation based on the number of replacements. If men are laid off, the replacements method will not reflect the pathological condition of the business which makes the decrease in the work force advisable, while it would be indicated by the other method.

Under certain conditions the efficiency of the labor department of an establishment is more clearly indicated by comparing replacements rather than separations with the payroll, for then a failure of other departments which makes necessary the reduction of the force would not be reflected in the resulting percentage. But if the em

ployer desires to replace those who have left, it is the clearly recognized duty of the labor department to find the needed men. If this cannot be done, the computation on the basis of replacements will not indicate the efficiency of the department.

There seems to be no practical reason why we should substitute the replacement method for the separations method in the labor turnover computation. In other words, there seems to be no reason why the labor turnover computation should not be in line with the meaning of the word "turnover." H. G. HAYES.

Yale University.

Recent bulletins of the United States Department of Labor have appeared as follows:

No. 254, International Labor Legislation and the Society of Nations, by Stephan Bauer (Washington, May, 1919, pp. 135). There are chapters on: International labor protection programs of 1916 and 1917; International regulation of the right of combination, of social insurance, of the protection of children and of females, of working hours, etc.

No. 255, Joint Industrial Councils in Great Britain (July, 1919, pp. 207). This contains reports of a committee on relations between employers and employed and other official documents relating to works committees and joint industrial councils. No. 257, Labor Legislation of 1918 (June, 1919, pp. 169). This compilation is a summary of state labor legislation made by Lindley D. Clark.

The Working Conditions Service of the United States Department of Labor has reprinted an address by W. M. Leiserson on Employment Management, Employee Representation, and Industrial Democracy (Washington, pp. 15).

The Children's Bureau of the United States Department of Labor has issued part 3 of the Administration of Child Labor Laws. It deals with the Employment-Certificate System of Maryland and was prepared by Francis H. Bird and Ella A. Merritt (Washington, 1919, pp. 127).

The hearings before the Committee on Education and Labor held in January, 1919, on Social and Industrial Conditions in the United States have been printed. This is largely devoted to a statement by Mr. Gompers.

The New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce has published a series of valuable bulletins dealing with various labor problems. Among them is to be noted the issue of July, 1919, on Shop Committees and Industrial Councils, prepared by the Bureau of State Research. It analyzes the plans of different establishments which have already put these systems into operation; and the analysis is made more helpful by an appendix of synoptical tables covering the different systems.

The Special Bulletin of the New York Department of Labor for June, 1919 (No. 94) contains New York Labor Laws Enacted in 1919 (Albany, Bureau of Statistics and Information, pp. 72). This department has also issued a compilation of the New York state Labor Law with Amendments, Additions and Annotations to August 1, 1919 (pp. 191).

The Profit-Sharing Plan of Sweet, Causey, Foster & Company has been printed (Denver, Colo., pp. 14).

The Bureau of Statistics of Massachusetts has compiled the eighteenth annual Directory of Labor Organizations in Massachusetts (May, 1919, pp. 65).

Among state reports of labor bureaus the following have been received:

Second Report of the Industrial Commission of Colorado, 1918 (Denver, pp. 128).

Twenty-eighth Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1918 (Hartford, pp. 89).

Forty-ninth Annual Report on the Statistics of Labor, 1918 (Boston, pt. I, pp. 61; pt. II, pp. 148; pt. III, pp. 95; pt. IV, pp. 54). Second Biennial Report of the Commissioner of Labor of Nevada, 1917-1918 (Carson City, pp. 127).

Twenty-seventh Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Labor and Statistics, 1918 (Baltimore, pp. 306).

Sixteenth Biennial Report of the Department of Labor and the Department of Compensation of Nebraska, 1917-1918 (pp. 258, 69). Fourteenth Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor of West Virginia, 1917-1918 (Charleston, pp. 99).

Money, Prices, Credit, and Banking

INTERNATIONAL PRICE COMPARISONS, a highly interesting and trustworthy monograph, has been published by the Department of Commerce of the United States government in coöperation with the War

Industries Board (Washington, 1919, pp. xiv, 395, 25c.). The volume was prepared by Professor Wesley C. Mitchell with the assistance of Margaret L. Goldsmith and Florence K. Middaugh, and is a contribution to the History of Prices During the War as originally planned by the War Industries Board. It aims to compare the rise of prices in the United States and other countries, belligerent and neutral, from 1913 to 1918 inclusive.

The bulk of the report consists of tables of statistics. There are more than twenty text figures or charts embodying the results of statistical compilations and comparisons. Of actual text there are less than fifty pages but these are worthy of very careful examination. Here are outlined the aim, scope, and method of the international price comparisons made; American prices during the war and the peace-time relations between American and European price fluctuations; and the fluctuations of prices in foreign countries and in the United States in 1913-1918. The report contains tables in full of all the prices studied. The tables are arranged by countries and the commodities studied are listed alphabetically. The general trend of price fluctuations as a whole is shown by index numbers.

The conclusions established by the investigation are set forth on page 53 and some of these conclusions are here added:

The extraordinary rise of prices which started in Europe on the outbreak of the war spread over the whole commercial world. Remoteness from the chief scene of conflict did not protect Japan or Australia from a revolution in prices; difference of economic organization did not protect India; the maintenance of neutrality did not protect Argentina. No other development has ever demonstrated so forcibly the strength of the economic bonds that unite all the nations of the globe in a common fortune.

In comparison with this basic similarity, the differences between the price fluctuations that occurred in various countries are matters of secondary importance; yet they merit attention. In England, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, and even in the distant British colonies of Canada and Australia, a sustained advance began before the end of 1914. India was definitely drawn into the price revolution early in 1915, Argentina and the United States in the latter part of 1915, and Japan early in 1916. Regarding the ultimate degree of the advance, little can be said until figures for 1917 and 1918 become available for all countries. But there is present evidence that in 1915 food prices, at least, rose more violently in Austria than elsewhere; that French prices advanced more than British prices, and Italian more than French; that at least up to the end of 1916 the Scandinavian neutrals were affected in about the same degree as the European belligerents; and that the rise in other parts of the world was less extreme than in Europe. . . . Of the 14 countries studied there are only 2 in which the level of prices was all the time less than in the United States

India, for which the quotations end with 1917, and Argentina, with which the comparison extends to August, 1918.

As a whole, the report is a mine of useful and first-hand information on a subject of great interest to economists and others at the present time. AVARD L. BISHOP.

Yale University.

The hearings before the Senate Committee of Banking and Currency on Incorporating Institutions to Engage in International or Foreign Banking, held July 23, 1919, have been printed (pp. 28).

The Bureau of Education has compiled in a five-page leaflet a table showing Increases in Salaries of College Teachers in three hundred different institutions (Washington, July, 1919).

The National Industrial Conference Board has continued its studies on the cost of living in a pamphlet entitled Changes in the Cost of Living, July, 1914-July, 1919 (Sept., 1919, pp. 31).

Mr. A. C. Miller, a member of the Federal Reserve Board, delivered in Chicago, September 24, 1919, before the American Association of the Baking Industry, an address on The Cost of Living Problem (pp. 20, typewritten).

The Proceedings of the First Annual Convention of the National Association of Securities Commissioners, held in 1918, have been compiled by Charles J. Andre, secretary (St. Paul, pp. 64).

Public Finance

Among state tax reports are:

Report of Commissioners of Taxes and Assessments of the City of New York (pp. 87).

Tenth Annual Report of the Tax Commissioner of the State of Texas, 1918 (pp. 91).

Second Annual Report of the Statistics of Municipal Finances, prepared by the Wisconsin Tax Commission, 1918 (pp. 24).

The Bankers Trust Company of New York has issued in a small pamphlet, Extracts from the Inheritance Tax Law of the State of New York (1919).