"PROTECTION TO YOUNG INDUSTRIES as Applied in the United States. A Study in Economic History. By F. W. Taussig. Cambridge: Moses King."

This little book is already known to our readers as the successful essay for the Toppan prize in Political Economy. Owing to the great interest in political topics at the present time, the book will undoubtedly meet with a deserved success. Here, in small compass of sixty-nine pages, is presented an excellent account of an important subject. Mr. Taussig in his introductory chapter states the argument for protection to young industries in a few pages. "The argument is, in brief, that it may be advantageous to encourage by legislation a branch of industry which might be profitably carried on, which is therefore sure to be carried on eventually, but whose rise is prevented for the time being by artificial or accidental causes." To test this argument Mr. Taussig proceeds "to examine how far protection . . . was actually applied and how far it was the cause, or an essential condition, of that rise of manufactures which took place." In the second chapter the industrial history of the United States from 1789 to 1838 is concisely recounted. The rise of manufactures as a result of the retaliative legislation of the United States, France and England, in the years 1807-9, and the necessity for keeping up those manufactures, gradually brought about the policy of protection, which culminated in the tariff of 1828. To illustrate the subject, Mr. Taussig, in the three succeeding chapters, gives historical accounts of the three most important branches of industry to which protection has been applied - cotton, woollens and iron. In the final chapter is a summing up of the results of the investigation and their application to the subject in hand. "Although, therefore, the conditions existed under which it is most likely that protection to young industries may be advantageously applied, . . . little, if anything, was gained by the costly protection which the United States maintained in the first part of this century." The publisher is to be congratulated on the excellent make-up of the book, as the printing, binding and general appearance leave nothing to be desired.