Financial Foreign Policy of the United States. by James W. AngellReview by: Leland H. JenksJournal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 29, No. 185 (Mar., 1934), pp. 112-113Published by: American Statistical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2278479 .

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112 American Statistical Association [112

putations that 50 per cent would be the usual proportion in other years as well, but this seems improbable. For Columbus, Ohio, the percentage was 49.7 from the 1930 census, but in the local investigations made yearly from 1921 to 1925 they varied from 33 per cent in 1923 to 47 per cent in 1924. In the present de- pression they would no doubt have run very low. In Buffalo, New York, where from the 1930 census the percentage in April would have been 52.6, this was ap- parently the high point, for the local November surveys yield 40 for 1929, 42 for 1930, 28 for 1931 and actually 15 for 1932. In New Haven, Connecticut, against a census figure of 38.8 we have 35 in May-June, 1931, and 25 in May-June, 1933. It seems probable, therefore, that the proportion of the unemployed that would have been in receipt of benefit has been exaggerated, and would really average less than 40 per cent.

In addition, the figures for all unemployed insurable workers are apparently too large as compared with those for the employed. The unemployed in Class A and B from the 1930 census, after elimination of certain non-insurable groups, seem to have been coupled not with the corresponding figure for the June census for gainful workers at work but with a figure only about three-quarters as large obtained from the data of the Ohio Division of Labor Statistics. If the figure for the unemployed in 1930 is scaled down to correspond with the smaller group of employed workers used in the computations the unemployed figures for all years are reduced, probably by nearly 25 per cent. Adjusting both the pro- portion of insurable workers unemployed and the proportion of the unemployed that are eligible for benefits, the aggregates of benefits claimable would probably be reduced by nearly 40 per cent, while the income from contributions would re- main the same. In view of the slender assistance which the particular scheme recommended would provide in time of deep depression, one is glad to believe that the hypothetical balance sheet of the fund exaggerates payments of benefit as compared with receipts of contributions, and that considerably less meager provisions regarding maximum period of benefit would probably cost no more than the Commission's scheme was supposed by them to cost.

Tables on pages 210 and 211 of Part II are criticizable for the undue accuracy suggested by their presentation. In view of the almost conjectural nature which a series of employment and unemployment figures for 1920-31 must have, the decision to deal in rounded numbers was well taken, but the statistician may question whether the principle has been carried far enough. In most of the population and employment figures one extra place if not more could well be re- garded as doubtful, and surely unemployment rates should not in the circum- stances have been carried past the decimal point.

MARGARET H. HOGG Russell Sage Foundation

Financial Foreign Policy of the United States, by James W. Angell. New York: The Council on Foreign Relations. 1933. vi, 146 pp. This brochure was prepared originally for presentation as a report to the

London Conference of Institutions for the Scientific Study of International

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113] Reviews 113

Relations on behalf of a committee of the Council on Foreign Relations. The Council is to be congratulated upon making it available to a wider audience, and the author upon a survey of exceptional compactness and merit.

Professor Angell focusses attention upon the actions of the government in connection with the export of American capital and the extension of American economic influence abroad. On the basis chiefly of secondary literature dealing with our relations with various countries, he presents first of all a clear state- ment of what has been done and of the more direct implications. Conduct within the American sphere of special influence is compared with that toward other parts of Latin America. A contrast is then drawn between this policy and that of the open door pursued in the Near and Far East. Chapter V discusses State Department action since 1922 in the direct control of capital exports. In conclusion there is a brief summary of the indirect encourage- ment of capital export to Europe implicit in the tariff and war debt policy.

Angell assumes perhaps too sweepingly that our financial policies have al- ways promoted the material interests of the United States. Is this true of the West Indies? While denying that the United States has pursued a com- prehensive intentional imperialism, Angell admits that spasmodic, ad hoc be- havior in numerous cases has tended to add up to the same results. Much the same argument might be advanced with respect to many of the incidents of British and French-not to say Roman-imperialism. In the case of the United States it is in part the continuously shifting personnel that makes policy appear more discontinuous.

Nevertheless the outstanding impressions made by Angell's cogent presenta- tion are that an extraordinary amount of public energy has gone to the direct and indirect encouragement of foreign investment of recent years, that a great diversity of techniques has been employed to smooth the way for investors abroad, and that the consequences have been wholly injurious for our interna- tional relations. The analysis of these conditions with respect to Latin Amer- ica presented in chapter IV is a masterpiece. As a whole, Angell's brochure constitutes the most effective restatement available of the main contentions of liberal criticism of the federal foreign investment policy of the last quarter century. It is of interest to note that one of these criticisms, against the unilateral character of our financial controls, has now been met in the case of Haiti by the recent executive accord, which explicitly subjects the stipulations to arbitration in case of diplomatic disagreement as to their interpretation.

LELAND H. JENKS Wellesley College

Imperial Committee on Economic Consultation and Cooperation-Report. London: H. M. Stationery Office. Cmd. 4335. 1933. 131 pp. The story of the development within the British Empire in the past twenty

years of a dozen agencies for inter-imperial economic consultation and co6pera- tion reminds one of Topsy's immortal remark in Uncle Tom's Cabin "I 'spect I growed. Don't think nobody never made me."

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