and of the class or classes which are to wield them. The decision as to whether any given function may more properly be entrusted to an authority under the direct control of the national government, or to an authority independent thereof, rests rather with the statesman than with the economist. If, however, it be true that "people can understand their own business and their own interests better, and care for them more than the government does, or can be expected to do," then it would appear that the onus probandi should always rest upon the advocates of the exercise of governmental power in any direction. It must be shown to be for the general advantage that individual action should be replaced by the action of a small section of the community, and similarly that the nation as a whole will perform any given function better than the section immediately concerned. In other words the endeavour should be to restrict the exercise of public authority to the smallest possible area, and above all to secure that all who either directly or indirectly are responsible for the administration of public business should have an actual interest in the success of their administration.

In thus limiting the executive area, and restricting the exercise of public authority, as far as other circumstances will admit, to those directly concerned, care must be taken to preserve for the general use the wider experience and clearer insight into principles which a central authority will usually possess, and it will frequently be necessary to reserve some power of review to be exercised in the interests of minorities or of other sections of the community.

The English poor-law system affords a good illustration of a system of independent local administration combined with centralised supervision and control within certain prescribed limits. The maintenance of the poor being a matter of national concern, and it being impossible to localise the effects of good or bad administration in such a matter, parliament has prescribed the principles upon which relief shall be afforded and its cost raised. A department under a responsible minister has also been established to see that these principles are observed, and to furnish the best advice and information available. But it rests with the local authority to adjudicate on applications for relief, and generally to make provision for the due administration of the law.

Much of the legislation by means of "private bills" would be more efficient if it were entrusted to a less important, but more interested, authority than the imperial parliament, and the establishment of COUNTY COUNCILS may eventually afford a means of relegating many of the functions at present performed by the national executive to a minor authority better able to discharge them to the advantage of the section

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of the community more immediately concerned.

In view perhaps of the fact that the British government is the least centralised in Europe, our own literature on the subject is much less ample than that of the Continent, and especially of France. John Stuart Mill's Representative Government and Principles of Political Economy (book v.), and Sir Arthur Helps's Thoughts upon Government may, however, be consulted. For the view of the MANCHESTER SCHOOL which is against Centralisation, see e.g. MALLET, Free Exchange, pp. 97, etc. Speech of COBDEN in ed. BRIGHT and ROGERS, vol. i. No. xx. pp. 362-3. ["Government will revert to something like the municipal system."]

T. H. E.

CERTAINTY. Certainty is an economic conception of great importance in several departments. The certainty of enjoying, partially at least, the fruits of one's own exertion is one of the principal elements in the efficiency of labour (contrast slave with free labour). In the accumulation of capital, and in the institution of private property, certainty is again fundamental. The essence of CAPITAL (q.v.) is held to be in the reservation of WEALTH for future consumption or the satisfaction of future needs, which implies that the fund reserved will be secured to a greater or less degree. The degree of certainty naturally operates upon the rate of interest when capital is lent. Certainty is also used in reference to taxation as regards the manner, time, and amount of payment, and as the basis of Adam SMITH's second canon. He considers certainty to be of such importance that a very considerable degree of inequality is "from the experience of all nations, not near so great an evil as a very small degree of uncertainty." In insurance the certainty attaching to groups, relatively to the uncertainty in the case of individuals, is the fundamental conception.

[Uncertainty of employment, as an evil of the present industrial régime, is dealt with by Prof. Foxwell in Claims of Labour (Edinburgh, 1886)].

J. S. N.

CERTIFICATE, SHARE. A broker, when he has bought shares in a company for a client, has to deliver a document called a certificate, which is the only visible sign of the property in the share. It is signed by one or more officials of the company, and when the shares are sold must in most cases be given up. Several decisions in the courts have shown that a certificate, although registered in buyer's name, is worthless in the event of forgery of the seller's name on the transfer, and no claim can be upheld against a company, notwithstanding the registration of transfer and issue by it of the certificate in the buyer's name. The FORGED TRANSFER Act, 1891, gives a company power to compensate a holder so defrauded, but a certificate is not absolute security. American railroad share certificates are peculiar; as the certificate may be made in the name of another person, whereas

CESARE, CARLO DE, born at Spinazzola (Bari) 1824, died at Rome 1882. First as a deputy, and later as a senator, he was employed in reporting on important laws and charged with delicate commissions, such as the inquiry into the condition of the navy after the battle of Lissa, and on the state of Sicily in 1875. He was Counsellor of the "cour des comptes"; having been, before reaching this dignity, inspector-general of the banks of issue. He was the author of a manual of political economy, putting forward principally the doctrines of RICARDO; this book is useful even now on account of a chapter it contains of historical notices concerning political economy in Italy. Manuale di Economia pubblica, 2 vols. Torino, 1862. De Cesare wrote also upon a great many economical problems of the day in his country, and earned thus a considerable reputation as politician and practical economist.

The following list of his publications will give an idea of his activity:

Intorno alla ricchezza pugliese, Bari, 1853; N mondo civile e industriale nel secolo xix., Napoli 1857; Dell' industria asiatica, Napoli 1857; Della protezione e del libero cambio, Napoli 1858; Della proprietà intellettuale, Napoli 1858; Delle condizioni economiche e morali delle classi agricole (published by the Accademia Pontoniana), Napoli 1859; Dell' educazione alle arti e mestieri, Palermo 1859; Progetto di perequazione dell' imposta fondiaria per tutto il regno d'Italia, Torino 1863; Il credito fondiario e agricolo, Torino 1863; La legge dell' affrancamento del Tavoliere di Puglia e gli interessi economici delle provincie meridionali, Torino 1863; Il Passato, Presente e l'Avvenire della pubblica amministrazione del regno d'Italia, Firenze 1865; Disarmonie economiche, Firenze 1865; La finanza italiana nel 1867, Firenze 1867; Relazione sullo stato del materiale e sull' amministrazione della r. marina, Firenze 1867; Le due scuole economiche, Firenze 1875.

M. P.

CESS. The land-tax of Scotland, permanently fixed at £47,954 per annum, subject to a power of redemption. It is payable partly from burghs, and partly from shires; the incidence of taxation is determined by the local authorities.

A. D.

CESSIO BONORUM. See BANKRUPTCY IN SCOTLAND.

CESSIONARY (Scots law term). ASSIGNEE. CEVA, GIOVANNI, born in the province of Milan in 1647 or 1648-is a remarkable author, and will probably attract a growing interest, as the first clear-sighted and decided mathematical

economist. He has also the merit of clearly defining hypothetical economics and insisting on pure economics as being the only possible exact science of which the subject permits the construction. He was by profession a mathematician and hydraulic engineer, and as such was several times employed by the government of Mantua. His death took place during the siege of Mantua in 1734.

Ceva's economical work has the following long title-De re nummaria, quoad fieri potuit geometrice tractata, ad illustrissimos et excellentissimos dominos Præsidem, Quastoremque huius arciducalis Cæsarai Magistratus, Mantuæ,

1711.

He divides the causes influencing the value of money into two groups: those which "extrinsecus adveniunt and those which "ex nummo ipso procedunt." The valor externus omnis rei nummaria" varies in a direct ratio to the population and inverse ratio to the "quantitas rei.' When "nummi ærosi" and cupræi," are in excess of the quantity needed for small transactions true coin gets appreciated and vice versa. . . "in eadem quantitate nummis aureis persistentibus eorum externi valores componuntur ex ratione quantitatum ærosæ monetæ et ex reciproca quantitatum argentea. As to the causes of variations in value classified as depending ex ipso nummo," he enumerates the principal ones which can be called expenses of production, viz., the distance and nature of the mines, the expenses of coinage, etc.

of

Passages characterising his conception of economic science and his condemnation inductive methods are the following: Magnum aliquid est commercium illud reconditum atque complexum, quo humana respublica, pecuniæ occulto gyro, florens atque incolumis perpetuo servatur;. sed huiusmodi naturam

explorare difficillimum est, nec aliter possumus, nisi quædam geometrarum modo ponantur. Alias necesse est nos versari in quadam obscurissima nocte, nec de re huiusmodi posset quidquam constitui neque cognosci. . . . Quibusdam petitionibus præfixis, sic rem intellectui proponemus, ut si fieret, quod ratio admonet fieri debere, geometrice ostendi possit, unde oriantur augmenta monetarum, et quot quibusque ex rationibus componantur valores ipsi nummorum. Quamvis plura contingant, quæ praxim minus exactam reddunt, regula tamen eiusque vis fixa atque immobilis perseverat.

M. P.

CHADWICK, SIR EDWIN. This distinguished economist and statistician was born in 1800 and died at his residence at East Sheen, Surrey, on the 5th April 1890. He preserved his untiring energy and enthusiasm to the end of this long term of ninety years, and happily lived to see a vast degree of success resulting from the great social reforms he had instituted, fostered, and practically carried through to the advantage of the health, well-being, and general

improvement of his country. Born of a Lancashire family of the middle class, and with immediate ancestors gifted with little riches but with much earnestness of purpose, he had to work out his own way to fortune. Intended at first for the bar, Chadwick was soon forced to change his legal reading for the more immediately bread-winning occupations of reporting and review writing. A contribution of his to the Westminster Review, in 1828, on the subject of "Life Assurance," and another on Preventive Police," gained him the acquaintance and support of Grote, the elder and younger MILL, and BENTHAM. Soon after the call to the bar of Chadwick, Bentham engaged him as an assistant to complete his own celebrated treatises on civil and penal legislation, and in this capacity Chadwick went to reside with the octogenarian philosopher until his death in 1832. Bentham left him a legacy and a small library, and would fain have wished Chadwick to have succeeded him in the propaganda of what may be called Benthamism. Fortunately Chadwick preferred a practical to a speculative career. National, social, and sanitary subjects, such as the condition of labour, the housing, living, and over-crowding of the population, and especially of the working classes, the improvement of the water supply of great cities, the interment of the dead in cemeteries removed from the immediate neighbourhood of the living, and other similar great questions, had become Chadwick's earnest study. His well-earned reputation for this soon led to his being offered and accepting official employment. In 1832, during the administration of Lord Grey, the first poor-law commission was appointed, and Chadwick's duty, in the post of assistant-commissioner to which he was promoted, demanded his personal visit to all parts of the country where investigation of facts seemed needful, and his collection of them led to such astounding revelations of the then condition of the labourer, of the poor, and of the evils to be remedied, that the government, impressed with the talent and genius displayed in his reports, appointed him a commissioner. The commission itself, of which Chadwick was the real heart and soul, carried out the most sweeping reform in the old English POOR-LAW system. Even this was not sufficient to satisfy his almost perfervid imagination of view of the advantages to be expected from a root-and-branch substitution of complete centralisation, in place of the excessive and costly decentralisation and its many abuses that were rampant when each of the 16,000 parishes of England looked to the wants of its own poor much in its own way. In 1833 Chadwick had the chief share in drawing up the report upon the condition of FACTORY children which led to the Ten Hours Act.

In 1834 he was appointed secretary to

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the new poor-law board, and during his tenure of that office for about twelve years his exertions for the public good were unceasing. In 1838 he presented a report of the commissioners on a special inquiry into the local and preventible causes of disease, and the improvement of habitations in the metropolis. This report proposed a venous and arterial system of water supply and drainage for the improvement of towns, and works for the application of sewage to agricultural production. Similar inquiries were pursued throughout England and Wales under his guidance, and led to very substantial reforms. His report of 1843, on the results of a special inquiry into the practice of interments in towns, formed the basis of the legislation which substituted a better system. In the same year he read to the Royal Statistical Society of London a paper on the best mode of representing by returns the duration of life and causes of mortality. In 1844, Chadwick suggested to Sir Robert PEEL the appointment of a Commission to make a general investigation into the national health and the best means of improving it. Quarrels ensued between Chadwick and the other commissioners, and the new poor-law board was dissolved. It was not perhaps to be expected that a man of the enthusiastic and optimistic type of Chadwick could steer clear of conflict with his colleagues. Nor can it be said with truth that there existed no well-founded cause of complaint on their part, for Chadwick was egoistic and dogmatic even when not positively domineering, and was gifted with a readiness of pen and a volubility of tongue which often wearied out his opponents. But as great public benefits often accrued from his contentions, the private evil to his colleagues does not count for much. Socially, as we and many of his survivors can vouch, Chadwick was a most interesting and valued acquaintance. The fact is that the necessity for speedy action to remedy evils glaring and grievous was so obvious that the urging of them on in a nation wedded as we are to a long retention of old forms and ways and systems, was a positive public good; and, in the case of Chadwick, the man was fortunately equal to the work. Sometimes, indeed, on occasions when he had to stir up apathy or LAISSEZ-FAIRE into reform, he was in the habit of profusely spicing his statements with statistics which would not bear the test of strict actuarial investigation, and which were incorrect in respect of their collocation with results, or of their comparative percentages. The year after the poorlaw board was dissolved Chadwick was appointed one of the commissioners to inquire into the health of London, and in the next following year (1848) one of the commissioners of the general board of health, for improving the supplies of water, and the sewage, drainage, and cleansing of great towns. In the same

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of the Bath, although he was not promoted to the knighthood of the order until 1889, the year before his death. When the board of health was dissolved, Chadwick retired upon a pension of £1000 per annum. But there was

no retirement by him from the active pursuit of his life-long researches and labours for the practical advancement of all that concerns the health and educational and social progress of the nation. On sanitation especially he continued to be its chief authority to consult. He had much influence in such matters, for example, in the sending out of commissioners to the Crimea for the relief of our soldiers there. This was followed up in 1858 by inquiries into the heavy mortality amongst the troops in India, a subject he fully explained in a paper, "On the application of Sanitary Science to the protection of the Indian Army," read before the Social Science Congress at Liverpool. In 1860 he was vice-president of the public health department of the meeting of the same congress at Glasgow, and delivered a remarkable address on sanitation. In 1861, he followed up the same subject, as president of the section of economic science and statistics, at the health association at Cambridge. It would be tedious to prolong the list of his contributions, from 1861 to 1890, to the journals of all the numerous scientific societies to which he belonged, and for whose researches and practical public objects he continued to labour to the end of life.

A long career thus well spent deserves the gratitude alike of his contemporaries and of posterity. England certainly has erected statues and memorials of many men of far inferior worth to Chadwick. There remains, however, an ever-present memorial of him in the improvements that have taken place in this country in almost every direction that he laboured in, and which are briefly indicated in the present outline of the chief points in his biography.

See The Health of Nations, a Review of the Works of Edwin Chadwick, with a Biographical Dissertation, by B. W. Richardson, 2 vols., 8vo, London, 1887. Chadwick's papers, printed in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, extend over a period of thirty-six years. Their titles are "On the best mode of representing by Returns the Duration of Life and Causes of Mortality," vol. vii. p. 1.-"On the Economical, Social, Educational, and Political Influences of Competitive Examinations, as Tests of Qualification for Admission to the Junior Appointments in the Public Service," vol. xxi. p. 18.-"On the Progress of the Principle of Competitive Examination for Admission into the Public Service, with Statistics of Actual Results and an Investigation of some of the Objections raised," vol. xxii. p. 44. -"Results of Different Principles of Legislation and Administration in Europe; of Competition for the Field as compared with Competition within the Field of Service," vol. xxii. p. 381.-"Post

dress as President of Section F. ("Economic Science and Statistics") of the British Association, October 1862, printed, vol. xxv. p. 502.—“ On the Subject Matters and Methods of Competitive Examinations for the Public Service," vol. xxvi. p. 72.-"Poor-Law Administration, its Chief Principles and their Results in England and Ireland as compared with Scotland," vol. xxvii. p. 492. Opening Address, as President of the Department of Economy and Trade, at the Meeting of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, York, 1864, printed, vol. xxviii. p. 1.-"Treatment of Pauper Children on a Larger Scale," table illustrative of school organisation for reducing expenses with increased efficiency, vol. xliii. p. 245.

F. H.

CHAFFER, now a verb, was originally a noun, and meant a journey for the purpose of buying and selling, from the words chap (as in kaufen, caupo, кáжŋλos), and fare, a journey. Chap appears in chapman or merchant, also in cheap, which was at first a noun, and meant simply market, as in Eastcheap, and Cheapside. Articles sold on terms favourable to the buyer were to him "good cheap' or good market (compare "bon marché "). The adjective was dropped and the substantival character forgotten; hence the adjective "cheap." Chaffer in popular language is a form of what Adam SMITH calls HIGGLING OF THE MARKET, or the disputing of buyer and seller, which is the usual preliminary to the striking of a bargain; but it is used of retail dealers and their customers more often than of wholesale; and is associated rather with petty than with important interests. [See also CHAPMAN.] J. B.

CHALMERS, GEORGE (1742-1825), Scotch antiquarian, historian, and economist, born at Fochabers in Moray, and educated there and at Aberdeen. He afterwards studied law at Edinburgh. He went to America, and practised as a lawyer at Baltimore. Returning home at the beginning of the civil difficulties in 1775, he settled in London. He was appointed, 1786, chief clerk of the committee of the privy council for trade and foreign plantations. His works were chiefly historical and antiquarian, including the well-known Caledonia.

His economic works, as their titles suggest, are chiefly statistical, and as such are of the very highest importance; the Estimate in particular furnishing the student with valuable information, which, bearing in mind Chalmers's official position, may be deemed more than usually trustworthy. In his Considerations on Commerce he deals with more theoretical matters, high price of BULLION was owing to the state of committing himself to the opinion that the the FOREIGN EXCHANGES. It cannot, however, be said that his arguments or facts tend to establish his position.

His economic works were as follows: The Propriety of allowing a Qualified Export of Wood