Emil Lederer: Review of Georg Neuhaus’s Landwirtschaft und Gewerbe (1915)

Emil Lederer’s short review evaluates the second volume of Georg Neuhaus’s Die deutsche Volkswirtschaft und ihre Wandlungen im letzten Vierteljahrhundert, published in 1913. Its central judgment concerns the scholarly and public value of systematically organized official statistics: Neuhaus makes the changing structure of Germany’s economy accessible without superseding the underlying census records.

Lederer begins by distinguishing the volume’s detailed examination of agriculture and industry from the first volume’s account of broad economic changes. The occupational and establishment censuses of 1882, 1895, and 1907 supply the comparative framework.

Er verarbeitet das ungeheuere Material der drei Berufszählungen auf einige wichtige, für die Struktur und die Entwicklung von Landwirtschaft und Gewerbe bedeutsame Punkte hin.

English translation: He works up the immense material of the three occupational censuses with a view to a few important points significant for the structure and the development of agriculture and trade.

The emphasis falls on turning extensive data into an intelligible account of structure and development. Lederer traces the agricultural analysis from changes in holding size—the growth of the smallest holdings and decline of the largest, also examined by individual federal state—to ownership and tenancy, land use, livestock, machinery, and personnel. Holdings operated by agricultural workers and day labourers receive separate attention. The corresponding treatment of industry, commerce, and transport follows changes in establishment numbers and sizes, personnel by occupational position, mechanization, and organizational forms, with additional attention to home industry and geographical distribution.

This outline leads to the review’s evaluative argument. Although the census material had already received both scholarly and popular treatment, Lederer finds Neuhaus’s comprehensive coverage and clear grouping especially useful. Statistical organization allows readers to investigate the economy’s internal structure in multiple directions, within the limits of what statistical evidence can establish.

So kann man dieses Werk geradezu als ein Nachschlagewerk bezeichnen, das zwar das offizielle Material nicht zu ersetzen vermag, aber für die meisten Zwecke doch eine durchaus zureichende Quelle für statistische Angaben bilden wird.

English translation: Thus one may fairly describe this work as a reference work which, although it cannot replace the official material, will nevertheless for most purposes constitute an entirely sufficient source for statistical data.

The distinction between a usable reference work and the official material itself is central to Lederer’s praise. Accessibility does not erase the need for primary records; it makes reliable information sufficient for many practical purposes available to a wider readership. He accordingly recommends broader circulation as a means of spreading realistic knowledge of economic development grounded in official data. His concluding approval of the tables’ selection and arrangement as practical and pedagogically sound reinforces the review’s governing criterion: the volume’s achievement lies in making a complex statistical record both navigable and instructive.