The archive.

When does labour protection cease to be an experiment and become an accepted basis for further reform? In this brief review of two Swiss studies by Émile Waxweiler, Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen stresses the value of laws tested in practice—and exposed long enough for opponents to identify harmful effects. His endorsement rests on the experience of Sunday rest and the federal factory law of 1877, whose revisions he treats as evidence of practical learning. Acceptance, however, ranges from enthusiasm to resignation. The review offers a compact view of how protection could reach beyond factories: through widening the legal definition of a factory or through cantonal legislation covering other trades.

Replacing grain fields with pasture may rescue a farm without securing its future. That distinction drives Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen’s 1897 review of F. Ph. Koenig’s study of English agriculture under international competition. Schullern welcomes Koenig’s county-level evidence and his account of adaptation through lower rents and expanded livestock farming, but questions whether pastoral prosperity offers lasting protection against the pressures already afflicting grain growers. His closing discussion sharpens the issue: agricultural “overproduction” must be measured against consumers’ purchasing power, not their unsatisfied needs. This short review lets readers examine the gap between successful adjustment and durable recovery, while distinguishing an abundance of produce from an ability to buy it.

What makes an economics textbook useful in the classroom—and beyond it? In this brief review of the first two parts of Hermann Bachmann’s Grundlagen der Volkswirtschaft, Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen judges from roughly six years’ experience teaching at commercial academies. His praise is practical and conditional: a chapter on agricultural production would make the general economics volume independently usable, while stylistic revision and corrected misprints would improve its teaching value. In the agrarian volume, he values concise legislative information and an approach attentive to the circumstances of practical problems. The review offers a compact example of a teacher’s standards for economic instruction, including his expectation that sound exposition might correct prejudiced judgments outside school.

A land tax may fall on the seller through a reduced purchase price rather than simply burden the buyer: this concrete dispute anchors Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen’s demand that fiscal theory remain answerable to actual markets and institutions. His 1897 review of three Italian works on public finance briefly appreciates Cossa’s textbook before engaging more closely with Graziani and Masè-Dari. Admiration does not preclude disagreement: he questions Graziani’s separation of theory from legislation and values Masè-Dari’s examination of the conditions for progressive taxation in Italy. Readers encounter a reviewer testing abstract claims against property transactions, assessment practices, revenue needs, and taxpayers’ capacity—and distinguishing a tax’s theoretical justification from the evidence needed to introduce it.

Can a collection’s agricultural arguments receive a fair hearing when its contributors write from an explicitly Catholic standpoint? In this brief German review, Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen gives particular attention to Stanislao Solari’s expectations for a practically tested fertilization system: higher agricultural productivity and wider economic and social benefits, even as markets become more integrated. These are Solari’s expectations, not results independently established by the reviewer. Schullern’s own pointed intervention concerns scholarly fairness: openly declared Catholic commitments, he argues, deserve at least as much consideration as opposing commitments often left implicit in specialist literature. The review brings a concrete proposal for improving Italian agriculture into contact with the question of how religious affiliation shapes its reception.

Venetian shipping gives the opposition between free trade and protectionism a concrete historical test in this brief review of the first part of S. Cognetti de Martiis’s I due sistemi della politica commerciale. Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen welcomes Cognetti’s account of a state whose commercial policies served practical national interests rather than either abstract principle. Yet he finds the treatment of Friedrich List too compressed, with too little emphasis on its historical and specifically national character. That reservation sharpens the review’s interest: Schullern values the history of actual Venetian policy above the survey of doctrines, while insisting that economic doctrines themselves need historically precise treatment.

Domestic and agricultural servants shared the legal designation Gesinde, but did they belong under a single framework of social policy? This question gives Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen’s brief 1897 review of Wilhelm Kähler’s study its focus. Schullern welcomes Kähler’s evidence as a resource for reform, bringing an Austrian comparison to his assessment: provincial servant ordinances, he argues, sustain conditions that cannot last. His endorsement is not a legislative programme or a detailed critique. It draws attention instead to the difficulty of reforming laws for workers whose circumstances differ markedly beneath a common name. The review offers a concise statement of why defining the population governed by servant law matters as much as documenting its conditions.

Small instalments could conceal obligations large enough to endanger a household or farm. In this 1897 introduction and commentary on Austria’s instalment-sales law of 27 April 1896, Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen asks when such risks justify overriding freedom of contract. Drawing on lawyers’ experience and reports of distressed peasant holdings in Tyrol, he connects unread printed agreements, reassuring oral promises, and inferior goods to the need for protections buyers cannot sign away. His account makes procedural details concrete: allowing oral evidence matters when a salesman’s assurances contradict the contract. Yet he distinguishes protecting purchasers from preventing harmful purchases. The legislative compromise strengthened remedies while abandoning preventive provisions—a limit that sharpens his assessment of what this law could accomplish.

Can agricultural protection best serve farmers by taking other occupations’ interests into account? In this brief 1899 review of the second edition of Adolf Buchenberger’s Grundzüge der deutschen Agrarpolitik, Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen endorses precisely that position. He singles out the expanded discussions of protective tariffs and grain futures trading for their objectivity and freedom from slogans, rather than rehearsing their proposals. The review offers a compact statement of Schullern’s criterion for sound agrarian policy: lasting agricultural benefit should be compatible with broader social and economic aims. His praise sharpens into a warning against sectional demands and preconceived doctrines that can pass from daily political conflict into legislation.

A promise to reconcile private property with society’s rights meets a reviewer unwilling to mistake ambition for achievement. In this 1899 review of Alessandro Garelli’s La proprietà sociale, Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen acknowledges independent thinking while questioning the proposed synthesis of rival economic schools. His skepticism takes concrete form in a query about Austrian income taxation: does Garelli’s example refer to a tax already abolished? Yet Schullern’s objection is not simply doctrinal. He argues that excessive length and terminology obscure ideas potentially useful to public finance. This brief, pointed review shows how he separates intellectual promise from effective exposition, without claiming to have refuted the system as a whole.

An international collection of labour laws gives Schullern occasion to judge both documentary practice and Austrian legislative inertia. In this brief 1899 review of the Belgian Labour Office’s first Annuaire, covering 1897, he welcomes French translations of legal texts accompanied by accounts of parliamentary debates and preparatory inquiries. Yet he defends selective coverage of regulations: completeness would add bulk without equivalent value for readers abroad. Austria’s sparse representation prompts a sharper judgement, which he attributes to stagnation in its social and economic legislation. The review offers a compact example of how a practical reference work could serve both the need to follow foreign worker-protection measures and criticism of policy at home.

Does public borrowing burden future generations, or does that question obscure what the state does with the funds? In this brief 1899 review of Antonio De Viti de Marco’s Saggi di economia e finanza, Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen singles out the essay on public loans for its theoretical precision. He reports De Viti de Marco’s contention that borrowing is less burdensome than extraordinary taxation and does not make later generations contribute, then highlights its connection to the productivity of public expenditure and value through time. Schullern offers endorsement rather than sustained criticism. His selective account shows why the borrowing essay, rather than the collection’s studies of mercantilism and state property, commanded his attention.