L.

LABOR EXCHANGES ACT, British.

See (in this Volume) POVERTY, PROBLEMS OF: ENGLAND.

----------LABOR ORGANIZATION: Start--------

Trade Unions Labor Parties Strikes Lockouts Mediations Arbitrations Industrial Agreements

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Australia: A. D. 1886-1906. The Rise of the Labor Party. Its rigorous organization.

Some account of the part played in Australian politics by the Labor Party is given elsewhere.

See, in this Volume, AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1903-1904, and after.

The circumstances of the rise and growth of the party are related briefly and the rigorousness of its organization is described in the following:

"To trace the origin of the movement we must go back to the fall of prices which began about 1886, to the succeeding lean years 1886-1892, and the miseries of the consequent period of unsuccessful strikes. The strikers and their working-class sympathizers were taunted with appealing to brute force, and recommended to depend rather upon constitutional political methods for the redress of grievances. The workingmen took the advice and bettered it. The trades unions devoted a portion of their funds and much of their energy to political propaganda. First in New South Wales, later in all the colonies and in many widely separated districts, labor leagues were organized which sketched out a policy and laid down a pledge which all candidates supported by the leagues must sign. These formed the nucleus of a new and independent political party which gave their votes to either Liberal or Conservative indifferently, regardless of which was in office, in return for legislative concessions from either. The new party springing thus almost simultaneously to life all over the continent was at first regarded as a pathetic joke. They were few in numbers, uneducated, inexperienced in affairs of state, and had opposed to them all the wealth and the legal astuteness in every chamber where they held seats. But they were determined, united, and, with rare exceptions, self-sacrificing. They were mutually bound not to take office except with the consent of their fellow-laborites, so that they were labeled from the first as ‘Not for sale.’ And from their point of view the plan has succeeded.

{371}

"Friend and foe alike pay tribute to the magnificent organization and discipline of the movement, and to the personal disinterestedness of the leaders. A great economy of effort is assured by having a platform and organization practically identical for the Federal, State and municipal elections, and for general propaganda work, and consequently being able to utilize the same bodies—the local political labor leagues—and the same workers for what seems to them social righteousness, whether in national, State, or municipal concerns. The Labor party was born of trades-unionism, and its whole administration has been based on trades union methods. The political labor leagues were at first composed of trades-unionists, and are still closely in touch with trades unions. These are the bodies who vote for the selection of candidates for all elections and for delegates to the annual and triennial State and Federal conferences of the party. The Labor party in Parliament may be the controlling force, but no other party in Australia has to carry out the behests of its constituents as does this.

"We now come to the pledge and the caucus. The pledge, which was first drafted by the New South Wales Labor Conference in 1895, reads as follows: ‘I hereby pledge myself not to oppose the candidate selected by the recognized political Labour organisation, and, if elected, to do my utmost to carry out the principles—embodied in the Federal Labour Platform, and on all questions affecting the Platform to vote as a majority of the Parliamentary Party may decide at a duly constituted caucus meeting.’

"As the pledge binds all members to carry out the general principles of a platform decided for him by the united labor vote of Australia, so each man has his vote in the legislature decided for him beforehand on all details of that policy by the caucus vote of his party in the legislature, before or during the course of debate. The advocates of the system say that this is the only way in which any consistent policy can be carried out to a successful end. Opponents assert that in it we have the germs of machine politics, and that labor may by and by pay dearly for its present victory. The large amount of direct representation in Australia, and the increasing probabilities of the initiative and referendum being more largely used, may check this tendency."

_Alice Henry, The Australian Labor Movement (The Outlook, November 3, 1906)._

LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1905-1909. Failures of the Compulsory Arbitration Law.

In this Volume, under the heading—AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1905-1906,— an instance of failure in the operation of the compulsory Arbitration Law to arrest a strike of coal miners in New South Wales is recorded. The failure was repeated in the same field in the fall of 1909, when 12,000 miners of the Newcastle and Maitland collieries of New South Wales stopped work. "The men," it was reported, "demand an open conference to deal with the principal grievances, with resort, in the event of failure, to the Federal Arbitration Court or a special commission. The owners, on the other hand, insist on a conference with closed doors and the settlement of undecided questions under the State Industrial Act. They further want work to be resumed simultaneously with the opening of the conference. The men, however, refuse to hew coal until their grievances have been settled, but offer to carry on during the conference all work necessary to keep the mines in working order."

The correspondent who reported this went on to say:

"The public seems to be without a remedy against the strikers, since it is impossible to imprison the whole mass, and the imprisonment of the leaders would mean a general strike. In addition the only available labour for colliery purposes is controlled by the trade unions."

Evidently, however, the law was vindicated in the end, since a report from Sydney on the 29th of December, made known that 13 officials of the miners’ union had been fined £100 each, with two months hard labor in default.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Austria: A. D. 1902.

During a strike of about 6500 men in various employments at Trieste, in February, 1902, there were conflicts with the military in which about 40 were killed and wounded. The demand was for an eight hours day, and it was conceded in the end, after an arbitration which decided in their favor. In the following August serious labor disturbances occurred in Galicia, where the peasants claimed better wages, and troops had to be sent to the region to restore order.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Belgium: A. D. 1902. General Strike of Workmen as Protest against the Plural Suffrage.

See (in this Volume) BELGIUM: A. D. 1902.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1903. Compensation for Injuries to Workmen.

After months of debate an Act prescribing compensation for accidents injurious to workmen was passed, attempts to attach to it the principle of compulsory insurance having failed.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Canada: A. D. 1907-1908. The Act known as "The Industrial Disputes Investigation Act." Its main provisions. Its object, not Compulsory Arbitration, but the Compulsory Attempting of Arbitration. General success of the Act. Failure to prevent Canadian Pacific Railway Strike.

In the judgment of many who give thought and study to labor questions, the most promising experiment yet made in legislation for dealing with disputes between employers and workmen is the Canadian Act of March, 1907, entitled "An Act to aid in the Prevention and Settlement of Strikes and Lockouts in Mines and Industries connected with Public Utilities." The essence of the Act is in its 56th to 61st sections, which read as follows:

"56. It shall be unlawful for any employer to declare or cause a lockout, or for any employee to go on strike, on account of any dispute prior to or during a reference of such dispute to a Board of Conciliation and Investigation under the provisions of this Act, or prior to or during a reference under the provisions concerning railway disputes in the Conciliation and Labour Act: Provided that nothing in this Act shall prohibit the suspension or discontinuance of any industry or of the working of any persons therein for any cause not constituting a lockout or strike: Provided also that, except where the

## parties have entered into an agreement under section 62 of

this Act, nothing in this Act shall be held to restrain any employer from declaring a lockout, or any employee from going on strike in respect of any dispute which has been duly referred to a Board and which has been dealt with under section 24 or 25 of this Act, or in respect of any dispute which has been the subject of a reference under the provisions concerning railway disputes in the Conciliation and Labour Act.

{372}

"57. Employers and employees shall give at least thirty days’ notice of an intended change affecting conditions of employment with respect to wages or hours; and in every case where a dispute has been referred to a Board, until the dispute has been finally dealt with by the Board, neither of the parties nor the employees affected shall alter the conditions of employment with respect to wages or hours, or on account of the dispute do or be concerned in doing, directly or indirectly, anything in the nature of a lockout or strike, or a suspension or discontinuance of employment or work, but the relationship of employer and employee shall continue uninterrupted by the dispute, or anything arising out of the dispute; but if, in the opinion of the Board, either party uses this or any other provision of this Act for the purpose of unjustly maintaining a given condition of affairs through delay, and the Board so reports to the Minister, such party shall be guilty of an offence, and liable to the same penalties as are imposed for a violation of the next preceding section.

"58. Any employer declaring or causing a lockout contrary to the provisions of this Act, shall be liable to a fine of not less than one hundred dollars, nor more than one thousand dollars, for each day or part of a day that such lockout exists.

"59. Any employee who goes on strike contrary to the provisions of this Act shall be liable to a fine of not less than ten dollars, nor more than fifty dollars, for each day or part of a day that such employee is on strike.

"60. Any person who incites, encourages or aids in any manner any employer to declare or continue a lockout, or any employee to go or continue on strike contrary to the provisions of this Act, shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine of not less than fifty dollars nor more than one thousand dollars.

"61. The procedure for enforcing penalties imposed or authorized to be imposed by this Act shall be that prescribed by Part XV. of the Criminal Code relating to summary convictions."

A sufficient understanding of the practical operation of the

## Act may be derived from the following prescriptive sections:

"5. Wherever any dispute exists between an employer and any of his employees, and the parties thereto are unable to adjust it, either of the parties to the dispute may make application to the Minister for the appointment of a Board of Conciliation and Investigation, to which Board the dispute maybe referred under the provisions of this Act: Provided, however, that, in the case of a dispute between a railway company and its employees, such dispute may be referred, for the purpose of conciliation and investigation, under the provisions concerning railway disputes in the Conciliation and Labour Act.

"6. Whenever, under this Act, an application is made in due form for the appointment of a Board of Conciliation and Investigation, and such application does not relate to a dispute which is the subject of a reference under the provisions concerning railway disputes in the Conciliation and Labour Act, the Minister, whose decision for such purpose shall be final, shall, within fifteen days from the date at which the application is received, establish such Board under his hand and seal of office, if satisfied that the provisions of this Act apply.

"7. Every Board shall consist of three members who shall be appointed by the Minister. Of the three members of the Board one shall be appointed on the recommendation of the employer and one on the recommendation of the employees (the parties to the dispute), and the third on the recommendation of the members so chosen."

"11. No person shall act as a member of the Board who has any direct pecuniary interest in the issue of a dispute referred to such Board."

"23. In every case where a dispute is duly referred to a Board it shall be the duty of the Board to endeavour to bring about a settlement of the dispute, and to this end the Board shall, in such manner as it thinks fit, expeditiously and carefully inquire into the dispute and all matters affecting the merits thereof and the right settlement thereof. In the course of such inquiry the Board may make all such suggestions and do all such things as it deems right and proper for inducing the

## parties to come to a fair and amicable settlement of the

dispute, and may adjourn the proceedings for any period the Board thinks reasonable to allow the parties to agree upon terms of settlement.

"24. If a settlement of the dispute is arrived at by the parties during the course of its reference to the Board, a memorandum of the settlement shall be drawn up by the Board and signed by the parties, and shall, if the parties so agree, be binding as if made a recommendation by the Board under section 62 of this Act, and a copy thereof with a report upon the proceedings shall be forwarded to the Minister.

"25. If a settlement of the dispute is not arrived at during the course of its reference to the Board, the Board shall make a full report, thereon to the Minister, which report shall set forth the various proceedings and steps taken by the Board for the purpose of fully and carefully ascertaining all the facts and circumstances, and shall also set forth such facts and circumstances, and its findings therefrom, including the cause of the dispute and the Board’s recommendation for the settlement of the dispute according to the merits and substantial justice of the case.

"26. The Board’s recommendation shall deal with each item of the dispute and shall state in plain terms, and avoiding as far as possible all technicalities, what in the Board’s opinion ought or ought not to be done by the respective parties concerned. Wherever it appears to the Board expedient so to do, its recommendation shall also state the period during which the proposed settlement should continue in force, and the date from which it should commence."

"28. Upon receipt of the Board’s report the Minister shall forthwith cause the report to be filed in the office of the Registrar and a copy thereof to be sent free of charge to the

## parties to the dispute and to the representative of any

newspaper published in Canada who applies therefor, and the Minister may distribute copies of the report, and of any minority report, in such manner as to him seems most desirable as a means of securing compliance with the Board’s recommendation."

{373}

The fundamental object of the law, as will be seen, is not to compel arbitration, but to compel an attempt at arbitration, before any strike or lockout is permitted, and to give authentic and full publicity to all the circumstances which can justify or condemn a strike or lockout, if one occurs. So far in the experience of Canada with this wise enactment it has generally been successful in bringing about a peaceful settlement of labor disputes. It failed in the case of a disagreement between the Canadian Pacific Railway Company and its mechanical employés, which arose in April, 1908, when the Company served notice of a reduction of wages to one class of boiler-makers, and of an increase in the proportion of apprentices to be employed in its shops, together with some changes of rules concerning machine tools, etc. The men applied for the appointment of a Conciliation Board, in accordance with the law, but were not satisfied with the conclusions reported by a majority of the Board, and struck, as the law then permitted them to do. The strike was weakened by the unfavorable public opinion which the investigation produced.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: England: A. D. 1892-1901. A Statistical Study of Ten Years of Trade Disputes.

The following is the concluding summary of an elaborate statistical study of Strikes and Lockouts in England during the ten years from 1892 to 1901, made by an eminent statistician, Mr. J. H. Schooling:

"To sum up the chief practical points that seem to have come out of this examination of trade disputes during 1892-1901, these are:

"(_a_) An improvement during 1897-1901 as compared with 1892-1896.

"(_b_) An altogether undue predominance of the Mining and Quarrying Trades in trade disputes, not only actually, but also relatively to the industrial population of each group of trades compared. This is a most unsatisfactory feature, for the reason that so many other trades depend upon non-interruption of coal mining for their successful working. Therefore, efforts to prevent disputes should be specially directed to the Mining and Quarrying Trades.

"(_c_) Nearly two-thirds of all trade disputes are caused by disputes about wages, and nearly one-half of all trade disputes are caused by a demand by workpeople for ‘an increase of wages.’ Only 6 per cent. of all disputes are caused by resistance ‘against decrease of wages.’ …

"(_d_) Trade Unionism is not so productive of strikes as it is commonly supposed to be.

"(_e_) Conciliation Boards, etc., do not cause the settlement of many disputes after the dispute has commenced. Their work is in the direction of preventing strikes and lock-outs. That this work is effective and that it should be zealously promoted is evidenced by the fact that in 1901, 75 per cent. of all changes in wages and in hours of labour were arranged by sliding scales, wages boards, or by other peaceful methods, while only 2 per cent. of these changes followed upon strikes or lock-outs.

"(_f_) The respective chances of success by workpeople or by employers when a trade dispute is entered upon are, in round numbers: 150 chances for the employers; and 100 chances for the workpeople.

"In addition to this relatively small chance of success by workpeople when they strike, the cost to them and to their trade organisations is relatively greater than the cost to employers."

_J. H. Schooling, Strikes and Lock-outs, 1892-1901 (Fortnightly Review, May, 1904)._

LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1900-1906. The Taff Vale Decision. Trades Unions made liable for Damages. Resulting amendment of the English Law.

In the summer of 1900 a strike of employés of the Taff Vale Railway Company occurred, which lasted only a fortnight or thereabouts, but had large and important consequences. During the strike the Company applied for an injunction to restrain two officers of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants from interfering as such with the affairs of the road. The Society opposed the application, on the ground that it was not a corporation or an individual and could not be sued. Justice Farwell, before whom the case came, held that a trade union was a corporate body, responsible for illegal acts committed by its officers. This decision was a serious menace to the unions generally, and they cooperated extensively with the Amalgamated Society in carrying an appeal to the higher courts. The case was argued in the Court of Appeals in November, 1900, and the justices of that court reversed the decision of Justice Farwell. The plaintiff in the suit, the Railway Company, then carried it to the tribunal of last resort, the House of Lords, and there, in July, 1902, the judgment of the Court of Appeals was set aside and that of Justice Farwell was sustained, making it the law of Great Britain, that a trade union is a legal entity, capable of suing and being sued. On this decision the Taff Vale Railway Company brought suit against the Amalgamated Society for damages, and obtained a verdict on the 20th of December which awarded the Company £28,000.

A strenuous endeavor to overcome the effect of the decision rendered by the House of Lords, through amendatory legislation, was begun by the Labor Party, with strong sympathy among the Liberals, and it had success. An Act (which became law on the 21st of December, 1906) "to provide for the regulation of Trades Unions and Trade Disputes," added the following "as a new paragraph after the first paragraph of section three of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875":

"An act done in pursuance of an agreement or combination by two or more persons shall, if done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute, not be actionable unless the act, if done without any such agreement or combination, would be actionable."

Further provisions of the new Act were as follows:

"2. It shall be lawful for one or more persons, acting on their own behalf or on behalf of a trade union or of an individual employer or firm in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute, to attend at or near a house or place where a person resides or works or carries on business or happens to be, if they so attend merely for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information, or of peacefully persuading any person to work or abstain from working. …

{374}

"3. An act done by a person in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute shall not be actionable on the ground only that it induces some other person to break a contract of employment or that it is an interference with the trade, business, or employment of some other person, or with the right of some other person to dispose of his capital or his labour as he wills.

"4. (1) An action against a trade union, whether of workmen or masters, or against any members or officials thereof on behalf of themselves and all other members of the trade union in respect of any tortious act alleged to have been committed by or on behalf of the trade union, shall not be entertained by any court.

(2) Nothing in this section shall affect the liability of the trustees of a trade union to be sued in the events provided for by the Trades Union Act, 1871, section nine, except in respect of any tortious act committed by or on behalf of the union in contemplation or in furtherance of a trade dispute.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1903. Political effect of the Taff Vale Decision of the House of Lords, stimulating the growth of the Labor Party.

The Taff Vale Decision rendered by the House of Lords gave an immediate great impetus to the growth and the independence of the Labor Party, pledged by a resolution adopted at a "Labor Representation Conference" held in February, 1903, to insist that Labor candidates and Labor Members of Parliament when elected should "strictly abstain from identifying themselves with the interests of any section of the Liberal or Conservative parties," holding themselves free to act solely for the purpose of "securing the social and economic requirements of the industrial classes." The same conference took action for the creation of a fund for the payment of Labor Members of Parliament and for assisting in the payment of election expenses. The effects of the movement were soon felt in Parliamentary elections.

See (in this Volume), SOCIALISM: ENGLAND.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1906 (March). Report of Royal Commission on Labor Disputes.

A Royal Commission on Labor Disputes, appointed in England in 1903, submitted its report in March, 1906. The trades unions had declined to take part in its investigations, though their interests were represented on the Commission by one of the ablest and staunchest champions of the rights of labor, Sidney Webb. Coal mine owners were represented by one member; the remaining three members were Lord Dunedin, President of the Court of Session, Sir Godfrey Lushington, formerly of the Home Office, and an eminent lawyer of Liberal politics, Arthur Cohen. The most important recommendation of the Commission was that "an agreement or combination by two or more persons to do or procure to be done any act in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute shall not be the ground of a civil action, unless the agreement or combination is indictable as a conspiracy, notwithstanding the terms of the ‘Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act of 1875.’" The Act of 1875 had so modified the old conspiracy law that no combination to do what would not be punishable by imprisonment if done by a single person could be made the subject of a criminal proceeding. The Commission now advised an extension of the same rule to civil

## actions. But, by unanimous agreement the Commission approved

the decision rendered by the House of Lords in the Taff Vale case (see above), which took away from trades unions in Great Britain the immunity from being sued which they had formerly enjoyed. As to the right of "picketing," in the prosecution of a labor strike, the Commission would have it limited only to prevent coercion by menace or intimidation in the performance. It recommended punishment for a workman who "acts in such a manner as to cause a reasonable apprehension in the mind of any person that violence will be used to him or to his wife or family, or damage be done to his property."

In the judgment of the Commission the incorporation of trades unions is much to be desired. These are the main conclusions to which it was led by its long study of the subject of industrial disputes.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1907-1909. Excellent Settlement of a threatened Railway Strike. Adopted System of Conciliation and Arbitration Boards.

A general railway strike in Great Britain was threatened very seriously in the autumn of 1907, when the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, ably led by its Secretary, Mr. Richard Bell, who is a Member of Parliament, presented demands to the companies which the latter would not yield to. Mr. David Lloyd-George, the then President of the Board of Trade—which is a department of the National Government—undertook to negotiate a peaceable settlement of the dispute, and accomplished it with remarkable success. The outcome of his skilful diplomacy was the acceptance, November 6, 1907, by both companies and men of a comprehensive scheme for conciliation and arbitration, which provided for the formation of boards for each railway, consisting of representatives of the company and of the men, to consider thereafter any question relating to rates of wages and hours of duty. The scheme further provided that questions which these boards were unable to settle were to be referred to a single arbitrator.

The London and North-Western was the first railway company to complete its arrangements in connection with the scheme, and demands from most of the grades concerned in the working of traffic, numbering about 39,000 men, were considered by the newly-formed conciliation boards. The principal grades concerned were: Engine drivers, firemen and cleaners; signalmen; brakesmen and shunters; passenger guards and platform porters; carriage cleaners, wagon examiners and greasers; permanent way men; goods staff; cartage staff.

As agreement in the London and North-Western case was found impossible, reference was made to arbitration, and Sir Edward Fry was chosen to be arbitrator. He gave hearings on the questions in controversy in December, 1908, and his award was announced in the February following. He decided that the railway company had made good its contention that it could not pay an "all round advance" in wages of two shillings per week, which had been the demand for all grades in the service. {375} He allowed, in fact, few increases in wages; but awarded, on the contrary, some reductions in wage which the company claimed. On other points, concerning the pay for overtime, etc., his award was to the satisfaction of the railway employés. On the whole, it seems to have ended the dispute with considerable satisfaction all round. On this first decision under the new arrangement for settling disputes, Mr. Bell expressed himself as "very pleased to find that a great many of the concessions asked for have been embodied by the arbitrator in his award. We have got," said he, "rate and a quarter for overtime for all classes uniformly. We have got rate and a quarter for Sunday duty for signal men, as well as other grades who have hitherto not been paid extra rates. We have got payment for Sunday labour for the passenger staff —men who were formerly not paid for Sunday duty; we have established the principle that men doing the work of a higher grade for more than one day shall be paid at the rate of the higher grade. That is the principle we have been fighting for for several years, and it will mean many shillings per week to thousands of men. A very important item of the award is the decision that no alteration shall be made in the shape of increased hours or reduced wages in regard to men whose claims were submitted to the arbitrator, but whose conditions have not been altered by the award. We have always, hitherto, had to complain about companies ‘cutting,’ but the London and North-Western cannot do it here."

Mr. Bell mentioned that several other similar claims against other companies were going to arbitration, but while he thought that Sir Edward Fry’s decisions might have some influence upon future conferences, he pointed out that other arbitrators will possibly refuse to accept any lead, but decide matters entirely upon their own views after dealing with the particular cases.

A general report to the Board of Trade, on the working of the Railway Conciliation Boards, under the agreement of November 6, 1907, was published in March, 1909, as a Blue Book, from which the following is taken:

"The agreement was signed initially on behalf of 11 of the principal railway companies, but adhesion to its terms was afterwards signified, subject in the case of the Scottish companies to modifications of certain clauses upon matters of detail, by 35 other companies, making a total of 46 railway companies that have adopted the arrangements proposed by the Department for avoiding the serious results that would attend a cessation of labour on railways. The assenting companies include nearly all those having as many as 200 _employés_ in their service, and in fact the only companies that have not adopted the scheme are small companies for which the formation of conciliation boards was not thought to be required, and a few of the larger companies to whose lines the provisions of the agreement were for special reasons unsuitable. …

"For the 46 railways dealt with under the scheme, the number of boards to be formed, apart from the central conciliation boards, was 169, and the total number of representatives to be elected on such boards was 877. On 44 of the railways there was provision for a central board in addition to the sectional boards, thus making a total of 213 conciliation boards to be formed altogether under the scheme. … Eight hundred and fifty representatives of _employés_ were to be elected in these 416 elections, and for these places the total number of candidates nominated was 1,608.

"The total number of _employés_ eligible to vote upon the various railways coming within the scheme is estimated at a little over 270,000. After allowing for cases where the representatives were returned unopposed, it is found that where voting papers have actually been issued, over 77 per cent. of the _employés_ eligible have availed themselves of the franchise."

LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1908. "A Notable Labor Treaty." The Shipbuilding Agreement between Employers and Trade Unions to avert Strikes and Lockouts.

In the early part of 1908 the woodworkers in the shipbuilding yards of the north of England went on strike against a reduction in wages, which was equivalent to one that the ironworkers in all the British shipyards and the woodworkers in the Scotch yards had accepted. The Federation of Shipbuilding Employers then notified a national lockout unless the strikers resumed work pending the adjustment of the dispute by conference. For some time past there had been negotiations on foot between the federated employers and certain of the other shipbuilding labor unions, aiming at the conclusion of a permanent working agreement for the prevention of strikes. The woodworkers were now brought into this negotiation, and after a long threshing out of disputes, in a joint committee of representatives from twenty-six trade unions and from the employers’ federation a "Memorandum of Agreement" was produced which all signed on the 16th of December, 1908, and which the London _Times_, making it public on the 11th of January, characterised rightly as "A Notable Labor Treaty." The provisions of this industrial agreement seem to be of so much historical importance that we give the important sections entire:

"I.—GENERAL FLUCTUATIONS IN WAGES.

"(1) Changes in wages due to the general conditions of the shipbuilding industry shall be termed general fluctuations. Such general fluctuations in wages shall apply to all the trades comprised in this agreement and in every federated firm at the same time and to the same extent. Differences in rates of wages in any trade in different districts can be dealt with as heretofore under clause II., section 3.

"(2) In the case of all such general fluctuations the following provisions and procedure shall apply, viz.:

(_a_) No step toward an alteration in wages can be taken until after the lapse of six calendar months from the date of the previous general fluctuation.

(_b_) Before an application for an alteration can be made, there shall be a preliminary conference between the federation and the unions, in order to discuss the position generally. Such conference shall be held within 14 days of the request for the same,

(_c_) No application for an alteration shall be competent until the foregoing preliminary conference has been held, and no alteration shall take effect within six weeks of the date of the applications.

(_d_) The application fora proposed alteration shall be made as follows: The federation to the unions parties to this agreement; or the said unions to the federations,

(_e_) Within 14 days after the receipt of an application the parties shall meet in conference.

(_f_) The conference may be adjourned by mutual agreement, such adjourned conference to be held within 14 days thereafter.

(_g_) Any general fluctuation in trademen’s rates shall be of the following fixed amount, viz.:—Piecework rates, 5%; and Time rates 1 /- per week [sic], or ¼d. per hour where payment is made by the hour.

{376}

"II. QUESTIONS OTHER THAN GENERAL FLUCTUATIONS IN WAGES.

"(1) When any question is raised by or on behalf of either an employer or employers, or of a workman or workmen, the following procedure shall be observed, viz.:—

(_a_) A workman or deputation of workmen shall be received by their employers in the yard or at the place where a question has arisen, by appointment, for the mutual discussion of any question in the settlement of which both

## parties are directly concerned; and failing arrangement, a

further endeavour may, if desired, be then made to negotiate a settlement by a meeting between the employer, with or without an official of the local association, on the one hand, and the official delegate, or other official of the workmen concerned, with or without the workman or workmen directly concerned, as deemed necessary.

(_ b _) Failing settlement the question shall be referred to a joint committee consisting of three employers and three representatives of the union or of each of the unions directly concerned, none of whom shall be connected with the yard or dock where the dispute has arisen,

(_c_) Failing settlement under subsection (_b_), the question shall be brought before the employers’ local association and the responsible local representatives of the union or unions directly concerned in local conference.

(_d_) Failing settlement at local conference, it shall be competent for either party to refer the question to a central conference to be held between the executive board of the federation and representatives of the union or unions directly concerned, such representatives to have executive power.

"(2) If the question is in its nature a general one affecting more than yard or dock, it shall be competent to raise it direct in local conference, or if it is general and affecting the federated firms or workmen in more than one district, it shall be competent to raise it direct in central conference without in either case going through the prior procedure above provided for.

"(3) The questions hereby covered shall extend to all questions relating to wages, including district alterations in wages and other matters in the shipbuilding and ship repairing trade, which may give rise to disputes.

"III.—GRAND CONFERENCE.

"In the event of failure to settle any question in central conference under clause II., section 1, subsection (_d_), either party desirous to have such question further considered shall prior to any stoppage of work refer same for final settlement to a grand conference to be held between the federation and all the unions parties to this agreement. A conference may by mutual agreement be adjourned. On any occasion when a settlement has not been reached, the conference must be adjourned to a date not earlier than 14 days nor later than one month from the date of such conference. …

"VI.—GENERAL PROVISIONS.

"At all meetings and conferences the representatives of both sides shall have full powers to settle, but it shall be in their discretion whether or not they conclude a settlement.

"In the event of any stoppage of work occurring in any federated yard or federated district either in contravention of the foregoing or after the procedure laid down has been exhausted, entire freedom of action is hereby reserved to the federation, and any federated association, and to the unions concerned, notwithstanding the provisions of this agreement. The suspension of the agreement shall be limited to such

## particular stoppage, and the agreement in all other respects

shall continue in force.

"Pending settlement of any question other than questions of wages, hours, and piece prices (the last-named of which is provided for above), two or three employers not connected with the yard where the question has arisen shall give a temporary decision, but such decision shall be without prejudice to either party, and shall not be adduced in evidence in the ultimate settlement of the question.

"The expression ‘employer’ throughout this agreement shall include an employer’s accredited representative.

"Until the whole procedure of this agreement applying to the question at issue has been carried through there shall be no stoppage or interruption of work either of a partial or of a general character.

"VII.—DURATION OF AGREEMENT.

"This agreement shall continue in force for three years, and shall thereafter be subject to six months’ notice in writing on either side, said notice not to be competent until the three years have elapsed."

Signed by the President of the Shipbuilding Employers Federation and by seven representatives of the Trades Unions.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1909. Educational Demands of the Trade Unions.

See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: ENGLAND.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1909. Trade Unions forbidden to pay Members of Parliament.

See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1909 (JULY-DECEMBER).

LABOR ORGANIZATION: France: A. D. 1884-1909. Organized Labor in the French Republic. The Syndicats and Syndicalism. A Trade Union version of Socialism. The Confédération Générale du Travail, and the idea of a general strike. Its revolutionary implication.

The strike of government employés in the French telegraph and postal service, begun in March, 1909, and which was recognized instantly as a most alarmingly revolutionary movement, roused inquiry everywhere concerning the form and character that labor organization in France has taken on. The London _Times_ gave elaborate satisfaction to this inquiry by a series of five articles, published in April, by a writer whose evident knowledge of the subject was complete. The statements here following are condensed from that source:

{377}

The organization of labor in France differs in important respects from that in Great Britain and the United States. "The French term for trade unions is syndicats, or, more correctly, _syndicats professionnels_; but the two terms are not equivalent or synonymous. For, whereas the word 'trade union’ is applied only to combinations of persons employed, the syndicats include also combinations of employers and of both together." The employers’ associations are called _syndicats patronaux_. "A trade union is a combination of persons engaged in the same trade without any reference to locality; they may be and generally are widely distributed in many places; the bond is the trade, not the locality; hence the use of the singular number. There is another kind of combination formed by several trades in the same locality and called a trades council; the bond is the locality, not the trade. Both forms of organization exist in France; the trade union is called _syndicat ouvrier_, and the trades council _bourse du travail_. … Both play a part in the movement, and, though in the aggregate they are composed of the same individuals, their policy and interests are not always or necessarily identical. Both are further combined into federations.

"The effective development of trade unionism in France only dates from 1884, when the law authorizing the formation of _syndicats professionels_ was passed." Unions had existed before, but under difficulties, without sanction of law. "The peculiarity of the struggle for the right of combination in France was that the necessity remained under numerous changes and diverse forms of government … and that the democratic State was not less but rather more oppressive than the others. … It was the National Assembly, travailing with the Revolution, which, in the sacred name of liberty and the rights of man, forbade the citizens to form trade organizations by the law of 1791; and for nearly 100 years this ban remained through all the subsequent changes, sometimes fortified, sometimes relaxed, but never removed." The law of 1791 was relaxed under Napoleon III., but the severity of it was renewed by the Government of the Third Republic, down to 1884. In that year, according to official returns, there existed but 68 regularly constituted unions in France. By 1890 the number had increased to 1006, with a membership of 139,692. In 1908 the reported number of unions was 5524, and their membership 957,102. "The aggregate is as yet comparatively small, and, numerically, trade unionism is still relatively weak in France; but the example of Germany shows how rapidly this movement may increase in strength. According to the occupational census of 1901 the number of persons in France who might be enrolled in trade unions was approximately 9,000,000; and the numbers would not be substantially higher now, so that the official returns show roughly about 10 per cent. organized. … With regard to organization by industries the largest number of trade unionists belonged in 1907 to the following groups:

Transport, 260,869; metal industries, 103,835; textiles, 78,854; building trades, 66,678; miners, 64,194; agriculture and forestry, 51,407; food and drink, 48,353.

But trade union strength depends, for economic purposes, more upon the proportion of workers organized in a given trade than upon the actual number. From this point of view the strongest groups are, with the percentage of workers organized, as follows:

Miners, 35 per cent; chemical industries, 31.2; transport, 23.4; paper and printing, 20.9; leather, 20.0; metal workers, 18.7.

These figures have an important bearing on the situation, because of the division, which will be discussed in a subsequent article, of the unions into revolutionary and moderate groups. As for geographical distribution, Paris is the great centre, and the north of France is much stronger than the south."

"The term _bourse du travail_ means literally 'labour exchange,' and that was the original function of these organizations; it still is one of them, but is overshadowed by the all-devouring political aims which in France seem to seize hold of all things, one after another, and swallow them up. The _bourses_ were started in 1886, two years after trade unionism received its charter. … But instead of being used for their original purpose, strictly as labour exchanges, they soon became a form of labour organization corresponding as nearly as possible to our trade councils, though supported by municipal or departmental subventions. … According to M. Mermeix, to whose brilliant work on ‘Le Syndicalisme contre le Socialisme’ I am indebted for much information, the syndicats were promptly seized upon by the Guesdist or Social Democratic party as soon as they began to develop freely after 1884, and the other Socialist bodies, who were then in violent antagonism, responded by cultivating the _bourses du travail_. The inevitable result was a strong political turn given to both sets of organizations; but it was not the turn intended by the Socialists. For presently the _syndicats_ and the _bourses_, which really represent ‘Labour’ turned against the politicians called Socialists, who do not represent ‘Labour,’ and made common cause against them."

"The most obvious feature of the movement in recent years has been a great increase of industrial restlessness. We need not put it all down to the trade unions, but they have had a good deal to do with it, and have undoubtedly been devoting their energies in an increasing measure to strikes." This "began in 1899 and has continued, with fluctuations, ever since. It reached its high-water mark in 1906, and then somewhat subsided, but recent events show that the same spirit is still

## active. And besides increasing in number, extent, and

duration, the strikes have frequently been marked by acts of violence and attended in several cases by loss of life. All this, in spite of a system of conciliation and arbitration and strong organization on the part of employers. What is the cause? There has been nothing in the economic situation to account for industrial disorder continued over a series of years. …

"_Syndicalisme_ is the distinctive mark of the present labour movement in France. … Perhaps the essential character of _Syndicalisme_ is best expressed by saying that it is a purely trade union version of Socialism, definitely and even violently opposed to Collectivism and more nearly allied to anarchism, yet distinct from it. … The object of Syndicalisme is revolution, sudden and complete, in which the State, with all the apparatus of government, is to disappear, and the possession and control of material means—which alone count—is to pass from the hands of its present owners, whether private or public, into those of organized labour. This original idea is Socialistic or Collectivist in so far as it is directed against capitalism; it is anarchistic in so far as it contemplates the disappearance of the State; but, above all, it is trade unionist, for the _syndicat_ is posited as the unit or cell of the future social organism. … {378} To complete this brief outline of the idea of _Syndicalisme_ it is only necessary to add that the means whereby the revolution is to be accomplished is the general strike, and that, pending that consummation, ordinary strikes are systematically encouraged as good practice, in which, as by skirmishes or manoeuvres, the labour forces are trained and prepared for the great encounter."

The idea of a general strike was put forward in 1888 by an anarchist Parisian carpenter named Tortelier, and the militant forces of organized labor rallied to it. It brought together the two sets into which labor organization had split—the Guesdist party, controlling the _Syndicats_, and their opponents in possession of the _bourses du travail_. It "caused the rout and withdrawal of the Social Democrats, and so led to the birth of _Syndicalisme_. The turning point was reached in 1894 at a joint congress held at Nantes, when after a set debate the general strike was adopted by 65 votes against 37, with nine abstinents. In the following year the Confédération Genérale du Travail was formed as a new and united federation of trade unions, purged of politics, or, at least, of Parliamentary politics; and thenceforward the two sets of organizations—trade unions and trades councils—drew the labour car together; but at first and for some years they by no means pulled together." In 1902 they were harmonized, "mainly by the efforts of M. Niel," who has been called the real creator of the _Confédération Générale_, to the head of which, as general secretary, "which means president," he was elected in February, 1909. "The word ‘president’ is eschewed, as savoring of the _bourgeois_ state." M. Niel is a compositor. "He is of the best type of trade unionist; a calm, capable, level-headed man, devoted to trade unionism, but no crazy theorist or violent fanatic."

"The numerical strength of the Confederation or its want of strength is a point on which its enemies are never tired of insisting. In October last the official figures presented to the congress at Marseilles were: First section, 2,586 _syndicats_, with an aggregate membership of 294,398; second section, 154 _bourses du travail_, representing 2,014 _syndicats_. The figures must not be added together, because the two sections represent the same or almost the same forces, differently organized. The returns of the first section show the effective membership, and we may call it 300,000. Now the official statistics of the _Ministère du Travail_ give the total membership of _syndicate ouvriers_ at the beginning of 1908 as 957,102. The Confederation, therefore, embraces less than one-third of the organized labour in France. But that calculation is open to some criticisms; the Government returns are said to be too high, those of the Confederation too low. There is probably some truth in both statements."

LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1902. Extensive Strike of Coal Miners. Strikes at Marseilles.

On the 8th of October, 1902, the National Committee of French Miners, meeting at Paris, voted to declare a general strike, and issued a manifesto to their comrades in Europe, America, and Australia, appealing for aid and stating their cause, in these words; "We are pushed to the last extremity in fighting to obtain a slight improvement in our miserable condition—more equitable remuneration, with the regulation of our work for the present, and legislation sheltering us against the strict needs of old age. We are sure you understand your duty. We leave to you the initiative in such measures as are most convenient to you in aiding us in this struggle." The strike had actually begun in part before this order was given and it was estimated that some 42,000 men had left work in the northern coal fields. The whole number of French miners was calculated by the _Temps_ to be 162,000 men, of whom, however, only 60,000 belonged to the federation. The mine owners refused to discuss the matter, declaring that the strike began before any warning had been given them and without any sufficient motives, and also that the chief points in dispute were already before parliamentary committees. Troops were sent to the mining districts, and some conflicts occurred. The Government attempted arbitration, and late in October an agreement was reached which brought the strike to an end.

At the same time troublesome strikes of dock-laborers, stokers, and sailors were going on at Marseilles, for some weeks.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1906. Serious Strikes and Labor Disturbances.

See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1906.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1909 (March-May). Serious Strike of Government Employés in the Telegraph and Postal Service. Overcome by the firmness of the Government. Disciplinary proceedings. Court decision against Trade Unions among Employés of the State.

The organizations involved in the strike of government employés in the telegraph and postal service of France, which began on the 13th of March, 1909, are outside of the Labor _Syndicats_ embraced in the _Confédération Genérale du Travail_ described above; but in part they have been brought into close connection with that combination and have striven for identification with it. As explained by the Paris correspondent of the London _Times_, "the associations of French Civil servants include two quite separate groups—one in favour of Parliamentary action, the other sympathizing with the General Confederation of Labour and desiring to be allowed to combine freely and, when it suits them, to strike. The former group is represented by a Comité d’Études so-called, and includes a large number of primary school teachers and _Lycée_ professors, the association of the Law Courts clerks, sub-_employés_ at the Post Office, _employés_ of the Roads and Inland Communications Department of the Ministry of Public Works, and so forth. These various associations, forming the first group, are convinced that their lot can be quite adequately improved if Parliament will only vote a satisfactory Bill on the _status_ of functionaries. The second group has no confidence whatever in such a measure. It does not count on Parliament for a panacea. Under the title of ‘Central Committee for the defence of the syndical rights of wage-earners of the State, the departments, and the communes,’ it has always worked in unison with the revolutionary unions of the General Confederation of Labour, and it was this group which wrote two years ago to M. Clemenceau an open letter stating their demands, among which the most important of all was the right to strike. {379} In consequence of that manifestation, which was regarded as illegal, a certain number of functionaries were dismissed, notably, as readers of _The Times_ will recall, a school teacher by the name of Nègre, an official of the Ministry of the Interior, M. Janvion, a postman named Simonnet, and an electrician, M. Pataud."

These dismissed officials, M. Pataud especially, were the leaders of the strike that was undertaken on the 13th of March, when twelve hundred men employed in the central offices of the Paris Telegraph Department stopped work at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, "in order to express ‘sympathy’ with three hundred men of the postal service who had invaded the offices on the 12th, and had made a demonstration against M. Simyan, the Under-Secretary of State for Posts and Telegraphs." "The precise grievances of the strikers," said _The Times_, "are probably known to their superiors; but, so far as we have seen, they have not been placed before the outside world in any form which renders it possible even clearly to understand them."

On the other hand, a special correspondent of the New York _Evening Post_ wrote from Paris on the 25th of March: "The strike of these government employees may have been a side development of the general movement which threatens to transform the Parliamentary French republic into a _république syndicale_; but, in itself, it was something far different. And, for another reason, it is a direct object-lesson for the United States, where the trade unions are not yet revolutionary. The entire strike has been a spontaneous uprising of civil service in possession against the invasion of a spoils system. The strike would not have been possible if these civil service appointees—‘government functionaries’—had not formed themselves into strongly organized unions, just as private service employees have long been doing; and in this they have been encouraged by successive republican governments, unforeseeing perhaps such strikes as the inevitable consequence. The spoils system in the present case means the intervention of political influence in civil service appointments and promotions." The strikers, said this writer, want essentially two things, "First, that politicians—and particularly Postmaster-General Simyan, who was taken over from M. Combes into the present government—should cease interfering with civil service appointments and promotions and no longer use their power in behalf of the favorite of some deputy with ‘influence.’"

The situation produced in Paris by the strike was thus described by this correspondent of _The Post_: "We of Paris were for eight days in the same condition as Frenchmen were before Richelieu invented a State postal service for the use of private persons. For example, my last letters were sent—one to Havre by a special messenger who was carrying by hand cable messages for several correspondents to be forwarded from that port; one to London by another special messenger, who posted it with many others in a channel boat; and a third to Cherbourg by the kindness of the American Chamber of Commerce of Paris, which organized a service of its own for its members. … If there had been a sudden outbreak between Servia and Austria last week, the French government would have known little about it, and, in case of need, army mobilization would have been impossible."

A system of public service in which such situations as this are made possible could not exist long without destruction of government and of all social order. No argument was needed to demonstrate that it must not be paltered with; but the Government of France was forced momentarily to yield so much show of deference or respect to its rebellious servants, whose demands were made with arrogance of spirit and insolence of tone, that the arrogance and insolence appeared to have triumphed in the encounter with national sovereignty and law. The tenor of an interview given on the 22d by the Premier, M. Clemenceau, and the Minister of Public Works, Posts, and Telegraphs, M. Barthou, to a committee from the striking employés of the State, was thus stated in a Press despatch at the time:

"The two conditions which had been submitted to the Ministers were, first, immunity from disciplinary penalties for all the strikers; secondly, the resignation of M. Simyan, the obnoxious Under-Secretary of State. The Ministers had agreed to the first of these conditions for all strikers who should have returned to work by Tuesday morning. The second condition was refused by the Ministers on the ground that M. Simyan is responsible to the Chamber of Deputies, but not to the postal employés. M. Barthou had, however, made it plain that, in accordance with the terms of his speech in the Chamber last Friday, the Government contemplated appointing in place of M. Simyan an official with the qualification of technical knowledge. ‘When, on Friday,’ he said, ‘I discussed before the Chamber the transformation of the Under-Secretaryship of Posts and Telegraphs into a technical directorship, I was not employing an empty phrase. I consider that the reform is of practical interest and that it ought to be effected at an early date.’ This was as near a promise to fulfil the strikers’ demands as constitutional considerations would permit." This brought about a return to duty of postal clerks and operators of the telegraph and the telephone; but they returned as victorious revolutionists, and the news from Paris in the following weeks was filled with accounts of their manifestations of contempt and defiance for the Government, and the extensive insubordination among them that prevailed. But the Government, on its side, supported strongly by a great majority of votes in the Chamber of Deputies, and by resolute expressions of public opinion from every part of France, was now taking measures to prepare itself for defeating any future attempt to paralyze the service of the posts and wires. The engineer troops and other technical branches of the service were warned to be ready for emergencies, carrier pigeons were collected, and preliminary arrangements made for an elaborate service of motor-cars. Chambers of commerce throughout the country were called on to be prepared to coöperate with the Government in organizing an auxiliary mail service. By such measures it was soon rendered safe to begin applying discipline to the insubordination that had become rife. Seven flagrant offenders were tried by a Council of Discipline and dismissed, on the 8th of May, and this precipitated an attempt to renew the strike, and to make it introductory to the long-threatened revolutionary strike of all labor in France. {380} A few anxious days followed, while the menace kept a serious show, and then it vanished, like an emptied cloud. The firm attitude of the Government and the hostility of national opinion had daunted the revolutionary _syndicats_ which inclined to join fortunes with the revolutionists of the public service, and the latter were left to confront official authority alone. Their second strike came to nothing. A despatch from Paris on the 16th of May stated that 548 postmen who were prominent in the rebellion of the strike had been expelled from the service, and that others were receiving less severe punishments from the Disciplinary Court.

Ultimately, sixteen officials of the Post Office were prosecuted by the Government for illegally forming a trade union. They were brought to trial in July, with the result announced on the 29th as follows: "The 16 officials who were prosecuted by the Government have been condemned to a purely nominal fine of 12s. 6d., and their union has been declared to be contrary to the law. The Court argued that in the present state of the law there was no doubt whatever that the Waldeck-Rousseau Bill of 1884, permitting the organization of trade unions, solely had application to the interests of private individuals, and that the Chamber of Deputies had not meant to extend the provisions of that law to Civil servants. The considerations of this important legal judgment furthermore declare it to be utterly preposterous that State _employés_ should arrogate to themselves the right to strike, since they are the _employés_ of the nation, and enjoy moreover such special privileges as servants of the State that no comparison can be drawn between them and the working classes, whose right to strike is not contested."

The judgment of the Paris Correctional Court, in the case of the sixteen officials who were prosecuted for illegally forming a trade union was followed, on the 7th of August, by a kindred decision from the Conseil d'État, to which two dismissed postmen had appealed. Their application to be restored to the service was denied. The decree of the Conseil expressly declared that a strike of civil servants is an "illegal act," and added that a State official "has accepted all the obligations arising from the necessities of the public service and has renounced all privileges incompatible with the essential continuity of the national life," that civil servants who declare a strike place themselves collectively outside the pale of the laws and regulations which guarantee the exercise for them of the rights which they normally possess as servants of the State.

Having thus vindicated its authority over the servants of the State, the Government exercised a wise clemency at once. Two days after the decision of the Conseil d’État, the new Minister of Public Works authorized the publication of the following note: "In consequence of the decision of the Conseil d’État, M. Millerand has decided, while approving the suspensions pronounced by their respective chiefs, that 30 officials of both sexes, five subaltern officials, and ten Post Office workmen who have been dismissed should resume work the day after tomorrow." Further reinstatements were announced in the course of the following month.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Germany: A. D. 1905. Strikes.

Upwards of 100,000 miners in the coal fields of the Ruhr district began a strike in January which did not end until the middle of February, and which caused most of the iron works and machine shops of Rhenish Prussia and Westphalia to be closed. Low wages (of 4 marks or a little less than a dollar per day) and inhuman and dishonest treatment were the chief complaints in the miners. A bill to reform conditions in the mines was passed soon afterwards. The cost of the strike to all concerned was estimated to have been more than $30,000,000. A very serious strike of about 40,000 men in electrical industries occurred at Berlin in September and October, resulting in a concession of six per cent. increase of wages to the men. Statistics published in the next year showed a startling increase of labor conflicts in 1904 and 1905. From 1899 to 1903 the yearly average of strikes had been 1242. In 1904 the number rose to 1870, and in 1905 to 2057. Lockouts had averaged 42 in each of the previous five years, but increased to 120 in 1904. Apparently the labor conditions were no more peaceable in 1906.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Germany: A. D. 1905-1906. The Operation of Industrial Courts. Desire for Voluntary Boards of Conciliation.

"In the event of actual dispute the official machinery of the Industrial Courts is always at call, should the disputants be willing to use it. The law requires the formation of these Courts in all towns with over 20,000 inhabitants, but they may be formed elsewhere at the option of the Government of the State or on the joint requisition of a given number of employers and workpeople, and they consist of equal numbers of both. That the 406 Courts now in existence do not mediate oftener would appear to be less the fault of the workpeople than of the employers. During 1905 they acted as boards of conciliation on 350 occasions: on 165 in response to invitations from both sides, on 175 on the invitation of the workpeople alone, and on ten only on the sole invitation of the employers. Only in 128 cases was it possible to bring the disputing parties together. …

"At the annual meeting of the German Society for Social Reform, held in Berlin in December, 1906, resolutions were adopted ‘affirming the meeting’s conviction that industrial peace would best be promoted by the development of collective arrangements between employers and work-people in the form of (1) wages agreements, (2) voluntary boards of conciliation and arbitration, and (3) workmen’s committees for individual works’; and it was urged that, ‘after the example of Great Britain, conciliation boards suited to the various industries should be generally formed, these to cooperate with higher tribunals and to call in on occasion the help of prominent public men as advisers and arbitrators.’"

_William H. Dawson, The Evolution of Modern Germany, page 136 (Unwin, London; Scribners, New York., 1909)._

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Germany: A. D. 1905-1909. The Spirit of the Struggle between Capitalists and Workmen. Attitude of the Latter.

"The struggle between labour and capital in Germany is a little less refined than in some other countries. … Rhineland—Westphalia is its chosen battle ground. Here all the conditions of economic warfare exist in a rare degree. It is a striking fact that a large part of the natural resources, industry, and wealth-production of that unresting workshop of Germany is under the control of a dozen men of commanding business genius—men of strong and masterful character, born rulers of the sternest mould, without sentiment, not insusceptible to justice, yet never going beyond it, inflexible in decision, of inexhaustible will-power, and impervious to all modern notions of political liberalism. {381} These men, who have so conspicuously helped to create modern industrial Prussia, and who are a greater real power in the land than Ministers and legislators put together, typify in modern industry the feudalism which is slowly dying upon the great estates of the East. Their attitude towards the unions in which their workmen are organised to the number of hundreds of thousands is frequently expressed in the maxim, ‘We intend to be masters in our own house,’ and nothing is wanting in the vigour with which this maxim is applied. On the occasion of the Mannheim conference of the Association for Social Policy in September, 1905, Herr Kirdorf, probably the best known industrialist of Westphalia, and the head of the Coal and Steel Syndicates, was invited to give an employer’s reply to an indictment of the syndicates made by Professor Gustav Schmoller. In the course of his statement occurred the following observations on the question of labour organisation:—

"‘It is regrettable that our workpeople are able to change their positions at any time. An undertaking can only prosper if it has a stationary band of workers. I do not ask that legislation should come to our help, but we must reserve to ourselves the right to take measures to check this frequent change of employment. The proposal has been made that all workpeople should be compelled to join organisations and that employers should be required to negotiate with these organisations. For myself I would remark that I refuse to negotiate with any organisation whatever.’ …

"Public opinion naturally finds itself often in conflict with the Westphalian industrialists’ attitude, which more than anything else was responsible for the solid gain won by the men in the great colliery strike of 1905. It was the same Herr Kirdorf who declared during that strike, 'The movement can only end by the men recognising that they can get nothing by a strike and returning to the mines. We will negotiate with every man singly, but we will not concede workmen’s committees.’ It was this inflexible attitude, persisted in too long, which turned first the public and then the Government against the colliery owners. By refusing to meet the colliers’ ‘Committee of Seven’ they created the impression that the men were wishful for peace but were unable to gain an ear for their overtures. In the end not only were workmen’s committees granted by force of law, but the hours of labour were curtailed, fines were abolished, and other concessions were made which cost the colliery owners dearly, until the extra burden could be transferred to the public."

_William H. Dawson, Evolution of Modern Germany, pages 122-125 (Unwin, London; Scribners, New York, 1909)._

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Germany: A. D. 1909. Extent of Trade Unionism.

The twentieth International Congress of Miners was held in Berlin, and at its opening, on the 31st of May, 1909, Herr Ritter, president of the Federation of Berlin Trade Unions, in welcoming the Congress, said that there were now 223,000 trade unionists in Berlin, as compared with 40,000 when the congress held its last meeting there 15 years ago. Another German speaker said that during the last 15 years the number of trade unionists in the whole Empire had increased from 300,000 to 1,800,000.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Italy: A. D. 1901. Changed Attitude of the Government toward Labor Unions.

See (in this Volume) ITALY: A. D. 1901.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Italy: A. D. 1909. A Church Movement of Agricultural Labor Organization.

"An agitation among agricultural labourers in North Umbria seems to have taken a new and very unusual form, since, from all accounts, it is directly promoted and supported by the clergy. The parish priests in the neighbourhood of Perugia are said not only to have put themselves at the head of the movement, but to have actually initiated it with a manifesto denouncing the grievances of the labourers, and calling upon them to organize themselves in order to extort more favourable conditions from the landowners who employ them. The Church seems to have satisfied itself that the mutual relations of capital and labour were unfair to the labourer, and to have determined to be beforehand with the Socialist agitator, creating an organization which will call itself _democristiana_, or Christian democrat, in anticipation of what might have been a more revolutionary Socialist league. The manifesto was issued last May, and contained much the same demands as have been successfully made by labour in other parts of Italy. … So far the landowners have proved absolutely recalcitrant. A league of resistance has been formed on their side, and an attempt was made at reprisals by boycotting parish priests, stopping any payment of tithes to the Church, dismissing any private chaplains who belonged to the secular clergy, and employing the regular clergy instead of the parochial in any cases where their services were required.

"The parish clergy were not to be intimidated by financial loss, and the proprietors then appealed to the Archbishop of Perugia to put his veto on their agitation. The Archbishop, Monsignor Mattei-Gentile, could only inform them that he had already given his sanction to the movement. The proprietors, by the friendly mediation of a Cardinal, then appealed to the Pope. After some consideration, Pius X. sent a certain Signor Giovanni Passamonti, a lawyer who has had a good deal of experience in Umbrian affairs, to make an inquiry, and attempt some kind of compromise. Neither side, however, would listen to suggestions of conciliation. … So the matter now stands. The position is certainly an interesting one, as it is the first time that the Church has actually taken the lead in a labour movement."

_Rome Correspondent, London Times, July 21, 1909._

{382}

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Netherlands: A. D. 1903. Laws against Railway Strikes. Failure of Labor Strike to prevent their Passage.

Early in 1903 it was made known that the Government of the Netherlands intended to bring forward in the States-General a bill prohibiting strikes among railway employees, on the ground that they were engaged in a public service which must not suffer interruption. At once the railway men gave notice that they would, if this measure were undertaken, appeal to all workmen in the country for a general strike. The Government then prepared itself for a struggle by summoning a certain quota of the infantry and engineers of the Reserves to arms, and, on the 25th of February, its proposed legislation was introduced. It amended the penal code, in order to punish strikes by persons in the public service as misdemeanors and to attach penalties of more severity to all attacks on the freedom of labor. It provided, further, for the organization of a military railway brigade, to insure service on the lines in case of a strike; and finally, it created a commission to investigate the condition of the railway service and of its employees. Pending the discussion of these measures the threatened strike was undertaken, and was seen very soon to have failed. Without any serious conflict with the authorities it was given up, and, on the 11th of April, the bills became Law.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: New Zealand: A. D. 1896-1908. The Compulsory Arbitration Law. Its working.

At the meeting of the National Civic Federation of the United States, in December, 1908, Mr. Hugh H. Lusk, of New Zealand, spoke of the compulsory arbitration law of that country.

See, in Volume VI. of this work. NEW ZEALAND.

"In form," he said, "the law is not compulsory upon all men, but only upon those who become amenable to it by registering their associations under the law. Since associations, both of workers and of employers, are generally registered, it is and has been for twelve years now past absolutely compulsory arbitration. About six years ago the law was extended to the Commonwealth of Australia, where it is now in force. In New Zealand compulsory arbitration has hitherto been a great success, It has had the effect of preventing all strikes and all lockouts for twelve years in that country until the other day. The history of its extension to Australia has been the greatest tribute that could be made to its success in New Zealand. It has not been in all respects as great a success in Australia as in New Zealand. New Zealand has a million white inhabitants, Australia nearly five million; therefore, by the extension of the law from New Zealand to Australia you have got, as it were, a stepping stone from which you can easily see how far it would be likely to be a success in a country as much greater and as much more populous than Australia as is this country.

"The law of New Zealand, and now of Australia, compels all associated workers who are registered under the act to submit to the law if they have causes of difference with their employers. In the first place, they have to go to a member of the Board of Conciliation, one of which exists in any considerable district, and the Conciliation Board failing in its object they can remove the cause into the Court of Arbitration, which passes final judgment.

"For twelve years the law operated without serious breakdown in New Zealand. It has been carried on for five years without a serious breakdown in Australia. Now, what is wrong with the Act and its operations? At first the workers were perfectly satisfied with the court because, as a general rule, it was with them. Later on, the court as a rule has been against them. They have been inclined to the belief that the constitution of the court is unfavorable, the court being constituted of two representatives of labor and two representatives of capital, together with one Judge of the Supreme Court, sitting as president or chairman. They have come to the conclusion that it is the fifth man who really gives the decision. The difficulty in such a case as this is that if the representative man who gives his decision has not the confidence of both parties the court fails in its object. It is believed that the decisions are, in general, those of a man belonging to the capitalist class—since laborers do not often find their way to the Supreme Court bench in any country. This seems to be the bottom of the difficulty both in New Zealand and in Australia. I do not think you could enact a law either as a Federal law or as a State law, to-day, such as the law in New Zealand and enforce it. The people are not ready for it. The Canadian plan seems to me to be a step, although perhaps rather a timid step in the right direction."

The exceptional strike to which Mr. Lusk referred, as occurring "the other day," was in February, 1907. The strike was of men in the freezing works of the frozen meat trade. They stopped work as individuals, not as a union, each claiming his right to take a rest from work; but the law was applied to them, nevertheless, and they were fined £5 each. Mr. Gompers, who spoke after Mr. Lusk, declared himself emphatically against the New Zealand system, saying: "I would not have employers do as they please; I would not want workmen to do as they please; but I believe that by the organization of industry and by the organization of labor we are gathering forces conscious of their power, which, intelligently and wisely wielded, bring forth a spirit of conciliation that no court of arbitration ever yet was able to impose. There is in the United States more genuine conciliation between organized employers and organized workmen than exists in any other part of the world."

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Russia: A. D. 1904-1905. Revolutionary Strikes.

See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Scotland: A. D. 1904-1909. Five Years of Peace in Coal Mining. A threatened conflict averted.

In 1904 the coalmasters of Scotland made an agreement with their men for regulating wages according to a fixed scale, to be neither below 37½ per cent., nor over 100 per cent. above what is called the basis of 1888, which was 4s. per day. In effect the range was from 5s. 6d. to 8s. per day, and within these limits the Coal Conciliation Board was empowered to adjust questions of wages as they arose. Under this agreement the Conciliation Board operated satisfactorily till the summer of 1909, and under the constitution of the board there was power to refer any question on which the representatives of the masters and men could not agree to a neutral chairman, whose decision was to be absolute.

{383}

During the first three years of the agreement trade was prosperous and wages rose nearly to the maximum under which the Conciliation Board could adjudicate. Then came the period of general depression, and wages went down, along with prices of coal, until, finally, the coalmasters applied for a further reduction to the minimum of the agreement, 5s. 6d. per day. The men's representatives on the Board refused to entertain the proposal. The disagreement became acute in a few weeks, and the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain threatened a general strike in support of the contention of its Scottish members. On a ballot taken in July, 518,361 of the coal miners of the United Kingdom voted for a general stoppage of work, in support of the demands of the Scottish miners against 62,980 who opposed the undertaking. But the efforts of the Government, exerted through the Board of Trade, were successful in averting the threatened catastrophe. Conferences between delegates from the coal miners and the coal owners, held at the offices of the Board of Trade and under chairmanship of the President of the Board, Winston Churchill, resulted in an agreement signed on the 30th of July, which is to be in force until August 1st, 1912, and indefinitely thereafter unless six months notice of a wish to terminate it is served by one party to it on the other. The agreement provides for the continuation of the former Conciliation Board "with the provision that there shall be obligatory a neutral chairman (whose decision in cases of difference shall be final and binding) to be selected by such method as shall be mutually agreed upon by the parties, and, failing agreement, by the Speaker of the House of Commons."

On the point of wages, the opinion of the miners’ delegates was reported to be that the agreement was "fair to all

## parties, for it secured the owners against having to pay an

increased wage unless all the circumstances of the trade, considered over a reasonable period, were taken into account by a perfectly impartial arbitrator. The concession of the principle of the 50 per cent. increase on the 1888 basis as a _minimum_ wage would, as far as could be foreseen, obviate trouble in the future, and the safeguards which had been introduced into the grant of the concession were, in the opinion of all the delegates who were willing to express their views, eminently fair to all the interests concerned."

LABOR ORGANIZATION: South Africa: A. D. 1903-1904. The question of Asiatic Labor for the mines in the Transvaal. Admission of Chinese Coolies. The political side of the Opposition to White Labor.

See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1903-1904.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Spain: A. D. 1902. Great Strike at Barcelona.

Barcelona, the scene of frequent and much disturbance, both political and industrial, produced, in the middle of February, a general strike of 80,000 workmen, between whom and the troops of General Weyler, the Minister of War, a week of battle in the streets occurred, with martial law in force.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Spain: A. D. 1909. Insurrection and Strike at Barcelona.

See (in this Volume) SPAIN: A. D. 1907-1909.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Sweden: A. D. 1909. The Lockout and the attempted General Strike of all Labor in the Kingdom.

The labor conflicts of 1909 were marked most impressively by two attempts, in two countries, to combine all unionized labor, of all trades and employments, in the oft-threatened "general strike," whereby an absolute paralysis of society might be brought about. The first of these attempts was planned in France, for the enforcement of the demands of the postal and telegraphic employees of the Government, who claimed the right to engage in conflict with the State by an organized "strike." This came happily to naught; and, the second, undertaken in Sweden, had the same result.

A dispute in the paper, woolen, and cotton industries of Sweden led, first, to a lockout of about 13,000 workmen in those factories, the employers acting in a compact association, which seems to have embraced all important fields of production. On the 26th of July the lockout was extended to certain other allied trades, affecting about 40,000 employees in all; and it was then announced that on the 2d of August, if the men did not come to terms, the closing of works would be carried into the iron trades, and further still. This challenged the Allied Trade Unions to summon a "general strike" of all their membership, and the call went out for an universal dropping of work on August 4th. Exception, however, was made in the call, of employees in the water-works, lighting and sanitation departments of the public service, and of those on whom hospitals, funerals and living animals were dependent for care. Railway, postal, telegraph and telephone employees were not included in the Labor Federation, and did not strike. Between lockout and strike, however, the suspension of industry was so extensive as to reduce Stockholm, especially, to a very grave situation; but the emergency was faced with remarkable energy and courage by both Government and people.

Neither employers nor employees would listen to any mediation between them by King or Ministers, and the measures of Government were directed solely to the repression of disorder and the checking of all that savored of revolutionary aims. How the public of Stockholm saved itself from paralysis is told by a correspondent who wrote from that city on the 28th of August, when the strike was in its fourth week. "How is it," he asked, "that the trams are running, cabs are plying for hire in the streets, the steam ferries are working as usual, streets and houses are lighted, and there seems no lack of provisions or transport? The explanation is that these and many other of the most important social services are being performed by a brigade of volunteers, who have come forward in the public interest and who devote their time and energies gratuitously to supplying the most pressing needs of society at large. …

"On July 31 plans were first formed for meeting the situation by the organization of a band of voluntary helpers, and on August 2 a meeting was held at which definite action was determined upon. A ‘Public Security Brigade’ (Frivilliga skyddskaren) was to be enrolled, and the following services, amongst others, were to be undertaken: The protection of banks, insurance officers, and similar institutions liable to attack or plunder by the strikers; the working of trams and steamboats, and of gas, water, and electric lighting machinery; the driving of motor and other cabs; the conveyance of the sick to the hospitals, and the rendering to the hospital staff of any necessary help; the unloading and transport of the necessities of life, such as food, coal, wood, &c. The object of the organization was not to help individual sufferers or to safeguard individual interests, but in every way possible to maintain such services as should be considered necessary for the security and welfare of the community.

{384}

"The appeal for volunteers met with a generous and enthusiastic response, and within a week of the first meeting on August 2 the whole organization was in full working order. All classes supplied their _quota_. Counts and barons, military and naval officers, professional and business men, engineers, clerks, students from the Universities and technical schools, alike volunteered their services. The importance of such a movement can hardly be overestimated. The fact that the executive body has no connexion with the Government or municipality and yet is working in constant touch and in perfect harmony with both speaks Volumes for the spirit in which the work has been undertaken and the efficiency with which it is being carried out. It is an object-lesson in the capacity of the upper and middle classes to meet such an emergency. And lastly, if, as is thought probable by some, the institution should become a permanent one, Sweden will have one of the best guarantees for industrial peace in the future."

When this was written, the struggle, so far as it involved an attempted general strike, was near its end. On the 3d of September the Labor Federation announced its willingness that those organizations which were not connected with the original dispute, but which had joined the strike to help make it general, should return to work, if the Government would renew its proffer of mediation in the primary dispute. This the Government did willingly; but at the end of September it was announced that the negotiations undertaken had broken down and that 60,000 men were still without work.

The most serious feature of the conflict was the apparent readiness with which many labor organizations broke agreements and contracts, in order to take part in it, even when not called on to do so by the general Federation. According to the claim of the Employers’ Federation, moreover, it was faithlessness to such contracts which had most to do with bringing of the Lockout on. On the other hand, the workmen maintain that it is the aim of the employers to break down their unions, and that self-preservation justifies them in breaking contracts when that course is necessary to defeat such attempts. Where the very truth lies is questionable, here as in most such conflicts.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: The Organization of Labor.

"Most of the national trade unions are affiliated to one great federal organization, known as the American Federation of Labor. The railway brotherhoods, so called, keep their separate organizations, without affiliating to any other body. There are some independent unions; while the Knights of Labor are a body entirely distinct from all other organizations, and have a different organic law. It is difficult to ascertain the membership of unions. In Great Britain the law requiring registration enables the Government to state with fair accuracy the strength of unions in that country. According to the latest reports available, the English trade unions had a membership of 1,802,518, while in the United States,—with double England’s population,—the estimated membership of labor organizations on July 1 last was 1,400,000. It is estimated at the present time that there are nearly 18,000,000 persons (men, women, and children) in the United States working as wage-earners. The percentage embraced in the labor unions is not large, therefore, being not more than 8 per cent. of the whole body. It must be remembered, however, that in many trades the members are organized up to a large proportion, —sometimes 90 per cent.—of the total number engaged. The American Federation of Labor probably represents 850,000 members, and the Knights of Labor perhaps 200,000. The Order of Railway Conductors of America,—whose head, Mr. E. E. Clark, has been appointed on the Coal Commission,—has nearly 25,000 members; the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, over 34,000; the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, nearly 38,000; the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, about 44,000; and there are at least four other influential railroad organizations."

_Carroll D. Wright, Labor Organization in the United States (Contemporary Review, October. 1902)._

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: The Trade Union as a factor in the Assimilation of the Foreign-born Population, and in its Political Education.

"Whatever our judgment as to the legality or expediency of the industrial policy of our American unions, no student of contemporary conditions can deny that they are a mighty factor in effecting the assimilation of our foreign-born population. Schooling is primarily of importance, of course, but many of our immigrants come here as adults. Education can affect only the second generation. The churches, particularly the Catholic hierarchy, may do much. Protestants seem to have little influence in the industrial centres. On the other hand, the newspapers, at least such as the masses see and read, and the ballot under present conditions in American cities, have no uplifting or educative power at all. The great source of intellectual inspiration to a large percentage of our inchoate Americans, in the industrial classes, remains in the trade-union. It is a vast power for good or evil, according as its affairs are administered. It cannot fail to teach the English language. That in itself is much. Its benefit system, as among the cigarmakers and printers, may inculcate thrift. Its journals, the best of them, give a general knowledge of trade conditions, impossible to the isolated workman. Its democratic constitutions and its assemblies and conventions partake of the primitive character of the Anglo-Saxon folkmoot, so much lauded by Freeman, the historian, as a factor in English political education and constitutional development. Not the next gubernatorial or presidential candidate; not the expansion of the currency, nor the reform of the general staff of the army; not free-trade or protection, or anti-imperialism, is the real living thing of interest to the trade-union workman. His thoughts, interests, and hopes are centred in the politics of his organization. It is the forum and arena of his social and industrial world."

_W. Z. Ripley, Race Factors in Labor Unions (Atlantic Monthly, March, 1904)_.

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LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1899-1907. The Western Federation of Miners. Its adoption of a Socialist Platform. Its fierce Conflict with Mine Owners. Alleged Criminal Instigations by its Leaders. Orchard’s Confessions. Trial and Acquittal of Secretary Haywood.

The Western Federation of Miners was organized in Butte, Montana, in 1893. The domain of the organization was and is mainly the metal mining fields west of the Mississippi River; while that of the organization called the United Mine Workers was and is the coal fields east of the Mississippi. The strongly marked difference in character between these two comprehensive unions of mining labor is indicated in an article by William Hard, contributed to _The Outlook_ of May 19, 1906. "The United, Mine Workers," wrote Mr. Hard, "accepts the present industrial system and regards the employer as its partner. The Western Federation of Miners denounces the present industrial system and regards the very existence of the employer as an evil. The United Mine Workers is interested mainly in the division of the proceeds of the present industrial system between itself and its partner, the employer. It wants to increase its own share of the proceeds and it wants to reduce its partner’s share. The Western Federation of Miners, on the other hand, is interested mainly in the elimination of the employer. It wants more wages, of course, but if it should succeed in establishing a scale of even a hundred dollars a day it would still be bound by its principles to spurn the relaxing comforts of prosperity and to nerve itself to a continuation of the struggle.

"Edward Boyce, as President of the Federation, addressed its annual Convention in 1902 as follows: ‘There are only two classes of people in the world. One is composed of the men and women who produce all. The other is composed of men and women who produce nothing, but live in luxury upon the wealth produced by others.’" The Convention, at the same session, adopted the following declaration: "We, the tenth annual Convention of the Western Federation of Miners, do declare for a policy of independent political action, and do advise and recommend the adoption of the platform of the Socialist Party of America."

Says Mr. Hard, in comment on this Socialist pronouncement by the Western Federation: "There is usually one of two reasons for the presence of a large number of Socialists in any trade union. One is the influence of Europeans; the other is a

## particularly spectacular triumph of the machine over the man,

and a particularly cruel displacement of human beings by superhuman tools. … The Western Federation of Miners, however, has not been devoured by the machine, and it does not contain more than a small percentage of Europeans. Whatever of lawlessness there has been in the history of the Western Federation has been American lawlessness. Whatever of radicalism there has been in that history has been radicalism cherished and propagated by Americans. That favorite National scapegoat, ‘the foreigner,’ cannot be loaded with the sins of the Western Federation. … The Western mines are full of longlimbed, franked-eyed men who have adventured themselves far and wide upon the face of the earth. There are Eastern miners who were blacklisted after leading unsuccessful strikes. There are cowboys who tired of the trail. There are farmers who preferred prospecting to plowing. There are city men who burst the bars of their cages to breathe the open air of the West. These adventurous characters, going out into a new country and plunging into the virgin, everlasting hills, where it would seem that at last all men would stand on the same footing, have suddenly discovered that amid these primitive surroundings the modern industrial system is not only found, but is found at its worst. No one would try to find a parallel anywhere else on earth for the reckless unscrupulous and maddening insolence of the corporations of the Rocky Mountain States. And practical anarchism among corporations is always a strong promoter of theoretical Socialism among trade unions. …

"The internal policy of the Western Federation of Miners is consistent with its published principles. The most important part of this policy is an aversion to the signing of contracts with employers. A contract is regarded as a manacle. It binds one union when another union might need its help. … In consequence of not demanding a contract, the Federation naturally does not demand a closed shop. As it does not ask the employer to bind himself by a contract to anything, it does not ask him to bind himself to the exclusive employment of union men. In three other respects besides its failure to demand a closed shop the Western Federation of Miners follows a policy which has often been admired by enemies of trade unions. The Western Federation has no apprentice system. It does not restrict output. And it discountenances jurisdictional quarrels between rival trade organizations. …

"So much for the philosophy of the Western Federation of Miners. Now for the lawlessness with which it has been charged. There can be no doubt that members of the Western Federation of Miners have frequently coerced non-union men. … A programme of intimidation has at times, in certain mining camps, become the equivalent of a closed shop contract. The employer was not asked to exclude non-union men. The union excluded them spontaneously, without bothering the employer about it. … In addition to the coercion of individual non-unionists, there have been a few occasions on which armed bodies of union men have stormed mining property and captured it."

On the other side of the case this writer recounts the acts of violence and the barbarous "deportations" which the miners of the Western Federation have suffered at the hands of the Mine-Owners’ Association and the Citizens’ Alliance in coöperation with them; and he emphasises this fact:—"that the members of the Citizens’ Alliance and the members of the Western Federation of Miners are brothers under their skins. They come in the main from exactly the same breed. Two men go out prospecting. They come from the same town in Ohio. Their claims are half a mile apart. One man strikes gold. The other doesn’t. One man becomes a millionaire and a member of the Mine-Owners’ Association. The other becomes a workingman and a member of the Western Federation. … They were all of them American adventurers before they became employers and employees. Practically identical in breed, the mine-owners and the miners are practically identical in temperament. They transact their affairs on both sides with an untrammeled recklessness which is appalling, but which, if the distinction be admitted, savors of anarchy rather than of illegality. {386} The situation is like that in the rough early mediaeval States before the central authority had established its power by means of police. … That these frontiersmen, as workingmen and as members of the Western Federation, have used their guns in trade union controversies is indubitable. That the Western Federation, however, is an organized criminal clique, and that it accentuates and stimulates the gun-playing proclivities of its members, is, so far, unsupported by evidence."

_William Hard, The Western Federation of Miners (The Outlook, May 19, 1906)._

The question on which Mr. Hard threw doubt, as to whether the leaders of the Western Federation of Miners, or any of its responsible members, had been implicated in the dreadful crimes of murder and destruction of property which attended the conflict between the Federation and the mine-owners of the Far West, came to trial in connection with the horrible murder of ex-Governor Frank Steunenberg, of Idaho. The victim had been Governor of that State in 1899, when, during a strike in the Cœur d’Alene district, a mill at Wardner was blown up by a mob. Governor Steunenberg obtained the aid of Federal troops and vigorously crushed the disorder. Six years afterwards, on the 30th of December, 1905, at the gate of his residence in Caldwell, he was blown to pieces by a bomb, so placed that it was exploded by the opening of the gate. A man named Harry Orchard was arrested on suspicion and held until, finally, he not only confessed the crime in question, but owned, or claimed to have participated in, or had knowledge of, an appalling number of other murders, deadly explosions, and other barbarities, all of which he alleged to have been committed at the instigation and under the direction of officials in the Western Federation. Its President, Charles H. Moyer, its Secretary, W. D. Haywood, and George A. Pettibone of its executive were especially implicated by Orchard’s confession in the murder of Governor Steunenberg. These accused men were in Colorado at the time, and there, on a requisition from the Governor of Idaho, they were arrested on the 15th of February, 1906, and taken hurriedly to Boise, having no opportunity to resist what was claimed to be the illegal extradition. Subsequently, however, when the question was carried from the Supreme Court of Idaho up to the Supreme Court of the United States, the legality of the proceeding was affirmed by all of the tribunals which reviewed it.

Intense feeling in labor circles was enlisted in behalf of the accused chiefs of the Western Federation of Miners. Very generally their innocence of the imputed crimes was believed, and they were looked on as victims of an implacable conspiracy, in which capitalists and politicians were leagued, to hunt them to their death. More than a year intervened between their arrest and the trial of Haywood, who was the first to be arraigned. This greatly exciting trial was opened, at Boise City, the capital of Idaho, in May, 1907, and was concluded on the 28th of July, resulting in the acquittal of the accused. Orchard’s testimony does not seem to have been seriously shaken, otherwise than by the incredible horrors of his story; but corroborative evidence was lacking, and nobody could trust a witness whose moral irresponsibility was so plain a fact. The announcement of the verdict of acquittal was gladly received. It was followed at once by the release of President Moyer on bail.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1900-1909. Labor Unions and Oriental Immigration.

See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1900-1909. Study and treatment of Industrial Problems by the National Civic Federation.

See (in this Volume) SOCIAL BETTERMENT: UNITED STATES.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1901. Teamsters’ Strike in San Francisco.

See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: SAN FRANCISCO.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1901. The unfortunate Strike of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Plate Workers. Its conflict with the United States Steel Corporation. Breaches of Contract involved. Failure.

A strike which involved breaches of contract between employés and employers, and which resulted most unfortunately to those engaged in it, was ordered in July, 1901, by the heads of the National Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Plate Workers of the United States. As in the case of the Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902, which is told of below, the circumstances of this strike received a very thorough study and a very clear exposition to the public, in an article from the pen of Dr. Talcott Williams, published in the _American Review of Reviews_ for September, 1901, and what is stated here is drawn from that article:

The industries concerned in what occurred had been carried on for a considerable period under conditions too complicated to be described in this limited place. It must suffice to say that there were union mills and non-union mills, and also a third class, of "open" mills, in which union and non-union men worked together. A truce had sprung up during a period of prosperity in which, says Dr. Williams, "there had come to be a quasi, only a quasi, general understanding that certain mills were to be considered as union, certain as non-union, and certain as ‘open.’" While "the trade was still divided among hundreds of mill-owners," the Amalgamated Association of workers in them "equalized conditions for all of them. It lifted wage disputes out of the narrow mill atmosphere. It forced all concerned to look at the trade as a whole. It gave continuity and uniformity to contracts for wages. It established standards of wages"—for union and non-union, both. But when, in June, 1901, "the Amalgamated came to its annual collective bargaining," it had to deal, not with numerous independent mill-owners, but with the great consolidation of them that had just occurred, in the formation of the mammoth United States Steel Corporation.

"Two courses," says Dr. Williams, "were open to the president and officers and Advisory Council of the Amalgamated. They might, after the usual conference, for which its constitution provides, through a special committee, have signed its ‘scale’ for the union mills in which its membership worked and wait for the social and political pressure of public opinion, as in 1900, to force this new representative of capital—the ‘Trust’—in its various forms to accept a collective bargain for part of its mills, trusting to events, the steady gravitation of skilled labor to its ranks, and the greater economic efficiency of the union—for unless it is that it cannot survive—to win a slow battle. Much depended for organized labor all over the country in formally committing the United States Steel Corporation, the greatest employer of labor on the planet, to the recognition of a union scale as the best regulator of wages, union and non-union. {387} It looked as if this waiting plan were adopted when the scale was signed for one year to come, carrying a new non-interruption clause, with the American Tin Plate Company. … On the last day on which the scale could be signed—June 29— and it generally is not signed before, the demand was made that the scale should be signed for all [of certain] non-union mills. The advance in wages asked was conceded. Mr. Persifor F. Smith, for the company, offered to sign for twenty-one mills accepted in the past as union. President Shaffer refused to sign for any, unless all were accepted as union. Mr. Smith refused to sign for mills non-union in the past, and claimed that two, Salzburg and Old Meadow, hitherto union, had abandoned the organization, a position later conceded. The issue raised was whether the change from individual to collective bargaining could be required under penalty of a strike, not only in the mills in question, but in all the mills of the company. The men involved had a right to require a collective bargain for as many as they chose to include. The company had its right, equally, to decide where it would have individual and where collective bargaining. …

"The Amalgamated was … strong, until it struck. Its demand for wages and hours were all accepted. It had been allowed to organize lodges in various non-union mills, after the corporation had bought them, where before it was excluded. When it attempted, on its own demand and instance, to change the status of these mills and act for their labor, it proved right in its claim that the men wished to be union in four out of five of the steel hoop mills and wrong in five out of the seven mills claimed in the Sheet Steel Company. Each contestant claimed more than it could control. A compromise was in order. A compromise was offered. Twelve mills in all were in dispute. The corporation offered four. The Amalgamated demanded all or none. … A strike was ordered July 15, and the American Tin Plate Company men broke their year’s contract of a fortnight before."

The strike was "circumscribed at first by members of the Amalgamated in the Federal Steel Company plants at Chicago, Joliet, and Milwaukee refusing to break their contracts and strike. Here, the membership of the Amalgamated was less than a tenth of the whole number involved. It is not over this proportion in the general body of men on the pay-roll of the United States Steel Corporation. The proportion in union mills varies. In none does it include all. In some, those without its membership are a small fraction, in others, more than half. By the men of the National Steel Company and the National Tube Company, annual contracts were broken, sacrificing the annual collective bargain."

"Nothing can be accomplished for labor, even that tenth share of it organized in the Amalgamated, until this share has learned that contracts must be kept and the line drawn between wages and business control. The successful efforts of the Amalgamated to induce its members to break their contracts, first in the tin works and later at various works in the Federal Steel Company, has deepened the conviction among business men and the public that men in the union cannot be trusted to keep promises; and until this trust is possible, nothing is possible."

The strike failed in its objects completely, and came to an end on the 14th of September, having lasted sixty-one days. Under the agreement which then terminated it, the union mills which the Amalgamated Association had been able to keep closed were recognized as being within its sphere, but no provision could be made for the displaced union men of mills which had been wholly or partly reopened during the progress of the strike, and large bodies of the strikers were left to seek employment where they could.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1902. Remarkable Conference on the Peaceful Settlement of Labor Disputes, under the auspices of the National Civic Federation. Appointment of a Committee of Conciliation.

In January, 1902, a remarkable conference, to discuss the relations between labor and capital and to seek means for the peaceable settlement of industrial disputes, was held in New York, under the auspices of the National Civic Federation. Notable men of all professions, of high circles in business, of high leadership in trade unions, and of high official positions, came together, with the Honorable Oscar S. Straus presiding, and held frank and free talk on a subject which concerned them all in the greatest possible degree. The main practical result of the Conference was the appointment of a powerful standing Committee, to act for the Civic Confederation as an agency of conciliation and intermediation between the parties in industrial disputes. The Committee, which has exercised its good offices many times since, not always with success, but always with an influence that must be of growing effect, was appointed as follows:

On Behalf of the Public.

Grover Cleveland; Cornelius N. Bliss; Charles Francis Adams; Archbishop John Ireland; Bishop Henry C. Potter; Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard University; Franklin MacVeagh, Chicago; James H. Eckels; John J. McCook; John G. Milburn, Buffalo; Charles J. Bonaparte, Baltimore; Oscar S. Straus; Ralph M. Easley.

Representatives of Organized Labor.—

Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor; John Mitchell, president of the United Mine Workers; F. P. Sargent, grand master of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen; T. J. Shaffer, president of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers; James Duncan, secretary of the Granite Cutters’ Association; Daniel J. Keefe, president of the International Association of ’Longshoremen; Martin Fox, president of the National Iron Molders’ Union; James E. Lynch, president of the International Typographical Union; Edward E. Clarke, grand conductor, Brotherhood of Railway Conductors; Henry White, secretary of the Garment Workers of America; Walter Mac Arthur, editor of the _Coast Seamen's Journal_, San Francisco; James O’Connell, president of the International Association of Machinists.

Representative Employers.

Senator Marcus A. Hanna, Cleveland; Charles M. Schwab, president of the United States Steel Corporation; S. R. Callaway, American Locomotive Works; Charles Moore, president of the National Tool Company; J. D. Rockefeller, Jr.; H. H. Vreeland, Metropolitan Street Railway Company; Lewis Nixon, Crescent Shipyard, Elizabethport, New Jersey; James A. Chambers, president of the American Glass Company, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania; William H. Pfahler, president of the National Association of Stove Manufacturers, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; E. P. Ripley, president of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway; Marcus M. Marks, president of the National Association of Clothing Manufacturers; J. Kruttschnitt, president of the Southern Pacific Railway Company.

{388}

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1902-1903. The Great Strike of Anthracite Coal Miners. Distress and Alarm in the Country. Intermediation of President Roosevelt. Arrogant Attitude of Mine-owning Interests. Final submission to Arbitration Commission appointed by the President. Award of the Commission.

A prolonged general strike of miners in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania, beginning in May, 1902, was one of the most serious in its public effects and the most alarming that has ever occurred in the United States. It may be said to have had its origin in a previous strike that came about in the fall of 1900, resulting from which the miners had obtained an advance in wages of ten per cent. That increase was guaranteed until the 1st of April, 1901. In the interval Mr. John Mitchell, the able and much respected President of the United Mine Workers of America, strove to secure from the railway magnates who are the masters of the anthracite coal property and trade some recognized right on the part of the miners as a body to discuss and arrange the terms and conditions of their work. The rebuffs that he met with were near to causing another strike in the spring; but some powerful influences were brought to bear, it was said, by New York financiers, which patched up a truce for the ensuing year. The ten per cent increase of wages was continued for that further period, and the miners, in some way, rightly or wrongly, acquired an idea that the next year was to bring about an arrangement of free and fair representative conferences between their union and the union of mine-owners and operatives, like that which had been established in the bituminous coal regions. In this expectation they were wholly disappointed when the year came to its end, as it did on the 1st of April, 1902.

The National Civic Federation, in which every great social interest, of capital, labor, politics, education, religion, philanthropy, is splendidly represented, intervened in the disputes which followed, and brought about some meetings on the subject; but the capitalist side of the controversy was entrenched in its determination to give no recognition to any union of miners, and to refuse an arbitration of the dispute, while the miners were provoked to the making of larger demands than they might have insisted upon, probably, if they had been differently met. By a small majority of the delegates to a convention held in May the miners voted to strike—against the judgment of President Mitchell it is said—and work in the mines was stopped about the middle of the month.

On both sides of the conflict there were real difficulties in the way of approach to a common ground of negotiation. These were fairly set forth by Dr. Talcott Williams, of the Philadelphia Press, in The _Review of Reviews_ for July, 1902. On the side of the anthracite railroad managers and mine operators he pointed to the fact that they were "under a grinding competition with bituminous coal. To accept a union of United Mine Workers of America, in which the bituminous workers were two to one, was, they believed, to render it certain that on most issues the management of the union would keep bituminous mines busy rather than anthracite." Further to the fact that "anthracite mining varies greatly from mine to mine, and a uniform ‘scale,’ as in bituminous mines, is difficult." But, said he, "it cannot be impracticable, for veins as narrow, tortuous and varying are mined under a ‘scale' in England." As for difficulties of concession on the part of the mine-workers, this just analyzer of the conflict described their division into three classes having different and unequal footings in the industry. These were the miners who break out or detach the coal in the mines; the laborers whom the miners employ to load and remove what the latter detach; and, finally, the men employed as mine bosses and to operate engines and pumps. The miners are paid for the quantity taken out; the laborers (who aspire to become miners) receive wages for a ten hours day; the bosses and engineers are employed by the year and have continuous work, because the pumps cannot be stopped, whether mining goes on or not. These three interests must be consolidated in a union of the mine-workers if it is to have any effective strength; and this raises knotty problems among them. The attitude of the railroad managers and operators had prevented such a consolidation, with bad results, in Dr. Williams’s opinion. As he summed up the situation, it was this: "Had the miners’ union in the past eighteen months exerted the rigid discipline of big well-managed unions, prevented small strikes, and worked for a cheap output, it might have divided capital. But it had not been ‘recognized.’ Therefore, its control was often loose. Local unions irritated local operators. In the Reading mines, the proportion of coal mined per miner fell one-eighth. It is part of a bad system of over-manned mines under which miners try to distribute work. Output was reduced and wages increased. The result was that the miners were without the responsible control of a big union, and the railroad managers and operators irritated by small strikes and ready for a fight."

In his conclusions this well-informed critic of the situation justified the public feeling of the time which held the capitalists of the controversy more accountable than the laborers for the loss and suffering inflicted on the country. He closed his article with these words:

"Under competition, the anthracite plant is one-half larger in mines and one-half greater in labor than the utmost demand of the public. Two-thirds of the mines and two-thirds of the men, run more regularly and systematically, could in spite of the lack of demand in summer, produce the coal cheaper and more profitably, and at a higher individual aggregate average, even if at a lower per diem or per ton than the present system. {389} What the anthracite coal industry really needs is a reorganization like that after the London dock strike of 1889, reducing the number of men but increasing work for each. As it is, men who prefer working all the year to working two-thirds of the year, and often half a day at that, have, by a natural elimination, been weeded out steadily, and have left a large share of men, bred to a habit of irregular work and short hours. This one fact is at the bottom of much fitful irregularity in the mines.

"The railroad managers, holding public franchises weighted by public responsibilities, have clearly no right, as they have all united in doing, to refuse all compromise, conciliation, or adjustment, and simply stop work, letting the public pay the cost in higher coal. They are bound either to reach an adjustment themselves, to let some one else reach one for them, or to reorganize the whole industry on a basis which will reduce the material and moral waste of the present system, where poor mines are worked and men are one-third of the year idle even in a prosperous year."

The powers which controlled the mines did not, however, see their duty to the public in this light, and the strike went on. Before the summer ended the pinch of scarcity in the supply of fuel to the country was being felt widely, in most industries and in domestic life. The pinch increased, and the price of coal went higher as cold weather came on. Control of the rougher elements among the miners and mine laborers was lost by their leaders, and rioting broke out, with dark outrages of crime, calling for a strenuous employment of militia and police. There were threatenings, too, of a sympathetic strike of bituminous miners, which might easily produce a fuel famine of frightful effect; but President Mitchell and other intelligent leaders succeeded in persuading the miners of the bituminous district that their best help to the anthracite unions was by adhering to their yearly contract and continuing the work which enabled them to contribute funds to the support of the existing strike. In August they were reported to be sending to the idle anthracite men no less than $130,000 a week. With this and other help these seemed likely to maintain their stand for months. By the first of October the supply of anthracite coal was so meagre that "factory managers were put to their wits’ end to get fuel enough at $15 or $20 a ton to keep their machinery running; whereas, in normal times, their supplies had cost perhaps $3 a ton. The great majority of the retail coal dealers were entirely sold out, and for the poor who were obliged to buy in small quantities the price had reached a cent a pound, or even more, with prospect of a total cessation of the anthracite supply. Soft coal was being largely substituted for hard coal; but it also, in the East, had advanced 300 or 400 per cent. in price, and it was not well adapted for chimneys, furnaces, stoves and grates that had been constructed for anthracite. Furthermore, the cessation of anthracite mining during that half of the year in which the bulk of the winter’s supply is produced had created a situation of scarcity that could not have been wholly overtaken by the utmost effort to substitute the bituminous article."

The situation was now so grave that the whole country was demanding an intervention of government by some means to end the obstinate dispute. The Federal Executive could find no legal authority to act; but President Roosevelt determined to bring the prestige and weight of his high office and of his vigorous personality into an exercise of persuasive influence in the case. He invited the representatives of both parties in the conflict to meet him, and the meeting took place October 3d. In opening a discussion of the subject he disclaimed any right or duty to intervene between them on legal grounds, but said that "the urgency and the terrible nature of the catastrophe impending over a large portion of our people " had impelled him to think it incumbent on him to use such influence as he could to "bring to an end a situation which has become literally intolerable." "With all the earnestness that is in me," he pleaded, "I ask that there be an immediate resumption of operations in the coal mines in some such way as will, without a day’s unnecessary delay, meet the crying needs of the people. I do not invite a discussion of your respective claims and positions. I appeal to your patriotism, to the spirit that sinks personal considerations and makes individual sacrifices for the general good." Mr. Mitchell then spoke briefly, saying that he and his associates did not feel that they were responsible for "this terrible state of affairs"; and he made the following proposition; "We are willing to meet the gentlemen representing the coal operators to try to adjust our differences among ourselves. If we cannot adjust them that way, Mr. President, we are willing that you shall name a tribunal who shall determine the issues that have resulted in the strike; and if the gentlemen representing the operators will accept the award or decision of such a tribunal, the miners will willingly accept it, even if it is against their claims."

To say that the President’s appeal and Mr. Mitchell’s proposal of arbitration had an arrogant response from the chiefs of the coal monopoly is to speak mildly of the spirit and language of their replies. "I now ask you," said one of them, "to perform the duties vested in you as President of these United States and to at once squelch the anarchistic condition of affairs in the coal region by the strong arm of the military at your command." "The duty of the hour," cried another dictatorially, "is not to waste time negotiating with the fomenters of this anarchy and insolent defiance of law, but to do as was done in the War of the Rebellion—restore the majesty of the law." With one consent they rejected the proposal of arbitration with scornful defiance, and the meeting broke up without result.

But, behind the men in immediate command of the railway and the mining companies there was a bigger-brained financial power that could comprehend, as they could not, the recklessness of so arrogant a challenge, which went straight past the miners and the President of the United States to a suffering public. As the captain of that force, Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan took the business in hand, and, after a conference with Secretary Root and some talk with railway presidents, brought the latter to a different state of mind. On the 13th of October he went to Washington with the proposal of a Commission, to be appointed by the President, to which the companies were willing that "all questions between the respective companies and their own employés" should be referred. {390} "The Commission to be constituted as follows:

(1) An officer of the Engineer Corps of either the military or naval service of the United States;

(2) an expert mining engineer, experienced in the mining of coal and other minerals, and not in any way connected with coal-mining properties, either anthracite or bituminous;

(3) one of the judges of the United States courts of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania;

(4) a man of prominence, eminent as a sociologist;

(5) a man who by active participation in mining and selling coal is familiar with the physical and commercial features of the business."

There were added the stipulations that upon the constitution of such Commission the miners should return to work and "cease all interference with and persecution of any non-union men who are working or shall hereafter work," and that the Commission’s findings should govern the conditions of employment between the respective companies and their own employees for a term of at least three years. On this basis, with some modifications, an agreement with Mr. Mitchell,

## acting for the miners, was arrived at, and the appointment of

the Commission, named as follows, was announced on the 16th:

Brigadier General John M. Wilson, U. S. A., retired (late Chief of Engineers), Washington, D. C., "as an officer of the Engineer Corps."

Edward Wheeler Parker, Washington, D. C., chief statistician of the coal division of the Geological Survey, and editor of the Engineering and Mining Journal; "as an expert mining engineer."

Honorable George Gray, Wilmington, Delaware, "as a Judge of a United States Court."

Edgar E. Clark, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Grand Chief of the Order of Railway Conductors, as a sociologist, the President assuming that for the purpose of such a Commission the term sociologist means a man who has thought and studied deeply on social questions and has practically applied his knowledge."

Thomas H. Watkins, Scranton, Pennsylvania, "as a man practically acquainted with the mining and selling of coal."

Bishop John L. Spalding, Peoria, Illinois (The President added the Bishop’s name to the Commission.)

Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner of Labor; appointed Recorder of the Commission.

Mr. Mitchell’s acceptance of the plan of settlement, as finally worked out by the President, was ratified by a miners’ convention at Wilkes-barre, and the strike was declared at an end October 21st. The Arbitration Commission was organized at the White House on the 24th, under the presidency of Judge Gray. Carroll D. Wright, appointed originally as recorder of the Commission, was added as a seventh member to the board, all parties consenting. Public hearings by the Commission were opened at Scranton on the 14th of November, President Mitchell being the first witness, under cross-examination by railway attorneys for five days. The investigation was laborious and long, and it was not until the 21st of March, 1903, that the award of the Commission was made. The following summary of its important decisions is derived from an exposition of it by Walter E. Weyl, Ph. D., in The _Review of Reviews_ for April, 1903:

"There were four demands of the miners,--namely, for an increase of pay, a decrease in hours, the weighing of coal where practicable, and the recognition of the union. The first two demands of the miners have been compromised, the miners receiving over half of the increase demanded; the third demand was refused, but the conditions reformed; while for the fourth demand, the men secured practically what they desired, although formal recognition was denied them.

"At the beginning of the hearings, the commission decided that any increase in the rate of pay, or any decrease in the hours, should be retroactive, and be effective from the first day of November. There would have been difficulty in carrying out this plan, however, especially in the case of a reduction in hours, and in substitution therefor the commission provided for a 10 per cent. increase in all wages of all employees during the five months of investigation, from November 1, 1902, to April 1, 1903. … With regard to future wages and future hours of labor, the commission has adopted the plan of awarding increases for the various classes of employees and making this increased wage the minimum of a sliding scale. In other words, during the three years from April 1, 1903, to April 1, 1906, wages may not fall below the increased scale now awarded, no matter what the price of coal may be, but must rise above that rate in case the price of coal advances. The contract miners asked for an increase of 20 per cent., and have received a minimum of 10 per cent." The engineers hoisting water and the firemen were awarded the reduction in hours that they asked for, from twelve to eight, without reduced pay. Other engineers and pump men who asked the same received a five per cent. increase of pay with a reduction of working days per week from seven to six. The work day of men paid by the day was cut down from ten hours to nine. "These wages, however, are not necessarily the wages which will prevail, but merely the irreducible minimum of wages during the next three years. It was suggested by Mr. Baer that a sliding scale should be adopted, and that the wages of all mine workers should not fall below what they were in April, 1902, but should be increased by one per cent. for every five cents increase in the price of the large sizes of coal in New York City." This seems to have made part of the award.

"The commission says that it does not consider the question of recognition within the scope of the jurisdiction conferred upon it, although it states that ‘the suggestion of a working agreement between employees and employers embodying the doctrine of collective bargaining is one which the commission believes contains many hopeful elements for the adjustment of relations in the mining region.’ This concession, however, is qualified by the statement that ‘the present constitution of the United Mine Workers of America does not present the most inviting inducements to the operators to enter into contractual relations with it.’ Notwithstanding its disclaimer of jurisdiction, however, the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission has in practical effect compelled the operators to grant to the union full, plenary, and distinct recognition. The recognition of the United Mine Workers is clearly indicated by the language of the award. {391} Section 4 provides that ‘Any difficulty or disagreement arising under this award, either as to its interpretation or application, or in any way growing out of the relations of the employees and employers, which cannot be settled or adjusted by conciliation between the superintendents or managers of the mine or mines and the miner or miners directly interested, or is of a scope too large to be settled or adjusted, shall be referred to a board of conciliation, to consist of six persons, appointed as hereinafter provided. That is to say, if there shall be a division of the whole region into three districts, in each of which there shall exist an organization representing a majority of the mine workers of such district, one member of said board of conciliation shall be appointed by each of said organizations, and three other persons shall be appointed by the operators, the operators of said district appointing one person.’ The award of this board of conciliation shall be final, and in case of dispute the matter shall be referred to an umpire appointed by one of the Circuit judges of the Third Judicial Circuit of the United States. There could be no clearer, no more definite, recognition of the union than is herein provided."

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1902-1909. The National Farmers’ Union and the American Society of Equity.

A history of the Farmers’ National Union has been written by its President, Charles Simon Barrett, from whose narrative the following account is drawn. It is quoted here from the _National Civic Federation, Review_.

"In the little town of Emory, Texas, in the year 1902, ten men met together at various times and discussed the methods of formulating rules and plans by which the laboring masses might be allowed a voice in the pricing of their farm products. From this meeting of a few plain men the Texas Union was formed. Credit as the founder of the Farmers’ Union is given to Newt. Gresham, of Texas, an indefatigable worker for the good of farmers, who was long identified with the Farmers’ Alliance as one of the organizers of that association.

"From local and State unions the organization has grown to be a national union, holding annual conventions and gathering into its fold an aggregation of between two and three million members.

"The most striking feature of this great organization is the fact that its membership is made up of employers and employés. No line is drawn separating the farm owner, operator or laborer, but all are received in the Farmers’ Union on one broad platform of mutual aims and interests. Recognizing that the good of all is the good of the individual, the Farmers’ Union, in democratic fashion, labors for the greatest good for the greatest number.

"The Farmers’ Union works along the most practical lines. There have been four great national meetings, the first being held in Texarkana in 1905, and the convention of 1906 at the same place; in 1907 the national meeting was at Little Rock, Arkansas, and in 1908 at Fort Worth, Texas, where President Gompers appeared. Besides the annual meetings of the National Union several important conventions have been held: one in January, 1907, in Atlanta, Georgia, was called as a grand national rally. At Memphis, Tennessee, the same year, a convention of the Farmers’ Union was held for the purpose of devising ways and means by which the cotton then held by the membership of the Union might be sold advantageously. At New Orleans, 1908, another cotton growers' meeting was held, and at Topeka, Kansas, and Atlanta, Georgia, very important meetings were arranged between the cotton spinners and growers of the South and representatives from many English and continental cotton mills of Europe.

"The purpose and principles of the Farmers’ Union, as enunciated in its constitution, afford material for an interesting study. It declares the following purposes:

‘To establish justice. To secure equity. To apply the Golden Rule. To discourage the credit and mortgage system. To assist members in buying and selling. To encourage the agricultural class in scientific farming. To teach farmers the classification of crops, domestic economy and the process of marketing. To systematize methods of production and distribution. To eliminate gambling in farm products by boards of trade, cotton exchanges and other speculators. To bring farmers up to the standard of other industries and business enterprises. To secure and maintain profitable and uniform prices for grain, cotton, live stock and other products of the farm. To strive for harmony and good will among all mankind and brotherly love among ourselves.’"

Another extensive organization of farmers bears the name of the American Society of Equity, which was reported in 1906, when it went into alliance with the American Federation of Labor, to have a membership of 268,000. This membership was scattered principally throughout Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Nebraska, with some members in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Michigan.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A.D. 1903. Establishment of the Department of Commerce and Labor in the Federal Government.

See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES; A. D. 1903 (FEBRUARY).

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1904. President Roosevelt on Combinations among Employees of the Government.

"There is no objection to employees of the Government forming or belonging to unions; but the Government can neither discriminate for nor discriminate against nonunion men who are in its employment, or who seek to be employed under it. Moreover, it is a very grave impropriety for Government employees to band themselves together for the purpose of extorting improperly high salaries from the Government. Especially is this true of those within the classified service. The letter carriers, both municipal and rural, are as a whole an excellent body of public servants. They should be amply paid. But their payment must be obtained by arguing their claims fairly and honorably before the Congress, and not by banding together for the defeat of those Congressmen who refuse to give promises which they can not in conscience give. The Administration has already taken steps to prevent and punish abuses of this nature; but it will be wise for the Congress to supplement this action by legislation."

_President's Message to Congress, December 16, 1904._

{392}

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1904-1905. Long unsuccessful Strike of Operators in the Fall River Cotton Mills.

From July 25, 1904, until January 18, 1905, about 25,000 workers in the Cotton Mills of Fall River, Massachusetts, were idle, and seventy-two mills were substantially out of business, as the consequence of a reduction of wages which the operatives would not consent to. Great suffering among the men and women concerned was said to have been endured. It was through the mediation of Governor Douglas that a settlement was finally brought about, the work people submitting to the reduced wages, but having the promise of some increase later on, if an independent examination of the books of the mill companies should show a certain stipulated percentage of profit.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1905 (April-July). Strike of the Teamsters’ Union at Chicago.

One of the most violently conducted strikes that has ever occurred in the United States was brought on at Chicago, in the spring of 1905, by an attempt of the Teamsters’ Union in that city to give sympathetic support to a strike of the Garment Workers Union. The latter selected for special attack the firm of Montgomery Ward & Co., which carries on an enormous mail-order business, selling goods of all descriptions through no agencies, but dealing directly with customers in small towns and rural districts throughout the country. This company employed few garment workers relatively: but, probably because the magnitude and diversity of its shipments made it particularly vulnerable to such an attack, the teamsters began their undertaking by refusing to move its wagons or goods. From this the movement spread, as teamsters refusing to deliver goods to Montgomery Ward & Co. were discharged, and the concerns discharging them were boycotted in turn. Presently business in Chicago, to a large extent, was brought to a stand-still. The membership of the Teamsters’ Union in the city was said to exceed 35,000, and 4000 were estimated to be on strike at the end of the first week in May. From this time the heat of passion in the conflict rose fast. An Employers’ Teaming Association was organized, and the business interests of Chicago showed readiness to fight the striking union to a finish. Fierce attacks were made on the non-union teamsters brought into the work, but they seem to have been well defended by the police. In a hundred ways the whole city was divided into factions and deplorably disturbed. Children refused to attend schools which received coal from boycotted companies or wagons; and arrests of both children and parents were necessary to enforce the compulsory education laws.

While the strike was in its earlier weeks, President Roosevelt visited Chicago, and was called on by the President of the Teamsters’ Union, Mr. Shea, who protested against a supposed design to call Federal troops to the city. In reply to him the President said: "I have not been called upon to interfere in any way, but you must not misunderstand my attitude. In every effort of Mayor Dunne to prevent violence by mobs or individuals, to see that the laws are obeyed and that order is preserved, he has the hearty support of the President of the United States—and in my judgment he should have that of every good citizen of the United States. … I am a believer in unions. I am an honorary member of one union. But the union must obey the law, just as the corporation must obey the law; just as every man, rich or poor, must obey the law. As yet no

## action whatever has been called for by me, and most certainly

if action is called for by me I shall try to do exact justice under the law to every man, so far as I have power. But the first essential is the preservation of law and order, the suppression of violence by mobs or individuals."

At a banquet the same evening the President recurred to the subject and added, with fine emphasis: "This Government is not and never shall be the government of a plutocracy. This Government is not and never shall be the government of a mob." Those immediately responsible for dealing with a local situation, the President said, must first exhaust every effort before a call is made upon any outside body. "But," he added, "if ever the need arises, back of the city stands the State, and back of the State stands the Nation."

Chicago kept the conflict within itself, fighting it out through 105 days. It ended in the unconditional defeat of the Teamsters’ Union, which called off the strike on the 20th of July. It was followed by a grand jury investigation of charges which each side had hurled freely against the other, of blackmail attempts by one, of bribery and attempted bribery by the other. The evidence obtained left little doubt that labor-leaders had extorted money for the prevention of strikes, and that business men had paid for exemption from trouble.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1906. Suspension of Coal Mining, both Anthracite and Bituminous, throughout the Country. Final Agreement for Three Coming Years.

On the 31st of March, 1906, the agreements between mine owners and miners under which the latter had been working, in the bituminous mines for two years and in the anthracite for three, expired, and agreements for the future working had not been arrived at in either case. Miners in the bituminous field had accepted a wage reduction of five and a half per cent. in 1904, and now wanted it restored. Part of the mine owners, in Western Pennsylvania, were willing to concede it; others, in the more western States, stood out against them. In the anthracite field there was also a question of wages between miners and operators, and both sides offered arbitration, but differed as to the point to be submitted. The miners claimed arbitration of the general question of wages and conditions in the mines; the operators maintained that those had been adjudicated by the arbitration of 1903, and that the only proper question now was whether any change in conditions had occurred which called for a readjustment. That question they would submit to at least a majority of the members of the former Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, or they would agree that the awards made in 1903 by that Commission "and the principles upon which they were established by the Commission, and the methods established for carrying out their awards, shall be continued for and during the further term of three years from the first day of April, 1906."

{393}

The 1st of April found these disagreements still existing, and coal mining, both anthracite and bituminous, was generally suspended throughout the United States. More than 300,000 miners, on the whole, stopped work. In the anthracite field the suspension of work lasted until the 10th of May, when it was resumed under an agreement which continued for another three years (until March 31, 1909) the award of 1903. During the forty days of idleness there were few disorders of any kind in this region. In the soft coal fields the suspension was more protracted. It was ended in different localities at different times. Some mine owners, in several States, made terms with their men at an early day. Some kept their mines idle until the middle of July. Serious disturbances and conflicts of rioters with police and militia occurred in a number of States. At the end the miners had won a restoration of the wages of 1904, but had made concessions on other points of dispute which differed in different States.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1907. President Roosevelt’s Foundation for the Promotion of Industrial Peace.

President Roosevelt, having been awarded the Nobel Prize of the year 1906 for his services in the interest of international peace, devoted the sum received, being somewhat more than $40,000, to the creation of a fund "the income of which shall be expended for bringing together in conference at the city of Washington, especially during the sessions of congress, representatives of labor and capital for the purpose of discussing industrial problems, with the view of arriving at a better understanding between employers and employés, and thus promoting industrial peace." To carry out this purpose, an organization was incorporated by Act of Congress, March 2, 1905, under the name of the "Foundation for the Promotion of Industrial Peace," with trustees named as follows:

Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller, president; Seth Low of New York, representing the general public, treasurer; John Mitchell of the United Mine Workers of America, representing labor, secretary; Thomas G. Bush of Birmingham, Ala., representing general public; Marvin A. Hughitt, representing capital, and Secretaries James Wilson and Oscar Solomon Straus.

Vacancies in the board to be filled by the President of the United States. The Trustees to pay over the income of the Foundation, or such part as they may apportion, to an Industrial Peace Committee, of nine members, selected and appointed by the Trustees, "three members of this committee to be representatives of labor, three to be representatives of capital, each chosen for distinguished services in the industrial world in promoting righteous industrial peace, and three members to represent the general public." As originally appointed, this Committee was made up of the following persons:

"Archbishop John Ireland, Marcus M. Marks of New York, Ralph M. Easley of New York, Elbert H. Gary, chairman finance committee United States Steel Corporation; Lucius Tuttle, president of Boston & Maine railroad; J. Gunby Jordan of Columbus, Georgia; Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor; Daniel Keefe, president of the Longshoremen’s association, and Warren S. Stone, president International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers."

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1907. Abortive Strike of Telegraphers.

A widely organized and considerably prolonged strike of American telegraph operators, in the fall of 1907, was made abortive by the fact that the supply of men and women who have some training for the ordinary work of telegraphy is too large for a trade union to control the employment of it. The telegraphic service was made very imperfect for some weeks, and the public was subjected to much inconvenience; but the employing companies were brought to no such straits as could be coercive. The struggle of the operators was mainly for the recognition of their union, to secure negotiation with them as a body, for the adjusting of some conditions of which they complained. They suffered absolute defeat, and had to make terms individually at the end.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1907 (April). Threatened Railway Strike averted by Federal Intermediation.

A strike of trainmen and conductors on railways west of Chicago which threatened to be very serious was averted, in April, 1907, by the intermediation of the Chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Commissioner of Labor,

## acting in obedience to the Erdman Law, so called, of 1898.

Both parties to the dispute made concessions. The employés withdrew their demand for a nine-hour work day, and the railway companies made an advance in wages which was estimated to add over $5,000,000 to the earnings of 50,000 men during the ensuing year.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1908. The Work of the National Civic Federation in Promotion of Trades Agreements.

The following is from the annual address of President Seth Low to the National Civic Federation, at its annual meeting in New York on the 14th of December, 1908. The special subject of discussion at the meeting was "The Trade Agreement," on which Mr. Low spoke in part as follows:

"It has been our good fortune during the year to associate Mr. John Mitchell with the active work of the Federation, as the Chairman of its Trades Agreement Department. Mr. Mitchell entered upon his duties on August 1, and we have already had many opportunities to perceive the advantage to our work likely to result from his permanent connection with it. Through correspondence with labor unions and with the employers who have trade agreements with labor unions, he is building up an exceedingly strong department, the influence of which ought to be very helpfully felt in furthering the use of the trade agreement as a means for promoting industrial peace and progress.

"There are still some, though they are fewer in number than they used to be, who maintain that the relation of the employer to the employé is an individual one, and who therefore will not deal with men as members of an organization in matters relating to their employment. I read in the paper the other day that there are 89,000 stockholders in the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. No one contends that these people organize into a company in order to fight labor. They organize because they have to in order to work together, and, as a result of organizing, they are represented in every use made of their capital by their officers. Can any one seriously contend that these 89,000 stockholders, speaking through their officers, are justified in saying to their 160,000 employés, ‘We insist upon dealing with you, man by man; we will not recognize your organization.’ Is it not rather clear, that the 160,000 employés, so far as their interests are common, must unite if they are to have anything at all to say as to the conditions upon which they will work, and, if they unite, they must have an organization and they must be represented by their officers? …

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"Take another illustration: The United States Steel Corporation employs, in round numbers, 200,000 men. Of this vast army of workmen about 44,000, nearly all of them representatives of organized labor, own stock in the corporation. In their capacity as stockholders, these 44,000 workmen are represented by the officers of the corporation. Can it be contended that they are any the less free, or have any less right, to be represented, in their capacity as workmen, by the chosen representatives of their trade organization? And when the two attributes of holding stock and taking employment are thus united in the same persons, will any one any longer contend that these men, as workmen, organize for the purpose of antagonizing themselves as capitalists?

"Now it is out of conditions that have produced a situation like this that the so-called ‘trade agreement’ has sprung. In its simplest statement, a trade agreement is an agreement between organized stockholders and organized workmen, both

## acting through their chosen representatives, to determine, for

the period of the agreement, the general terms of employment of the various classes of workingmen concerned. That each side tries to make the best bargain it can, goes without saying. That conditions favor sometimes one side and sometimes the other is equally true. That each side tends, when it has in its turn the upper hand, to push the other too hard is not improbable. But just as certainly as a pendulum, after swinging from one side to the other, tends to rest in a position of equilibrium, so such trade agreements tend to relieve the trade to which they apply of the extreme swing from conditions favoring capital to conditions favoring labor, and _vice versa_, which so often spells disaster to capital and labor alike. In other words, trade agreements that are revisable from time to time certainly make for industrial peace, and they ought as certainly to make for industrial progress. In the meanwhile they are constantly educating everybody concerned into a realization of the fundamental importance of keeping faith."

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1908-1909. The Question of Injunctions in Labor Disputes.

See (in this Volume) LAW AND ITS COURTS: UNITED STATES.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1908-1909. Union Boycotting a Violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. The American Federation of Labor and the Bucks Stove Company. Alleged Contempt of Court by President Gompers and others.

Early in 1908 the Supreme Court of the United States gave final decision to a case in which the Hatters’ Union and the American Federation of Labor were proceeded against, for boycotting the goods of a hat manufacturing firm which refused to unionize its factory. As the plaintiffs in the suit sold their hats in many States, the boycott was alleged to be a combination in restraint of interstate commerce, and a violation, therefore, of the anti-trust law. The United States Circuit Court had dismissed the complaint, and the Court of Appeals had affirmed its decree; but the Supreme Court, by a unanimous decision, overruled both. It held that the law in question is violated by a combination to prevent the sale of non-union articles in different States.

[Under this decision, in a suit by the hat manufacturing company against the Hatters’ Union for damages, a jury at Hartford, Connecticut, on the 3d of February, 1910, awarded $74,000 to the former. The Union has appealed from the verdict.]

The attitude of law toward trade union boycotting was exhibited a year later in another more notable case, which arose from action taken by the American Federation of Labor against the Bucks Stove Company. In March 1907, the Federation had proclaimed a boycott against that company, advertising it in the official organ of the Federation as one which "we don’t patronize," and taking measures to prevent tradesmen from buying the company’s stoves. A suit to enjoin this boycott was brought, and the injunction was granted, in December, 1907, by Judge Gould, of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. The issuance of the injunction was made dependent, however, on the filing of a bond by the plaintiff, to make good all damages if the injunction should not finally be sustained, and an interval of six days occurred before the filing of the bond made the injunction effective. In that interval, many copies of a publication which the injunction would forbid were sent out by mail from the headquarters of the Federation, and more or less of these copies reached their destination after the injunction became of force. This proceeding, together with various devices by which the officers of the Federation had sought to evade the injunction, through covert allusions to the boycott, became the ground of a charge that the principal officers of the Federation, Samuel Gompers, John Mitchell, and Frank Morrison, had violated the injunction and been guilty of contempt of court. On this charge, in July, 1908, these officials were ordered to show cause, on the 8th of September following, why they should not be punished for contempt. The case came then before another judge, Daniel T. Wright, whose judgment, rendered near the end of the year, held them guilty of contempt and sentenced them to imprisonment, severally, for one year, for nine months and for six months.

Appeal from the injunction, meantime, had been taken to the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, and there, on the 11th of March, 1909, it received a modification which seems, practically, to have extinguished the contempt. The Court held that the decree should be modified to the extent that it shall only restrain the defendants from conspiring or combining to boycott the business of the Bucks Stove & Range Company or threatening or declaring any boycott or assisting therein, and from printing the name of the complainant, its business or product in the "we don’t patronize" or "unfair" list of defendants in furtherance of any boycott. The court held that the defendants cannot be restrained from all publications referring to the Bucks company, but only such as are made in furtherance of an illegal boycott.

On the appeal from the decree of the Court which adjudged Gompers, Morrison, and Mitchell to be guilty of contempt of court, the District Court of Appeals, on the 2d of November, 1909, affirmed that decree, and the sentence of Judge Wright was thus in force. A stay was given to it for a time, during which a writ of certiorari was obtained from the Supreme Court of the United States, which will review the whole case, but not until October, 1910.

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LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1909. Expiration and Renewal of the Three Year Agreement in the Anthracite Coal Districts. Report of the Conciliation Board for the past Three Years.

Again, in the spring of 1909, at the end of a three year term of agreement (see above, A. D. 1906), the anthracite coal miners and their employers were in controversy over a renewal of the agreement. The latter proffered a renewal, without change, for another three years. The miners, in convention, at Scranton, on March 23d and 24th, refused the offer unless the agreement should be signed by them as members of the United Mine Workers of America, recognizing their organization. In this they were upheld by the new President of the United Mine Workers, Thomas L. Lewis, successor to Mr. John Mitchell, whose state of health had compelled him to resign. The old agreement expired on the 31st of March, and nothing was formulated at the time in its place, except a verbal understanding that, pending further conferences, the miners would continue work on the former terms. Later, however, it was stated that the Board of Conciliation, created by the strike commission of 1902, had been continued for a further period of three years.

At the end of August, 1909, the Conciliation Board published a report of the last three years of its work, in the settling of differences between mine-workers and operators. Only twenty-three grievances were presented to the mediators between April 1, 1906, and April 1, 1909, as compared with 150 grievances in the preceding three years. The Volume issued three years ago contained 336 pages. This year only 69 pages are required to tell of the grievances and settlement. A number of the grievances covered in the new report were settled out of court. Of the others, some were decided in favor of the employees, some for the employers. In three years only three grievances had to be referred to an umpire. As the purposes of the board have become more clearly understood, a greater number of differences have been settled without reaching the stage of formal complaints. The members use their influence with the contestants to effect a compromise, avoiding the delay occasioned by a formal investigation.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1909 (May-June). The Georgia Railroad Strike.

See (in this Volume) Race Problems: United States: A. D). 1909.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1909-1910. Strike of Girls in the Shirtwaist Trade at New York. Its Social Significance.

One of the most important of recent labor strikes, in its social aspect, was undertaken in November, 1909, by the shirtwaist-makers of New York City, mostly girls. At the outset, the strikers numbered between 25,000 and 30,000; but half of them, by the middle of December, had made terms with their employers and resumed work. Ten or fifteen thousand were still in heroic contention with obstinate masters of the trade, and having public opinion and sympathy very strongly on their side. "The strike began," says the New York _Evening Post_, "in a multiplicity of causes. Wages, sanitary conditions in the shops, humane treatment by foremen and forewomen, and recognition of the Waistmakers’ Union all played a part. The contest has now [December 15] settled down to the single question of the union shop. The employers profess themselves ready to arbitrate every other point in dispute. The strikers maintain that recognition of their union is their only guarantee against the recurrence of conditions such as precipitated the conflict. … It would be easy to exaggerate the significance of the eager way in which the Suffragist leaders have thrown themselves into the conflict. It is even easy to exaggerate the significance of the way in which women of wealth and social prominence have come out in support of the strike. More significant to us is the zeal with which women of no very great social prominence, but still not of the working class, have from the beginning given their services in organizing and managing the strike, and

## particularly in doing picket duty on the streets and defending

the rights of the girl employés before the police magistrates and in the courts. Here evidently is a sex-sentiment which cuts across the boundaries of class and bids fair to give a new aspect to labor conflicts of the future in which women are involved. The present strike has a social significance quite beyond the questions immediately at issue. It is our first great woman’s strike, and as such it signalizes in a dramatic fashion woman’s invasion into the field of industry."

----------LABOR ORGANIZATION: End--------

----------LABOR PROTECTION: Start--------

EMPLOYERS’ LIABILITY INDUSTRIAL INSURANCE HOURS OF LABOR, etc.

LABOR PROTECTION: Safety Guards. Employers’ Liability. Insurance, etc. The Needed Law.

"In order to protect workingmen against injury by disease or negligent arrangements of machinery and ways, we need a state code of regulations which will prescribe protective devices, provide faithful inspectors and punish those guilty of violating the law. The roundabout method of making employers liable for damages in case of negligence has little effect, because employers can buy legal protection and wage-earners have no money for law suits. Employers’ liability laws may be made more severe and drastic; by statutes the obnoxious ‘fellow servant’ factor may be eliminated; various other provisions may be enacted by Congress and by state legislatures to extend somewhat the definition of negligence; but no law of this kind ever was made or ever can be made which will protect workmen from the loss of wages not clearly due to negligence of employers. An employer cannot be made ‘liable’ for defects for which he or his agent is not responsible. It is sheer waste of time to labor for improvement of a law whose fundamental principle covers only cases of employers’ fault, because a vast number of injuries are due to causes which the utmost care cannot prevent.

{396}

"In order to secure income in periods of incapacity for labor several legal ways are open. The British method has much to commend it and finds favor with many Americans, the method based on the principle of ‘compensation.’ In Great Britain the old liability law is left to stand, like a rotting trunk, by the side of the new and living tree of the ‘compensation’ law. By the terms of this new law, enacted in 1897 and extended 1907 to certain trade diseases, the employer is required to pay indemnity to any employé who is injured in health or limb by accident or any cause due to the trade, and in case of death his dependent family is paid a certain sum for support. The employer resting under this obligation is permitted to meet it any way he can find. Usually he will bargain with an insurance company to carry his legal risk for a premium. It is said the insurance companies are putting up the rates, but Britishers will discover a way to cover the risk in the cheapest form. Already our federal government has embodied this ‘compensation’ principle in a law which gives a meagre sum to its own employés of certain classes when injured in its service; and the example of the central government will probably soon be imitated in several states. Bills are now being drawn for this purpose.

"The ‘social insurance’ principle is entirely different from that of either ‘liability’ or ‘compensation.’ The word ‘compensation’ carries a little of the flavor of the ancient damage suit, while ‘insurance’ is simply an amicable business arrangement to provide in advance for the inevitable average risk of the trade, which may be extended beyond the perils of the shop and mill to all places and conditions of the workman's life.

"Historically the unquestioned tendency is from the liability principle to the direct insurance principle, with a wayside inn, perhaps, in some law like that of Great Britain, the law of France being almost squarely on the social insurance ground so far as it goes.

"The Illinois Industrial Insurance Commission proposed a law based on the insurance principle, though its friends were compelled to stop at a compromise with existing laws and constitutions. The bill offered by that commission was based on permission and persuasion; it offered to the employers who would provide an adequate system of insurance against trade accidents, freedom from the sword of the existing liability law; and it offered to the workmen, if they were willing to accept these terms, an assured income in case of injury and to their dependents relief in case of death due to occupation. A law passed by the Legislature of Massachusetts, in May, 1908, has actually embodied this idea and set it to work in the field of experiment. It remains to be seen whether the motives mentioned will induce employers and employés to agree on the plan. Without agreement the law will be a dead letter, for it is merely permissive, and agreements will not be made unless the economic motive is adequate. Up to this writing (December 7) not a single employer has organized a scheme under this law.

"The Wisconsin Board of Labor has made what seems a wise proposition to the effect that employers be compelled to insure their employés up to the ordinary amount already known to be spent for litigation, casualty insurance premiums and other expenses; and they also properly suggest state organization for the collection and administration of the premiums.

"The recent International Congress on Workingmen’s Insurance, after many years of debate, reached conclusions of vast import, happily without dissent. One conclusion was that all attempts to insure the workmen who most need it, whose pay is small and uncertain, and who are not organized, must prove failures. Delegates from France and England who have always stood for ‘liberty’ have come to admit this truth. Not even subsidies to voluntary insurance associations have been effective. Only when insurance is made compulsory on all does it reach the multitude of the wage-earners. But compulsion to insure may include liberty of method, if the plan adopted is approved by legal authority and by actuaries. Either private companies, mutual associations, or state departments of insurance may be trusted to conduct the plans once they are obligatory on all.

"Another interesting conclusion at the Rome congress was that compulsory insurance can cover only a minimum guarantee of income to the sick, wounded or invalid workman; while above this minimum, with advancing wages, workmen and their employers can well unite in providing more generously for loss of income by voluntary payments of higher premiums. Trade unions, fraternal societies and other organizations, as well as casualty companies, have before them an indefinite field for expanding their activities in this direction."

_Charities and the Commons, March 13, 1909._

LABOR PROTECTION: Accident and Sickness Insurance: Proposed Amendments to the German Compulsory Insurance Laws.

A Bill to amend the compulsory insurance laws of Germany which was laid by the Imperial Government before the Federal Council in April, 1909, to be acted on in the course of the ensuing year, is described in part elsewhere.

See, in Volume IV. of this work, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1883-1889.

See in Volume VI. GERMANY: A. D. 1897-1900.

See in this Volume, POVERTY, PROBLEMS OF: PENSIONS.

Of the contemplated amendments that relate to accident and sickness insurance it was announced, that "the proposed amendments of the law of accident insurance are mainly formal, but the scheme of insurance against illness is to be largely extended, and will include practically all classes of workers for whom insurance against invalidity and old age is or is to be compulsory. On the one hand, the system will in future include agricultural labourers, workers engaged for less than one week, and assistants and apprentices, whose insurance is not at present compulsory. On the other hand, it will include such categories of workers as stage and orchestra _employés_, and teachers who are not in the service of the State, if their salaries do not exceed £100 a year. The crews of seagoing ships, as well as of vessels plying on inland waterways, are now brought into the general sick insurance system."

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LABOR PROTECTION: Accidents to Workmen in the United States. The Death Roll. Appalling Statistics.

"Mr. Frederick L. Hoffman, of the Bureau of Labor, Department of Commerce and Labor, has compiled some striking statistics concerning the subject of accidents to workingmen. The importance of this subject is apparent when it is considered that between 30,000 and 35,000 workmen lose their lives in accidents in the course of their employment in this country during a year. Statistics have been secured from official sources and from insurance experience which show that the accident liability to which American workmen are subject is indeed high. Census reports covering the years 1900 to 1906 show that out of over 1,000,000 deaths of males more than nine per cent. were due to accident. The liability of workmen to accidental injury or death is brought under five general classifications, including factories and workshops, electrical industries, mines and quarries, transportation by rail and transportation by water. Of those employed in factories and workshops, probably the most exposed class is the workers in iron and steel. Of 8,456 accidents during the years 1901 to 1905, 4.1 per cent, of the accidents to men employed in rolling mills resulted fatally. According to industrial insurance experience, the fatal-accident rate of electricians and of electric linemen is excessive. Of 645 deaths of electricians, 14.7 per cent., and of 240 deaths of linemen, 46.7 per cent., were due to accidents. In the anthracite mines of Pennsylvania state inspectors have found that during ten years there have averaged annually 3.18 fatal accidents for every 1,000 men employed, and the rate is even higher than this for certain specific occupations in the mines. That this rate is excessive is shown by comparison with the death rate from accident of 1.29 per 1,000 in the British coal mines. Reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission show that during ten years 16,363 railway trainmen lost their lives in accidents. This is equivalent to 7.46 deaths per 1,000 employés."

_Electrical Review, January 2, 1909._

LABOR PROTECTION: Child Labor.

See (in this Volume) CHILDREN, UNDER THE LAW: AS WORKERS.

LABOR PROTECTION: Employers’ Liability in Great Britain. The Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1906.

The Workmen’s Compensation Act which passed the British Parliament in December, 1906, has the core of its purpose in the first of two appended schedules, which fixes the "Scale and Conditions of Compensation," in the following terms:

"(1) The amount of compensation under this Act shall be—

"(_a_) where death results from the injury—

"(_i_) if the workman leaves any dependants wholly dependent upon his earnings, a sum equal to his earnings in the employment of the same employer during the three years next preceding the injury, or the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds, whichever of those sums is the larger, but not exceeding in any case three hundred pounds, provided that the amount of any weekly payments made under this Act, and any lump sum paid in redemption thereof, shall be deducted from such sum, and, if the period of the workman’s employment by the said employer has been less than the said three years, then the amount of his earnings during the said three years shall be deemed to be one hundred and fifty-six times his average weekly earnings during the period of his actual employment under the said employer;

"(_ii_) if the workman does not leave any such dependants, but leaves any dependants in part dependent upon his earnings, such sum, not exceeding in any case the amount payable under the foregoing provisions, as may be agreed upon, or, in default of agreement, may be determined, on arbitration under this Act, to be reasonable and proportionate in the injury to the said dependants; and

"(_iii_) if he leaves no dependants, the reasonable expenses of his medical attendance and burial, not exceeding ten pounds;

"(_b_) where total or partial incapacity for work results from the injury, a weekly payment during the incapacity not exceeding fifty per cent. of his average weekly earnings during the previous twelve months, if he has been so long employed, but if not then for any less period during which he has been in the employment of the same employer, such weekly payment not to exceed one pound:

"Provided that—

"(_a_) if the incapacity lasts less than two weeks no compensation shall be payable in respect of the first week; and

"(_b_) as respects the weekly payments during total incapacity of a workman who is under twenty-one years of age at the date of the injury, and whose average weekly earnings are less than twenty shillings, one hundred per cent, shall be substituted for fifty per cent. of his average weekly earnings, but the weekly payment shall in no case exceed ten shillings.

"(2) For the purposes of the provisions of this schedule relating to ‘earnings’ and ‘average weekly earnings’ of a workman, the following rules shall be observed:—

"(_a_) average weekly earnings shall be computed in such manner as is best calculated to give the rate per week at which the workman was being remunerated. Provided that where by reason of the shortness of the time during which the workman has been in the employment of his employer, or the casual nature of the employment, or the terms of the employment, it is impracticable at the date of the accident to compute the rate of remuneration, regard may be had to the average weekly amount which, during the twelve months previous to the accident, was being earned by a person in the same grade, employed at the same work by the same employer, or, if there is no person so employed, by a person in the same grade employed in the same class of employment and in the same district;

"(_b_) where the workman had entered into concurrent contracts of service with two or more employers under which he worked at one time for one such employer and at another time for another such employer, his average weekly earnings shall be computed as if his earnings under all such contracts were earnings in the employment of the employer for whom he was working at the time of the accident;

"(_c_) employment by the same employer shall be taken to mean employment by the same employer in the grade in which the workman was employed at the time of the accident, uninterrupted by absence from work due to illness or any other unavoidable cause;

"(_d_) Where the employer has been accustomed to pay to the workman a sum to cover any special expenses entailed on him by the nature of his employment, the sum so paid shall not be reckoned as part of the earnings.

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"(3) In fixing the amount of the weekly payment, regard shall be had to any payment, allowance, or benefit which the workman may receive from the employer during the period of his incapacity, and in the case of partial incapacity the weekly payment shall in no case exceed the difference between the amount of the average weekly earnings of the workman before the accident and the average weekly amount which he is earning or is able to earn in some suitable employment or business after the accident, but shall bear such relation to the amount of that difference as under the circumstances of the case may appear proper.

"(4) Where a workman has given notice of an accident, he shall, if so required by the employer, submit himself for examination by a duly qualified medical practitioner provided and paid by the employer, and, if he refuses to submit himself to such examination, or in any way obstructs the same, his right to compensation, and to take or prosecute any proceeding under this Act in relation to compensation, shall be suspended until such examination has taken place."

Further clauses of this schedule, and of the second schedule, which relates to the arbitration of disputed matters, are prescriptive in detail of procedure for carrying out the orders stated above. The liability of the employer and its limitations are set forth in the body of the Act, as follows:

"I. (1) If in any employment personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of the employment is caused to a workman, his employer shall, subject as hereinafter mentioned, be liable to pay compensation in accordance with the First Schedule to this Act.

(2) Provided that—

"(_a_) The employer shall not be liable under this Act in respect of any injury which does not disable the workman for a period of at least one week from earning full wages at the work at which he was employed:

"(_b_) When the injury was caused by the personal negligence or wilful act of the employer or of some person for whose act or default the employer is responsible, nothing in this Act shall affect any civil liability of the employer, but in that case the workman may, at his option, either claim compensation under this Act or take proceedings independently of this Act; but the employer shall not be liable to pay compensation for injury to a workman by accident arising out of and in the course of the employment both independently of and also under this Act, and shall not be liable to any proceedings independently of this Act, except in case of such personal negligence or wilful act as aforesaid:

"(_c_) If it is proved that the injury to a workman is attributable to the serious and wilful misconduct of that workman, any compensation claimed in respect of that injury shall, unless the injury results in death or serious and permanent disablement, be disallowed.

"(3) If any question arises in any proceedings under this Act as to the liability to pay compensation under this Act (including any question as to whether the person injured is a workman to whom this Act applies), or as to the amount or duration of compensation under this Act, the question, if not settled by agreement, shall, subject to the provisions of the First Schedule to this Act, be settled by arbitration, in accordance with the Second Schedule to this Act."

LABOR PROTECTION: In New Zealand: Compensation for "Miners’ Disease."

In the later part of 1908 a singular labor strike was caused in New Zealand by legislation making "miners’ disease" a ground of compensation from employers. The men refused to be examined for the disease, and the masters refused to engage them without examination; while the Government, which apparently expected masters to take the risk of engaging men already diseased, itself refused to admit the miners to the benefits of State insurance without examination.

A despatch from Wellington, January 9, 1909, announced: "The Waihi miners have unanimously refused to submit to medical examination, and 1,700 men will cease work on Monday unless the owners concede the point. The outlook is serious and the township is depressed. The Auckland coal miners remain idle, and consequently part of the coast fleet is laid up and a number of hands have been discharged." But a later despatch of the same date added: "The Government have now resolved to accept the risk of insuring the miners without examination, pending an amendment of the Act next session.

LABOR PROTECTION: In the United States: On Interstate Railways.

In his message to Congress, December, 1908, the President referred to this enactment, which he had approved in the previous April:

"Among the excellent laws which the Congress passed at the last session was an employers’ liability law. It was a marked step in advance to get the recognition of employers’ liability on the statute books; but the law did not go far enough. In spite of all precautions exercised by employers there are unavoidable accidents and even deaths involved in nearly every line of business connected with the mechanic arts. This inevitable sacrifice of life may be reduced to a minimum, but it can not be completely eliminated. It is a great social injustice to compel the employee, or rather the family of the killed or disabled victim, to bear the entire burden of such an inevitable sacrifice. In other words, society shirks its duty by laying the whole cost on the victim, whereas the injury comes from what may be called the legitimate risks of the trade. Compensation for accidents or deaths due in any line of industry to the actual conditions under which that industry is carried on should be paid by that portion of the community for the benefit of which the industry is carried on—that is, by those who profit by the industry. If the entire trade risk is placed upon the employer he will promptly and properly add it to the legitimate cost of production and assess it proportionately upon the consumers of his commodity. It is therefore clear to my mind that the law should place this entire ‘risk of a trade’ upon the employer. Neither the Federal law, nor, as far as I am informed, the State laws dealing with the question of employers’ liability are sufficiently thorogoing. The Federal law should of course include employees in navy-yards, arsenals, and the like."

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The following is the text of the Act:

"Section 1. That every common carrier by railroad while engaging in commerce between any of the several States or Territories, or between any of the States and Territories, or between the District of Columbia and any of the States or Territories, or between the District of Columbia or any of the States or Territories and any foreign nation or nations, shall be liable in damages to any person suffering injury while he is employed by such carrier in such commerce, or, in case of the death of such employee, to his or her personal representative, for the benefit of the surviving widow or husband and children of such employee; and, if none, then of such employee’s parents; and, if none, then of the next of kin dependent upon such employee, for such injury or death resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents or employees of such carrier, or by reason of any defect or insufficiency, due to its negligence, in its cars, engines, appliances, machinery, track, roadbed, works, boats, wharves, or other equipment.

"Section 2. That every common carrier by railroad in the Territories, the District of Columbia, the Panama Canal Zone, or other possessions of the United States shall be liable in damages to any person suffering injury while he is employed by such carrier in any of said jurisdictions, or, in case of the death of such employee, to his or her personal representative, for the benefit of the surviving widow or husband and children of such employee; and, if none, then of such employee’s parents; and, if none, then of the next of kin dependent upon such employee, for such injury or death resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents, or employees of such carrier, or by reason of any defect or insufficiency, due to its negligence, in its cars, engines, appliances, machinery, track, roadbed, works, boats, wharves, or other equipment.

"Section 3. That in all actions hereinafter brought against any such common carrier by railroad under or by virtue of any of the provisions of this Act to recover damages for personal injuries to an employee, or where such injuries have resulted in his death, the fact that the employee may have been guilty of contributory negligence shall not bar a recovery, but the damages shall be diminished by the jury in proportion to the amount of negligence attributable to such employee: _Provided_, That no such employee who may be injured or killed shall be held to have been guilty of contributory negligence in any case where the violation by such common carrier of any statute enacted for the safety of employees contributed to the injury or death of such employee.

"Section 4. That in any action brought against any common carrier under or by virtue of any of the provisions of this Act to recover damages for injuries to, or death of, any of its employees, such employee shall not be held to have assumed the risks of his employment in any case where the violation by such common carrier of any statute enacted for the safety of employees contributed to the injury or death of such employee.

"Section 5. That any contract, rule, regulation, or device whatsoever, the purpose or intent of which shall be to enable any common carrier to exempt itself from any liability created by this Act, shall to that extent be void: _Provided_, That in any action brought against any such common carrier under or by virtue of any of the provisions of this Act, such common carrier may set off therein any sum it has contributed or paid to any insurance, relief benefit, or indemnity that may have been paid to the injured employee or the person entitled thereto on account of the injury or death for which said

## action was brought.

"Section 6. That no action shall be maintained under this Act unless commenced within two years from the day the cause of action accrued.

"Section 7. That the term ‘common carrier’ as used in this Act shall include the receiver or receivers or other persons or corporations charged with the duty of the management and operation of the business of a common carrier.

"Section 8. That nothing in this Act shall be held to limit the duty or liability of common carriers or to impair the rights of their employees under any other Act or Acts of Congress, or to affect the prosecution of any pending proceeding or right of

## action under the Act of Congress entitled ‘An Act relating to

liability of common carriers in the District of Columbia and Territories, and to common carriers engaged in commerce between the States and between the States and foreign nations to their employees,’ approved June eleventh, nineteen hundred and six."

_Statutes of the United States of America passed 1st at Session of the 60th Congress, 1907-1908,

## part 1, chapter 149._

LABOR PROTECTION: HOURS OF LABOR: Judicial Limitation of Police Power to regulate them in the United States.

By a decision from the Supreme Court of the United States, in April, 1905, an Act of the Legislature of New York, limiting the hours of labor to be exacted from workmen in bakeries, was pronounced unconstitutional. The law in question provided that "no employee shall be required or permitted to work in a biscuit, bread or cake bakery or confectionery establishment more than sixty hours in any one week, or more than ten hours in any one day, unless for the purpose of making a shorter work day on the last day of the week; nor more hours in any one week than will make an average of ten hours per day for the number of days during such week in which such employee shall work." The New York Court of Appeals had passed on this enactment and declared it constitutional, as a measure for the protection of public health. A majority of the Supreme Court— five to four—rejected this view, saying, in the opinion written by Justice Peckham: "We think the limit of the police power has been reached and passed in this case. There is, in our judgment, no reasonable foundation for holding this to be necessary or appropriate as a health law to safeguard the public health or the health of the individuals who are following the trade of a baker." In the dissenting opinion of Justice Harlan, Justices White and Day concurring, it was said: "The rule is universal that a legislative enactment, Federal or State, is never to be disregarded or held invalid unless it be, beyond question, plainly and palpably in excess of legislative power. If there be doubt as to the validity of the statute, that doubt must therefore be resolved in favor of its validity, and the courts must keep their hands off, leaving the Legislature to meet the responsibility for unwise legislation."

LABOR PROTECTION: LIMITATION OF WORKING HOURS FOR TRAINMEN.

See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907.

{400}

LABOR PROTECTION: THE "ENGLISH COAL MINES (EIGHT HOUR) ACT."

The Act so called, passed in 1908, came into force on the 1st of July, 1909, except as respects mines in the counties of Northumberland and Durham, where its operation was deferred until the 1st of January, 1910. The Act provides that "a workman shall not be below ground in a mine for the purpose of his work, or of going to and from his work, for more than eight hours during any consecutive twenty-four hours"; but this is qualified by the condition that "no contravention of the foregoing provisions shall be deemed to take place in the case of a workman working in a shift if the period between the times at which the last workman in the shift leaves the surface and the first workman in the shift returns to the surface does not exceed eight hours." This rule, it is said, makes the nominal working day of eight hours "one that will vary, according to local conditions, from eight and a half to nine hours." On the other hand, the Coal Owners’ Association of South Wales and Monmouthshire, in a manifesto issued shortly before the Act became operative, declared: "The Act does not permit eight hours’ work underground, but a considerable portion of this time is taken up in travelling to and from the actual place of work, and in many of the older collieries not more than 6½ hours’ effective work will be performed. The owners are strongly of opinion that it will be found impossible to work such collieries and maintain them in repair with all the pumping of water, boilers, engines, horses, officials, and attendants necessary for 24 hours per day on 6½ hours’ productive work, especially in view of the fact that in South Wales a much larger proportion of the collier’s time is occupied in other work than in producing coal than is the case in most other coalfields."

The conditions are described as being different in the Welsh mines from those in other British coal fields, and it seems to have been there only that trouble arose when the Act came into effect.

LABOR PROTECTION: Germany’s Latest Code.

"The coal miners of Prussia have secured a legal eight-hours day for underground work, but in industry generally the number of hours worked is ten daily, or sixty weekly, and these hours generally fall between six and six or seven and seven. In some industries, and especially the textile industries, from sixty-three to sixty-six hours per week are commonly worked by both sexes. … Just as there was once a time when the textile industry of the Rhineland worked to a large extent seventeen hours a day in order to facilitate competition with England’s more highly developed factories and more skilled workers, so now a day of ten and eleven hours is maintained in the same industry purely out of fear of the foreigner. … The only limitation of hours introduced by the amendment to the Industrial Code which was passed in 1908 applied to female workers, and it merely fixed the rule of sixty hours, subject to many exceptions. An investigation made in 1902 by the Government into the hours worked by females employed in factories and workshops showed that of 813,560 such workpeople, employed in 38,706 works, 86,191 (in 6,768 works), or 10.6 per cent., worked nine hours or less, while 347,814 (in 18,267 works), or 42.8 per cent., worked from nine to ten hours (inclusive), so that over half already enjoy the protection which the new law is to afford. The Socialists at present demand a ten-hours day for both sexes, for the whole country and for all industries, but they regard this no longer as their final objective, but as a stage on the way towards the goal of an eight-hours day, via a halfway house of nine hours."

_William H. Dawson, The Involution of Modern Germany, pages 129-131 (Unwin, London; Scribners, New York, 1909)._

"On December 28 last [1908] an industrial amendment Act was passed by the German Reichstag and became law. It introduces a number of new and more stringent regulations for the protection of women and children, which will have the effect of securing a large reduction of the hours of labour in many manufacturing industries. In its application it goes beyond the existing factory law, which applies to _Fabriken_, and it includes all _Betriebe_ (industrial establishments) in which ten or more persons are employed. It reduces the maximum number of hours for women from 11 to 10 on ordinary week days and from 10 to 8 on Saturday. That is to say, it reduces the statutory maximum week from 65 to 58 hours. It extends the period during which night-work is prohibited by an hour, and fixes it from 8 p. m. to 6 a. m., instead of from 8.30 p. m. to 5.30 a. m. as heretofore. It further provides that after each day’s work an unbroken interval of 11 hours’ rest must elapse; and this also applies to workers of both sexes under 16. The latter, who already enjoy the daily and weekly maximum now granted to women, will also have the statutory times of beginning and leaving off work altered from 5.30 A. M. to 6 A. M. for beginning and from 8.30 A. M. to 8 P. M. for leaving off."

LONDON TIMES, MARCH 15, 1909.

LABOR PROTECTION: Japanese Legislation in Prospect.

The following report from Japan came to the American Press in a telegram dated December 15, 1909, at Victoria, British Columbia: Factory owners of Japan, who employ 642,000 hands, of whom 392,000 are women and a big percentage children, are excited over factory laws to be advocated at this session of the Diet, according to news brought here yesterday. The law will provide against employment of children less than twelve years old, but those above ten now employed will be permitted to continue. Workers under sixteen and females may not be worked more than twelve hours a day, and must be given two days rest each month. In days of ten hours, an hour’s rest must be given.

LABOR PROTECTION: Report of the United States Industrial Commission in 1902. Recommendations for State Legislation. Child Labor and Woman’s Labor. The Utah Law on Labor in Mines.

"Perhaps the subject of greatest public interest to-day is that of the regulation of the hours of labor permitted in industrial occupations, and especially in factories. Most of the Northern and Eastern States prohibit the employment of persons under the full age in factories or other mechanical establishments for more than a prescribed time per diem, usually ten hours, and not exceeding sixty hours per week. Obviously, Congress has no power without a constitutional amendment to legislate directly on this subject. The Commission are of the opinion that a uniform law upon this subject may wisely be recommended for adoption by all the States. {401} We believe that such legislation can not, under the Federal and State constitutions be recommended as to persons, male or female, above the age of 21, except, of course, in some special industries where employment for too many hours becomes positively a menace to the health, safety or well-being of the community; but minors not yet clothed with all the rights of citizens are peculiarly the subject of State protection, and still more so young children. The commission are of opinion, therefore, that a simple statute ought to be enacted by all the States to regulate the length of the working day for young persons in factories (meaning by 'young persons’ those between the age of majority and 14); and in view of the entire absence of protection now accorded by the laws of many States to children of tender years we think that the employment of children in factories in any capacity, or for any time, under the age of 14, should be prohibited. The question of shops and mercantile establishments generally appears even more subject to local conditions than that of factories; therefore the Commission see no need for even recommending to the States any uniform legislation upon this subject. But child labor should be universally protected by educational restrictions, providing in substance that no child may be employed in either factories, shops, or in stores in large cities, who cannot read and write, and, except during vacation, unless he has attended school for at least twelve weeks in each year. Further regulation, especially in the line of bringing States which now have no factory acts up to a higher standard, is earnestly recommended.

"The Supreme Court of the United States has affirmed the constitutionality of the Utah law limiting the length of the day’s labor in mines or under-ground workings, even in the case of male citizens of full age. The Commission would therefore recommend that the provisions of the Utah constitution and statutes be followed in all the States, by which the period of employment of workmen in all under-ground mines or workings shall be eight hours a day, except in cases of emergency, when life or property is in imminent danger, and also that the employment of children under the age of 14 and of all women and girls in mines or under-ground quarries and workings shall be forbidden."

_Final Report (1902) of Industrial Commission, pages 946-948._

LABOR PROTECTION: Hours of Labor for Women. Right of the State to put other Limitations than on Men. U. S. Supreme Court Decision.

The constitutional right of a State to put other limitations on the hours of labor for women than it puts on the hours of labor for men was questioned by the proprietor of a laundry in Oregon, and the question was carried to the Supreme Court of the United States. The decision of that tribunal was rendered early in 1908, affirming the right of a State to make such distinction in labor limitations between the two sexes, and the ground of the decision introduces a principle of enormous importance into law. A legal limitation of the hours of labor touches the contractual rights of the individual, and the Court conceded that in those rights women stand on the same plane as men; but the State, it declares, has the constitutional right, for the public good, to limit the contractual right of the individual, and its reasoning on the matter before it turns therefore on the question whether the protection of women by this special limitation of contractual rights is or is not for the public good? On this question the counsel for the State of Oregon, Mr. Louis D. Brandeis, had submitted a remarkable mass of testimony, social and physiological, which the Court accepted as conclusive, and founded its decision thereon. This testimony the Court declared to be "significant of a widespread belief that women’s physical structure, and the functions she performs in consequence thereof, justify special legislation restricting or qualifying the conditions under which she should be permitted to toil." Though "constitutional questions … are not settled by even a consensus of present public opinion," yet the Court held that "when a question of fact is debated and debatable, and the extent to which a special constitutional limitation goes is affected by the truth in respect to that fact, a widespread and long-continued belief concerning it is worthy of consideration." Applying that principle in this case, the Court affirmed that "as healthy mothers are essential to vigorous offspring, the physical well-being of woman becomes an object of public interest and care in order to preserve the strength and vigor of the race." On account of her physical constitution, "she is not an equal competitor with her brother." In spite of the removal of legal and other disabilities, "she will still be where some legislation to protect her seems necessary to secure a real equality of right." Such legislation to defend woman, to use the Court’s phrase, "from the greed as well as the passion of man," is not merely for her benefit, but for the well-being of the race.

"The two sexes," said Justice Brewer, who delivered the decision of the Court, "differ in structure of body, in the functions to be performed by each, in the amount of physical strength, in the capacity for long-continued labor,

## particularly when done standing, the influence of vigorous

health upon the future well-being of the race, the self-reliance which enables one to assert full rights, and in the capacity to maintain the struggle for subsistence. This difference justifies a difference in legislation and upholds that which is designed to compensate for some of the burdens which rest upon her."

LABOR PROTECTION: ORIENTAL COMPETITION: The Force of the Objection to it in Countries under the Protective Tariff System.

See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS; UNITED STATES.

LABOR PROTECTION: A. D. 1900-1909. Study and Treatment of Industrial Problems in the United States by the National Civic Federation.

See (in this Volume) SOCIAL BETTERMENT: UNITED STATES.

----------LABOR PROTECTION: End--------

{402}

----------LABOR REMUNERATION: Start--------

LABOR REMUNERATION. Cooperative Organization. Pensions. Profit-sharing. Wages Regulation, etc.)

LABOR REMUNERATION: The Bonus System. Its Working in the Shops of the Bethlehem Steel Company.

"Awarding extra compensation for extra work has long been the practice of successful manufacturing; but the particular method of awarding a _bonus_ above referred to is of recent origin, and fills an important need in modern systems of management. It may be briefly described as follows: Alternative ways of doing a piece of work are carefully investigated by the most competent expert available and the results recorded. The best method is determined and taught to an ordinary workman, who is awarded extra compensation in addition to his day’s pay for doing the work in the time and manner specified. This method of compensation was the outcome of an attempt to introduce in complicated work equitable piece rates determined as nearly as possible by scientific methods."

The original working out of this method into a system is ascribed by the writer of the above to Mr. Fred W. Taylor, in the early eighties, he being then in the employ of the Midvale Steel Company. After setting forth the principles involved in the system, this writer concludes his article by stating:

"The principles above outlined were applied during the spring and summer of 1901 to the ordnance and armor-plate machine shops of the Bethlehem Steel Company, and resulted in a short time in more than doubling the output of those shops. The system is still in use substantially as introduced, and the superintendent, Mr. Archibald Johnston, in his testimony before the House Committee on Labor, February 13, 1902, makes the following statement regarding it:

"This arrangement has worked very satisfactorily, both to the men and the company, for it has enabled us to get work out more quickly, and to add to the producing capacity of our invested capital; while for the men it has been a great benefit, as we have many instances of employees who have bought homes for themselves principally from their extra earnings on the bonus system, and from overtime work. The system has been a stronger incentive to industry than any other we have been able to put into effect in our plant."

_H. L. Gantt, The Bonus System of Rewarding Labor (American Review of Reviews)._

LABOR REMUNERATION: COÖPERATIVE ORGANIZATION: France, Italy, etc. Cooperative Production.

A book published in 1905, entitled "Labor Problems," by T. S. Adams and Helen L. Sumner, gives an interesting account of coöperative associations for contract labor in France, of which there were 296 on the 1st of January, 1901, seemingly having considerable success, 106 of the number being in the building trades. Similar organizations were reported in Italy and New Zealand. In France, the law provides for dividing public contracts, and for making payments on them in such ways as to bring them within the means of these associations of workmen. In Germany and Holland there is said to have been a less degree of success in organizing this mode of productive coöperation.

LABOR REMUNERATION: GREAT BRITAIN: The Coöperative Union and Coöperative Congress. Recent Statistics of Membership, Organizations, and Operations. Rapidly increasing Coöperation in Agriculture.

As reported at the annual Coöperative Congress of 1905, the Coöperative Union of Great Britain had then a membership of 2,200,000, conducting coöperative undertakings with a total capital of £36,500,000 and a trade of £92,000,000. At that meeting a proposition to act with the Labor Representation Committee, for increasing the representation of labor interests in Parliament, was defeated by 801 votes against 135.

Four years later, at the Congress held in May, 1909, the reported membership of the Coöperative Union had increased to 2,516,194, in 1560 affiliated societies. Among other statistics reported for the previous year were the following:

"The two large wholesale societies—one in England and the other in Scotland—had a membership of 1414 in 1908, or a decrease of three as compared with the total for 1907; the shares held amounted to £1,984,676, a rise of £190,131; the loans were £5,114,201, an increase of £382,990; the sales for the year amounted to £32,433,968, an increase of £43,940, and the interest on capital was £96,350, an increase of £5,498. The year’s trading, however, resulted in a decrease of profits amounting to £137,197, the total profits being £731,124. There were 1428 distributive societies, a decrease of 15, but the membership rose to 2,404,595, or 81,217 more; the shares held went up to £30,037,352, an increase of £998,703; the loans amounted to £4,558,021, a rise of £212,377; the sales increased by £1,635,749, the total being £60,783,278; but the profits dropped to £10,773,005, or a decrease of £126,327.

"Coöperative production forms a large and important branch of the movement. Some facts relating to it are given from the last annual report of the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies in order to supplement the figures of the central board. According to the Chief Registrar’s report, 1251 societies, including distributive, wholesale, and productive societies, made returns showing that, they carried on production to the extent of £16,989,764 in the year, calculated on wholesale prices. The workpeople employed in production numbered 44,188—men, 25,809; women, 12,212; boys, 6167—and the wages paid to these (exclusive of bonus) amounted to £2,324,674. The board’s annual summary of the operations carried on by the productive societies and the productive departments of the two wholesale societies shows a total production in 1908 of £11,112,220. To this is added an estimated production of £7,750,000 by the distributive societies, making the total production of the coöperative movement for the year about £18,862,000. The number of productive societies to which the Board’s returns relate is 122, a decrease of five as compared with the total for the previous year. The number of people employed by these societies during the year was 28,575, an increase of 1637; the capital invested was £4,610,072, an increase of £259,137; the trade, as stated above, was £11,112,220, an increase of £450,802; the profits amounted to £352,398, a decrease of £15,317; and the losses amounted to £68,650, as against £8336.

{403}

"Among the industries engaged in coöperative production, corn milling had a trade last year amounting to £4,564,706, which was considerably higher than the total for the previous year. Increases were also recorded in the cotton, linen, silk, and wool industries, and by societies engaged in woodwork, building, and quarrying, printing and bookbinding, baking, and laundry-work. But the societies producing boots, shoes, and leather, metal and hardware, and various other goods had a reduced trade."

In an article on "The Coming of Coöperation," in Agriculture, the London _Times_ of May 3, 1909, made the following statements: "The coöperative movement, on which more than anything else the success of all small farmers and many big farmers depends, is advancing with a rapidity very little realized even by farmers themselves.

"The position at present is this. In Ireland, in Scotland, and in England exist three organization societies which decided in July of last year to amalgamate for certain purposes. Under the lead of Sir Horace Plunkett the three societies decided that joint action would be effective in all the three branches of cooperative trade—

‘(1) The acquisition of farmers’ supplies of the best quality at the lowest price;

(2) the marketing of produce in the most economical manner; and

(3) the interchange of certain products.’

"Into this third attribute of cooperation it is worth while inquiring closely. The idea, which may mean an immense advance in the production of the farm, small or great, has not become familiar even to some of the best local coöperative societies we have. A few examples will illustrate the possibilities. No one will doubt the value of geographical knowledge to the farmer. One of the biggest successes made on the Fen farms in recent years resulted from the accident that a Fen farmer went to shoot snipe in Ireland, and there came upon a potato which proved to be exceptionally suited to the Fen soil. Many small fortunes have been made in potato farming by the use of Scotch seed. To-day, of course, every one is aware of its excellence, due partly to the red soil, partly to the wise custom of the Scotch farmer in digging his potatoes before they are mature. But this knowledge penetrated very slowly. …

"An admirable instance, illustrating the same point, may be found in the unpublished history of the French wheats recently introduced into England. The whole tale is full of suggestions for English farmers and for the organization societies. French farmers, as we all know, are very closely federated; and every sort of work—in buying, in marketing, and in advancing money—is carried on by the local and federated syndicates. Some years ago the leaders of these syndicates came to the conclusion that their wheats greatly improved by a year or two in English soil. They preferred their own varieties, but found them more prolific when the seed was imported from England. Several difficulties met them. They had first to persuade English growers to grow these varieties, and secondly they had to compel them to keep the stock pure. The second difficulty might have been insuperable without joint action, but it was soon overcome by the syndicates.

"At present Ireland is a long way ahead of England, and England of Scotland, in co-operative organization; but certainly in England, as well as Ireland, co-operation has advanced more rapidly in the last year or two than seemed at all likely at the beginning of the century. The Agricultural Organization Society, which was formed for propaganda work, is already able to give proof of valuable results from joint

## action towards what may be called the self-sufficiency of

Britain. The advance has been made possible by the new federations of farmers, as well as by the multiplication of local co-operative societies."

LABOR REMUNERATION: Exhibition of Coöperative Productions.

An exhibition of coöperative productions was opened in August, 1909, at the Crystal Palace, London, in connection with a National Co-operative Festival. On the one side goods were shown from the various co-partnership productive societies, including boots and shoes, baskets, cloth, velvets, cutlery, watches, and printing; and on the other side were specimens of the Co-operative Wholesale Society’s goods, such as working exhibits of sweet-boiling, soap-milling, and cigar and cigarette making. In addition to the exhibits from workshops, the Tenant’s Housing Societies showed plans of their houses owned on the coöperative principle by groups of workmen and others. It was pointed out by the promoters of the exhibition that such houses may be completely equipped for habitation with articles produced under cooperative conditions.

LABOR REMUNERATION: India: Rapidity of the Movement.

"The co-operative movement in India, which was started five years ago by the passing of the Cooperative Credit Societies Act, has made steady and satisfactory progress in all the Provinces, and there are now 2,000 societies with 185,000 members and a working capital of over half a million sterling. Each Province has its official registrar and staff of inspectors, whose business it is to preach the benefits of co-operation, to encourage the formation of new societies, to help each society to draw up its by-laws, to check and audit its accounts free of charge, to point out mistakes, and to put things right. The ordinary type of co-operative society is the village bank of from 50 to 100 members, all residents of the same neighbourhood, who know intimately each other’s needs and resources, and, above all, each other’s character."

_Correspondent London Times, December 17, 1909._

LABOR REMUNERATION: New Zealand: The Labor Group Method.

"What distinguishes New Zealand as a State is the way in which governmental powers have been used, not to stop competition in the socialistic sense, but to force a higher and fairer level, on which it acts for the many rather than for the few. Every startling step has been of this nature. New Zealand is democratizing competition. If the public is there threatened with monopoly prices in coal or in insurance, the State acts competitively for the whole people. Our great interest in this method is that it may have immeasurable development without landing us in Socialism. It has the soul of democracy in it while preserving great areas on which those forms of private property may be maintained which Socialism usually attacks. Even more significant is the other illustration which New Zealand offers.

{404}

"It is the allotment of work to labor groups under the co-operation method. It unifies at once the political and the industrial practice. If the digging and laying up of a cellar, a section of roadway, or the foundations of a bridge are assigned to twelve laborers for the sum of fifty pounds, they elect their own manager, agreeing upon the distribution of the work. A standard of efficiency is set, which the inspector enforces. The lump sum of fifty pounds is assumed by the authorities to give first a ‘fair wage,’ but beyond that a margin is given which extra zeal and fidelity may very materially increase. Under private contractors working for profit, this is of course a very old story. It is not an old story for the State or town to do it, with the express purpose of avoiding certain evils of competition, like insecurity and lack of work."

_John Graham Brooks, Industrial Democracy (The Outlook, November 17, 1906)_.

LABOR REMUNERATION: Russia: A. D. 1903. Statistics of Consumers’ Associations.

In 1903 "the number of co-operative consumers’ associations in Russia was 824. In order to compile some statistics, in regard to these, the ‘Permanent Commission for Co-operative Associations’ sent out some inquiry blanks which, in 204 cases, were properly filled out and returned. From these reports is gathered that the 204 associations had together 91,417 members and 26,402 annual subscribers, making a total number of about 118,000 customers. The average membership of the associations was 577. The number of employees was 3258, or 16 per association, and the expenses for wages and maintenance of these amounted to 1,131,307 rubles, or averaging 5515 rubles for each association. The total capital reached a sum of more than 4,000,000 rubles, which item was counterbalanced by a total indebtedness of nearly an equal amount. Of the entire net profit,—1,270,000 rubles,—256,539 rubles were distributed as dividends on shares, 590,857 rubles as premiums on purchases, and 68,155 were paid into the government as taxes."

_Herman Rosenthal (American Review of Reviews)._

LABOR REMUNERATION: United States: Coöperative Distribution and Coöperative Production.

"Today in Utah are eighty-seven coöperative distribution societies and in California sixty; and elsewhere are signs that the excellent principles of united effort may soon enter upon another and very likely its most notable revival. In San Francisco before the earthquake the coöperators had a large wholesale store doing a good business. At Lawrence, Massachusetts, the flourishing Arlington Store Society, an admirably conducted Rochdale venture, has 4,360 members and does an annual business of more than $500,000, and at Lewiston, Maine, is a store managed on lines of modified coöperation with annual sales of more than $600,000. Through the country the coöperative stores number about 250, with 60,000 or more members and $7,000,000, of annual business; a showing that looks small compared with the gigantic operations of the British societies. But with the development of the Cooperative Association of America, a new enterprise managed by men like Frank Parsons, B. O. Flower, Charles E. Lund and other advanced thinkers, there is likely to be in the next few years a new and very different story to tell of coöperation in America.

"Coöperative production has already made a different story, although even that is flecked with enough of failure. … So far back as 1868, in Minneapolis, four journeymen coopers had formed a cooperative society, steadily enlarged as the milling interests increased. In 1874, when the flour output was about 500,000 barrels a year, so many coopers had come to town that the Coöperative Barrel Manufacturing Company was formed and twelve years afterwards two-thirds of all barrels made in Minneapolis were made in coöperative shops. And then somehow the things began to decline. Of seven great coöperative shops existing in 1886 only three survive. … In other lines of productive effort Coöperation has often achieved notable success. The coöperative creamery, for instance, has been a boon to millions of farmers. Of such creameries in the United States there are about 3,800 with a membership in their associations of more than 300,000 and an annual product worth more than $80,000,000. In Minnesota six-sevenths of all the creameries are coöperative; six hundred have been organized in the last ten years with a membership of 50,000. The idea is steadily gaining; it is very strong in all the Western States, and even in Massachusetts twenty-eight of fifty creameries are coöperative. In the operation of these societies there has been almost uniform success. The farmers indeed have done far more than the workingmen to show the benefits of union. There are in the United States about 4,000 farmers’ purchasing and distributing societies with 500,000 members. Fruit growers’ associations have been formed in nine states and have now more than 100,000 members. The Southern California Fruit Exchange, organized in 1891, handles more than half the orange business in California. It has seventy associations with 4,000 members. One third of all the fruit grown in California is now handled coöperatively.

"There are also coöperative bee keepers, coöperative sheep herders, coöperative poultry raisers, cattle breeders, wool growers, cotton growers and milk-dealers, and in six states are flourishing coöperative grain elevators. …

See above, LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1906.

Of coöperative insurance companies we have about 3,800, including mutual life, fire, hail and live-stock insurance. Three thousand of these are among the farmers, with a total membership of 2,700,000 and total risks reaching the amazing sum of $3,000,000,000. Premiums among the farmers’ coöperative insurance companies average twenty-four cents for each $100 of insurance against an average among all companies, as reported by the United States census, of $1 for every $100 of insurance. In Michigan, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas farmers’ coöperative telephone companies have had a phenomenal growth and have effected in some degree a transformation of rural life. … Coöperative distribution … has lately been revived in America through the well-considered efforts of the Coöperative Association of America, and still more recently through the Golden Rule Fraternity. {405} The Coöperative Association began in Lewiston, Maine, in 1900, as ‘A Trust for the People.’ It has utilized the ordinary trust machinery towards communal good instead of personal profit. There is a holding company called the ‘Co-Workers’ Fraternity’ and this owns a controlling interest in stock of the Coöperative Association of America, in the National Production Company of New Jersey, in the Massachusetts Coöperative Society, and is to own a similar control in the other coöperative societies now being formed. On this modern and comprehensive basis coöperation is being reformed and reorganized in America. Its pitfalls hitherto have been chiefly those of management. On the new plan of organization these should be avoided. … The revived prospects of Coöperation in America are due chiefly to the altruistic efforts of a certain band of thoughtful men and women that believe this to be the first step towards a cure of the national evils."

_Charles D. Russell, The Uprising of the Many, pages 30-37 (New York, Doubleday, Page & Co., 1907)._

"I spent nearly four weeks, from March 3 to March 27, [1908] visiting a chain of co-operative stores, fifty-five in number, in the vicinity of Minneapolis, Minnesota. These stores are organized on the famous Rochdale plan, for the benefit of the consumer instead of the capitalist. The profits are divided in proportion to purchases, except that the general public who have not yet chosen to become members or shareholders receive only half-dividend or benefit. Goods are not sold cheaper; it is aimed to create capital by earning good profits. An accounting is had and the profits ascertained once in three or six or twelve months. These profits are then distributed between a surplus fund, an educational or propaganda fund, and dividend on purchases, which is paid in cash if the shareholder has paid in full, or credited on his share if only part paid. This is the nub of the Rochdale System, departures from which have been the cause of a long and almost unbroken line of failure in American attempts in co-operative stores.

"These Minnesota and Wisconsin stores have all been organized on a nearly uniform plan by a propaganda organization known as the Right Relationship League, consisting of three active officers, two additional directors, eight field organizers, and an associate membership of all the store shareholders who pay a fee of one dollar. The stores are incorporated by counties; when there are several stores in one county, they are ‘departments’ or branches. For example, the Polk County (Wisconsin) company has ten stores, the Pepin County company nine stores, and each has a general manager and a joint warehouse. Instead of starting a new store with a new manager and no established trade, the newly organized co-operative company buys out the best or next best general store in the town and continues the former owner as manager.

"Of the old guard who wrote and hoped for co-operation twenty to thirty years ago, all gave up the fight long since, myself excepted. Edward Everett Hale, Richard T. Ely, Carroll D. Wright, Washington Gladden, E. W. Bemis, John R. Commons, will be glad to know that the lost cause is reviving and may yet, in their lifetime, justify their early faith and repay their labors."

_N. O. Nelson, The Co-operative Movement in the United States (The Outlook, July 4, 1908)._

In February, 1909, it was reported that the stores of the above League had increased in number to seventy-six; that the membership and capital had been doubled within a year, and that a wholesale company had been formed, each store subscribing $1000.

In "Labor Problems," by T. S. Adams and Helen L. Sumner, a considerable number of successful undertakings in producers’ co-operation in the United States are enumerated, including establishments operated by labor unions in the iron, glass, garment and cigar-making, box-workers, wood-workers, building trades, etc., east and west; besides co-operative laundries and restaurants. The most interesting of these organizations appears to be that of the Workers’ Coöperative Association of Boston, formed in 1900 by members of the building trades.

LABOR REMUNERATION: The "New Protection": Australia: A. D. 1907-1908.

The "New Protection," so called, introduced in Australia, "is an extension of the principle of the Wages Boards Acts, which aim to preserve for the workers a certain assured remuneration. Under the New Protection, the field of this minimum wage legislation is extended to the trades subsidized or assisted under protective duties, so as to compel the manufacturers to share the accruing advantage with their employees. The Tariff Excise Act is the first installment of the new legislation. It came into force on January 1, 1907, and was specially intended to protect the agricultural implement industry from American and Canadian competition. It placed upon imported harvesters a duty of sixty dollars. The Federal Labor party supported the manufacturers in obtaining the duty, on condition that there was inserted a clause imposing upon locally produced harvesters an excise duty of half the amount of the import duty. Manufacturers would, however, be exempt from the payment of this excise upon showing proof that their workmen had been paid ‘fair and reasonable remuneration.’

"At the close of the manufacturing season one hundred and twelve manufacturers of harvesters filed applications for exemption from excise duty." This, at once on a test case, carried the question, what is a "fair and reasonable remuneration" for wage-paid labor into the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, and its judge, much against his will, was required to determine it. He decided that not less than $9.50 per week, in Australia, for the lowest class of unskilled labor, could be regarded as a "living wage." "This formed the basis of the entire Tariff Excise scale, since from it the court calculated the rates of payment for all other employees. This was the easier because there was but little difference of opinion between the employers and the respective unions as to the proportionate wages to be paid to various classes of skilled labor, and, with the price for unskilled labor raised, a similar increase followed in all the skilled trades in the business of manufacturing harvesters.

"The Harvester legislation is only the fore-runner of plans for extensive control over industry to be brought forward as soon as the import duties under the recently introduced tariff are decided.

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"In this the three objects to be gained are not always easily reconciled, and the detail work, besides, of drafting rules and regulations to result in a moderately practicable working Act will be enormous. These objects are:

1. To conserve the market for the Australian manufacturer.

2. To insure fair remuneration to the employee.

3. To protect the consumer by placing a limit upon the price which may be charged.

The rough outline of the proposals is as follows: All dutiable goods bearing the Commonwealth Trade-Mark (a sort of universal label) as a guarantee that they have been manufactured under fair and reasonable conditions as to remuneration of labor will be exempt from excise. A board of excise, to consist of three members, to be appointed to give effect to these proposals. All goods manufactured under conditions which are in accordance with the State or Commonwealth industrial award or agreement, or which are declared to be fair and reasonable by the newly created board of excise, will be entitled to have the Commonwealth Trade-Mark affixed."

_Alice Henry, Australia’s "New Protection" (The Outlook, February 8, 1908)._

The constitutionality of the Tariff Excise Act was soon brought to a test, and the Federal High Court decided in June, 1908, that wages could not be regulated in the method proposed. In the following October proceedings were opened in Parliament to secure such an amendment of the Constitution as would empower the desired legislation.

LABOR REMUNERATION: Pensions: The German State-aided System.

See (in this Volume) POVERTY, PROBLEMS OF: PENSIONS.

LABOR REMUNERATION: System adopted by American Railroad Companies.

On the 10th of November, 1909, announcement was made by the New York Central Railroad Company that it had adopted an employees’ pension system, by which 100,000 men would be affected. Under the plan, employees reaching the age of seventy years are retired. If they have been continuously in the service of the company for at least ten years preceding their retirement, they will be entitled to a pension. An employee who has been at least twenty years in continual service and has become unfit for duty may be retired with a pension, although he has not reached the age of seventy. The amount of the pensions is 1 per cent, for each year of continuous service, based upon the average rate of pay received for the ten years next preceding retirement. The pension system became effective on January 9, 1910.

The latest government report on the number of railroad employees puts the total for the country at 1,672,074. "Of these," says the New York _Evening Post_, "approximately 665,000, or about 40 per cent., serve the roads which have pension systems. These companies are the New York Central, the Rock Island, the Pennsylvania, the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburg, the Chicago and Northwestern, the Illinois Central, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, the Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, and their affiliated lines, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western, the Baltimore and Ohio, the Atlantic Coast Line, the Reading, and the Central of New Jersey."

LABOR REMUNERATION: Profit-sharing: Plan of Furness, Withy & Company.

One of the greatest of the British ship-building and shipping concerns, that of the incorporated firm of Furness, Withy & Co. of which Sir Christopher Furness is the managing director, announced in the fall of 1908 that it could not continue its business unless the constant troubles between itself and its employees over wages questions could be brought to an end. With that view it was proposed to the workmen that they should become partners in the business by taking shares of the company’s capital stock and paying therefor by a five per cent reduction of their wages until the price of their shares should be covered. Additional shares of stock would be issued for the purpose, on which four per cent of dividend would be paid, whether the company divided any surplus on the general stock or not. A certain percentage of the earnings of the business would be allotted to capital, and to cover depreciation and development, over and above which the employee-partners would participate in all profits. With reference to these allotments, to capital, etc., Sir Christopher Furness, speaking to a Labor Union meeting on the subject of his proposal, said: "I am aware that a section of working-men criticise the amounts laid aside by some companies for these various purposes as if they were devices for stealing the real earnings of the company from their employees, but, take my word for it, these allotments cannot be dispensed with, that is to say, if the directors have any regard for the continuance of the company with a reasonable hope of prosperity. Possibly an arrangement might be reached that nothing beyond a definite percentage on an average of years should be put aside."

Importantly in connection with the arrangement of profit-sharing co-partnery, Sir Christopher planned to organize what he called a Works Council, to be composed of an equal number of representatives of the workmen and representatives of the company. It would be, he said, a kind of Court of Reference and Committee of Counsel rolled into one. The proposals of the firm were accepted by its employees and the co-partnery arrangement was carried out.

A year and a half later, on May 22, Sir Christopher Furness and two others purchased an extensive colliery, the Wingate Colliery, and made a similar proposition to the workmen there, offering them one quarter of the shares of the company to be formed, on the same terms of payment as in the case of the ship-building company. This gave evidence that the plan had worked satisfactorily thus far in its earlier trial.

On the 15th of December, 1909, the secretary of the Company addressed a letter to its Employé Shareholders, saying: "I have to acquaint you that my board have had under consideration the working of the company since the adoption of the co-partnery scheme, and I am directed to say that they consider the results, from every point of view, to be very satisfactory." The substantial results to the employees were thus stated:

"On the financial side you will also be pleased to hear that the working results are equally satisfactory. The audited accounts up to September 30 last, and the estimated results from that date to the present time, show such a balance as enables the directors to declare a dividend. They propose therefore, to make a distribution on the agreed basis of the scheme—viz., the guaranteed 4 per cent. to the _employé_ shareholders, the fixed 5 per cent. to the Ordinary shareholders, with a bonus of 5 per cent. to both classes of shareholders. This will yield to the _employé_ shareholders a return at the rate of 9 per cent. per annum, and to the Ordinary shareholders at the rate of 10 per cent. per annum, for the nine months ending December 81, 1909.

{407}

"For better convenience it has been decided by my board to make the financial year end on December 31.

"The amount due to each _employé_ shareholder will be paid at the offices of the company at the respective ship-yards on the pay-day, Friday, December 24."

Promising as this plan of profit-sharing appeared, it did not prove satisfactory to the employés, and, on the 1st of April, 1910, they voted against its continuance, complaining that their expectation of full employment had not been realized, and that the system tended to break up trade unions, which are labor’s surest support and defence.

LABOR REMUNERATION: The Plan of the United States Steel Corporation, and other Great Corporations.

"An occurrence of tremendous and far-reaching importance is the success of the United States Steel Corporation’s wage-earners’ investment and profit-sharing plan. When this plan was announced, January 1, [1903], every thoughtful man in the country gave it close attention. … With all, the question of questions was, Will it succeed? … We have not been compelled to wait long for the answer. The directors of the Steel Corporation offered 25,000 shares of stock to their 168,000 employees. The books were to be kept open thirty days. No one dared believe that within this month, while the plan was so new, while all sorts of prejudices or fears might deter subscribers, and while the great mass of employees would still be studying and thinking about the offer which to them must have seemed somewhat novel and complicated, all or even one-half of the proffered stock would be taken up. Yet, when the books closed Saturday evening, January 31, it was found that the 25,000 shares offered had been subscribed for more than twice over. Twenty-seven thousand six hundred and thirty-three employees had subscribed for 51,125 shares. …

"The company’s proposal was to share profits with all employees who would demonstrate their interest and thrift by buying the company’s stock. Consequently, the great bulk of the stock set aside for purchase by employees was offered to the men who earn the smallest salaries. This was done by dividing the 168,000 employees into six classes, according to their salaries—Class A, over $20,000 a year; Class B, $10,000 to $20,000, down to Class E, $800 to $2,500 a year, and Class F, under $800 a year—and then by limiting the amount of stock employees could take to the following proportions of their annual salaries: Class A, 5 per cent.; Class B, 8 per cent.; Class C, 10 per cent.; Class D, 12 per cent.; Class E, 15 per cent.; and Class F, 20 per cent. It will thus be seen why 90 per cent. of all the stock subscribed for in January goes to the two classes of mechanics and workmen whose salaries are under $2,500 a year.

"The method is really a very simple one. Employees subscribe for stock, one or two shares apiece. The shares cost $82.50, or less than the market value. Each employee pays in monthly installments, taken from his wages, and he may have the payments made small or large, as he likes, save that not more than 25 per cent. of his wages may be so used in any month, and he may not be more than three years in completing payment. Dividends at the rate of 7 per cent. a year go to the subscriber from the date of his first payment. Interest at 5 per cent. is charged on the deferred payments. In other words, the corporation sells stock below the market price, on credit, and pays the holder 2 per cent. a year in dividends more than he has to pay in interest. Here is a direct inducement to the investment of savings. But this is not all. Inducements are offered the employee to complete payment for his stock and to hold it. As soon as he has fully paid for it, the certificate is issued in his name, and he is free to dispose of it. But to make it worth his while to hold it and at the same time keep his place as a working partner in the company’s service, the corporation says to him: ‘If you hold your stock, and beginning with January next year you show it to the treasurer of your company, and present a letter from the proper official that during the preceding year you have been in the employ of the company, and have shown a proper interest in its welfare and progress, and you do this each January for five years, we will give you, in addition to the dividends paid you, a bonus of five dollars per share for each year. During the second period of five years, we will pay you a further yearly bonus, as a reward for your continuous faithful service.’ The amount of the second bonus cannot now be fixed, but it will doubtless be larger than the first one. Ample provision is made for the protection of subscribers who from one cause or another are unable to complete payment. Subscribers who discontinue payments get their money back and keep the difference between the 7 per cent. dividends and the 5 per cent. interest. In the case of subscribers who die or are disabled while faithfully serving the corporation, after having paid for their stock, the five dollars per share yearly bonus is not lost, but is paid over to them or to their estates."

_Walter Wellman, The Steel Corporation Points the Way (American Review of Reviews, March, 1903)._

"On December 31, 1908, it was reported that 22,960 employees had purchased shares under this plan and at that date either held the certificates or were making monthly payments for them on account. This is about 10 per cent. of the total number of employees, so that the scheme has not failed to enlist support. Indeed, it appears that in certain years, in 1907, for instance, the allotments of stock to employees were over-subscribed by 100 per cent. In May of this present year it was announced that since the scheme went into effect 193,493 shares of preferred stock and 15,318 of common stock had been sold to the employees at a total price of $17,491,680. For 1909, the preferred was allotted at $110 per share, and the common on the basis of $50 per share. Indeed, one might opine that of late the attention of the lucky employee-holders might have been concentrated more on the ticker than on the steel hammer. Their paper profits have been figured at over $6,000,000, and it is asserted that much of the stock has been sold by the fortunate investors."

_New York Evening Post, July 29, 1909._

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A plan of profit-sharing with its employees similar to that of the United States Steel Corporation was introduced by the International Harvester Company, 1909, and by the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company at about the same time. The plan of the former company was described very fully to the National Civic Federation, at its tenth annual meeting in New York, November, 1909, by Mr. George W. Perkins, chairman of the finance committee of the company. The result of the plan is "that a man begins to buy a share of the company’s stock at a price below the market value; he is allowed to pay for it in instalments, paying 5 per cent. interest on deferred payments; he is credited with 7 per cent. dividends on the preferred stock and whatever dividends are declared on common stock. In addition to this, he is credited with, respectively, $4 and $3 per share, each year, on the preferred and common stock, and at the end of five years receives a further benefit by way of a share in a fund made up of such $4 or $3 deposits as are made by the company on account of those who do not continue under the plan. It will be seen that this offers the men an exceedingly satisfactory form of investment in the business in which they are employed, and gives to the company the great advantage of anchoring its organization to the business.

"The stock offered last summer was largely over subscribed, and the company to-day has more than 4,300 employees as stockholders."

LABOR REMUNERATION: Wages Regulation by Law. The English Trade Boards Bill. To Suppress "Sweating" in certain Industries.

A Bill known as the Trade Boards Bill, which had passed the House of Commons already, had its second reading in the House of Lords, almost without opposition or serious criticism, on the 20th of August, 1909. The second reading was moved by Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, who said in doing so that "its object was the establishment of a _minimum_ rate of wages in certain sweated industries. The establishment by statute of a _minimum_ rate of wages was, he supposed, a new departure, but the regulation of the conditions of labour in certain trades was by no means new, and ever since the passing of the first Factory Act Parliament had from time to time agreed to legislation having that object. Every one knew what sweating was, and every one acknowledged it to be a great evil. It was not a new thing, but the Government were of opinion that the time had now come when the only practical remedy should be applied. He understood that in Germany legislation dealing with this subject was imminent. He commended that fact to any one who might be afraid that by legislation of this sort the trade of this country would be driven abroad.

"As a matter of fact there was no reason to believe that any trade would be killed by the Bill. He did not know of any better proof of that than was found in the fact that almost all connected with the trades mentioned in the schedule, both masters and men, warmly supported the bill. He imagined that there would be a levelling up process. Employers who had paid fair wages would continue to do so; employers who would like to pay fair wages but were afraid of having their prices cut by the class below would now be able to do so, while the genuine sweater would have to pay fair wages whether he liked it or not. Girls living at home with their families and married women who had no children were often willing to work at considerably less than the market rate for the purpose of earning a little pocket money, and it might be said that if both parties were agreeable to this arrangement there was no reason to interfere. Seeing, however, that these people dragged down the level of wages and inflicted a serious injury on those who had to carry on trade for their living, they were included in the Bill. If their work was worth having, it must be worth paying for. The trades selected for the purpose of the Bill were certain parts of the tailoring trade, the paper box making trade, certain parts of the common lace finishing trade, and certain parts of the chain making trade. These were all trades in which sweating was acknowledged to exist. The Bill could be extended to other trades by a Provisional Order Bill, and in this way the control of Parliament would be maintained. The _minimum_ rate of wages in the specified trades would be regulated by a Central Trade Board assisted by local committees. Notice would be given when it was intended to fix a minimum rate of wages, and there would be an interval of three months to give those who desired to raise objections an opportunity of being heard. During the intermediary period, which would last six months, the rate of wages fixed by the Board would not be compulsory. He admitted that the establishment of a minimum rate of wages was a new principle. In certain quarters it had been objected to as an undue interference with freedom of contract, but the principle would only be applied where the workpeople had shown themselves incapable of any action for themselves. The conditions in those extreme cases clearly called for legislative action, in the interests of the community as well as of the workpeople themselves."

Almost every speaker who discussed the Bill, Liberal and Conservative alike, gave it cordial support.

LABOR REMUNERATION: Wages and Cost of Living: Germany and England compared, 1908-1909.

Results of a statistical study of labor conditions in Germany, compared with those in Great Britain, were published by the British Government in the summer of 1908, and the showing favors the British workingmen. As nearly as the different housing of their class in the two countries can be compared, the average of German rents is to rents in England as 123 to 100; while the cost of food to the Germans is to that of the English as 115 to 100. On the side of necessary expenditure, therefore, the wages of the German workman are drawn upon more heavily than the Englishman’s by fifteen or twenty per cent., at the least. In other words, he would need to have higher wages than the Englishman, by as much as fifteen or twenty per cent., to put him on a footing of equality with the latter in the circumstances of his living. Instead of which his wages are lower by a number of points, the statistical ratio being 83 to 100 in the average of weekly wages, and 75 to 100 in the average of hourly rates. But this does not end his disadvantages, for he renders more hours of work, in the measure of 111 to 100. Notwithstanding all which handicaps, it is quite commonly conceded that the German workingman is physically more vigorous than the English, as a rule, and contrives, by more thriftiness in his living, to keep it on a higher level. Which is an extraordinarily creditable fact.

{409}

That the German workman lives and labors under the conditions produced by a high protective tariff, which is claimed to be protective of high wages as well as high prices, while the British workman’s conditions of life and labor are the product of free trade in everything but a few tariff-taxed articles of luxury, such as wines, tobacco, silks, jewels and the like, are facts to be borne in mind when these comparisons are considered.

The following is from a report by the British Consul-General on the trade and commerce of the consular district of Frankfort-on-the-Main for the year ending April 30, 1909.

"In last year’s report it was stated that the belief was gaining ground that wages in Germany were not only approaching those paid in the United Kingdom for the same class of work, but in some cases even exceeded them. That the German workman to-day lives better than he used to there can be little doubt. The standard of life has been raised all round; the lowest aspect and standard of years gone by no longer exists. Food has improved, clothes have improved, Germany has become a rich country without the lowest grades of poverty which exist elsewhere. Wages have been increased in keeping with the higher level. Yet I do not think that, generally speaking, the German workman lives as well as the British workman."

After giving a table relating to savings bank deposits the report says that while during 1900-1905 the number of deposit books increased by 22.7 percent, and the total deposits by 44 per cent., during 1905-1907 they increased by only 7.95 and 10 per cent. respectively. This is considered to be attributable to the increased cost of living, and also to the fact that "with increasing wealth people are apt to become less thrifty."

LABOR REMUNERATION: France, Germany, and England: Workmen’s Living Expenses compared, 1909.

A British Board of Trade report on the conditions of industrial life in France, published in May, 1909, summarizes as follows, in a prefatory note, the conclusions drawn from the mass of facts collected, as to the comparative cost of living to workmen in France, Germany, and England: "As regards rents, it appears that the French workman pays somewhat less than the English workman for a corresponding amount of housing accommodation, and therefore much less than the German workman; but against this must be set the fact that his housing accommodation is, as a rule, decidedly inferior in quality. The difference between the rent-levels of the capital and of the rest of the country is quite as marked in France as in England or Germany.

"The range of town price-levels is not very wide in any one of the three countries investigated, and in France, as in the other two, the differences between one town and another in the cost of living (so far as it relates to expenditure on food) are, as a rule, by no means great. When the relative levels of food-prices in the three countries are compared, so far as the _data_ permit, it appears that the general ratio of French prices to English prices for corresponding commodities is the same as that of German prices.

"On the assumption which has been adopted for the purposes of these international comparisons it follows that an English workman, with an average family, who should go to France and endeavour to maintain there his accustomed mode of living, would find his expenditure on rent, food, and fuel substantially increased—though not to so large an extent as if he had gone to Germany. On the other hand, he would find his wages to be lower than in the latter country and much below the English level, in spite of longer hours.

"The results of the comparison are somewhat modified if we take as its basis the foreign rather than the English mode of living. A French workman living in England according to his French standard would find a certain reduction in the cost of food, but a rise in the cost of housing accommodation. On the whole his expenses of living would be somewhat decreased, but in a proportion by no means so great as that by which the English workman would find his expenses increased on migration to France."

LABOR REMUNERATION: United States: 1905-1906 compared with 1890. Gains to Labor.

Bulletin No. 71 of the United States Bureau of Labor, published in July, 1907, is devoted mainly to an elaborate report on Wages and Hours of Labor in Manufacturing Industries, 1890 to 1906, exhibiting "the average wages per hour, the average hours of labor per week, and the number of employees in both 1905 and 1906, in the leading wage-working occupations of 4,034 establishments in the principal manufacturing and mechanical industries of the United States." The report does not cover salaried employees in any industries. With it, in a separate article, the retail prices of food in different parts of the country, 1890-1906, are tabulated. A summary of deductions from the figures detailed is submitted by way of preface to the tables and from this the following is taken:

"In the year 1906 the average wages per hour in the principal manufacturing and mechanical industries of the country were 4.5 per cent higher than in 1905, the regular hours of labor per week were 0.5 per cent lower than in 1905, and the number of employees in the establishments investigated was 7 per cent greater than in 1905. The average full-time weekly earnings per employee in 1906 were 3.9 per cent greater than in 1905.

"The variation in the purchasing power of wages may be measured by using the retail prices of food, the expenditures for which constitute nearly half of the expenditures for all purposes in a workingman’s family. According to that article [on prices] the retail prices of food, weighted according to consumption in representative workingmen’s families, were 2.9 per cent higher in 1906 than in 1905. As the advance in wages per hour from 1905 to 1906 was greater than the advance in the retail prices of food, the purchasing power of an hour’s wages, as measured by food, was greater in 1906 than in 1905. {410} In 1906 the purchasing power of an hour’s wages as expended for food was 1.4 per cent greater than in 1905, and the purchasing power of a full week’s wages was 1 per cent greater in 1906 than in 1905, or, expressed in other words, an hour’s wages in 1906 in the manufacturing and mechanical industries in the United States would purchase 1.4 per cent more food than an hour's wages in 1905, and a full week’s wages in 1906 would purchase 1 per cent more food than a full week’s wages in 1905.

"As compared in each case with the average for the years from 1890 to 1899, the average wages per hour in 1906 were 24.2 per cent higher, the number of employees in the establishments investigated was 42.9 per cent greater, and the average hours of labor per week were 4.6 per cent lower. The average earnings per employee per full week in 1906 were 18.5 per cent higher than the average earnings per full week during the ten years from 1890 to 1899.

"The retail price of the principal articles of food, weighted according to family consumption of the various articles, was 15.7 per cent higher in 1906 than the average price for the ten years from 1890 to 1899. Compared with the average for the same ten-year period, the purchasing power of an hour’s wages in 1906 was 7.3 per cent greater, and of a full week’s wages 2.4 per cent greater, the increase in the purchasing power of the full week’s wages being less than the increase in the purchasing power of hourly wages, because of the reduction in the hours of labor."

In 40 of the 41 industries covered by this report the greatest increase of wages "was in the manufacture of cotton goods, where the average wages per hour in 1906 were 11.2 per cent higher than the average wages per hour in 1905. In the manufacture of electrical apparatus and supplies there was an increase in wages per hour of 10.1 per cent. In street and sewer work done by contract the increase in wages per hour was 8.7 per cent; in iron and steel, Bessemer converting, 8.5 per cent. and in the manufacture of cigars, 8.4 per cent. In the manufacture of bar iron the increase in wages per hour was 6.9 per cent, and in the building trades 6.1 per cent. Briefly stated, two industries show an increase in hourly wages of more than 10 per cent., 7 industries an increase of 5 per cent but less than 10 per cent., and 31 industries an increase of less than 5 per cent. In one industry, paper and wood pulp, there was a decrease of wages of 1.1 per cent. In the industries as a whole, weighted according to importance, the increase in wages was 4.5 per cent. …

"The per cent of change in hours of labor in 1906, as compared with 1905, was not so great as the per cent of change in wages per hour. In 5 industries there was a decrease of hours of 1 per cent or more, while in 25 industries there was a decrease of less than 1 per cent. In 5 industries there was an increase in hours of labor per week; in no instance, however, was the increase more than 0.3 per cent. Five industries show no change in hours of labor. The hours of labor were not reported for slaughtering and meat packing, for the reason set forth in footnote on page 58. The decrease in hours of labor in the industries taken as a whole was 0.5 per cent.

"In 1906 there was an increase in the retail price of food, weighted according to family consumption of 2.9 per cent as compared with 1905, an increase of 3.6 per cent as compared with 1904, an increase of 4.9 per cent as compared with 1903, an increase of 4.3 per cent as compared with 1902, and an increase of 10 per cent as compared with 1901. The retail price of food was 21.2 per cent higher in 1906 than in 1896, the year of lowest prices, and 15.7 per cent higher than the average price for the ten years, 1890 to 1899."

----------LABOR REMUNERATION: End--------

LABOR TRAINING: Technical and Industrial Education.

See (in this Volume) EDUCATION.

LADRONES.

See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1901-1902.

LAFAYETTE, Marquis de: Representatives of the Family invited Guests of the United States.

See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902 (MAY).

LA FOLLETTE, Robert Marion.

See (in this Volume) WISCONSIN: A. D. 1900-1909; also, PUBLIC UTILITIES, REGULATION OF.

LAGERLOF, Selma.

See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.

LAKES-TO-THE-GULF DEEP WATERWAY.

See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: UNITED STATES.

LALLA R’KIA.

See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1903.

LAMA, The Dalai.

See (in this Volume) TIBET.

LAMSDORFF, Count: Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs.

See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1901-1904.

LAND: In the United States: Reclamation of Arid Lands. Wasteful Culture.

See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES.

LAND: The Small Holdings Act in Great Britain.

See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1907-1908.

LAND: Taxation proposed in the British Budget of 1909.

See (in this Volume) ENGLAND A. D. 1909 (APRIL-DECEMBER).

LAND LAWS, IRISH: THE WORKING OF THE SUCCESSIVE LAWS. The Act of 1903.

See (in this Volume) IRELAND: A. D. 1870-1903, 1905.

LAND LAWS, RUSSIAN: THE AGRARIAN LAW.

See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (APRIL).

LAND OFFICE FRAUDS.

See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1903-1906.

LAND PURCHASE ACT, of 1909, IRISH.

See (in this Volume) IRELAND: A. D. 1909.

LAND QUESTION, IN AUSTRALIA.

See (in this Volume) IMMIGRATION AND EMIGRATION: AUSTRALIA.

LAND, RUSSIAN CROWN: SALE TO PEASANTS OPENED.

See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1906.

LAND SYSTEM, OF NEW ZEALAND.

See (in this Volume) NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1905.

LANDIS, Judge K. M.: Judgment against the Standard Oil Company, imposing a Fine of $29,000,000.

See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &C.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904-1909.

LANDLORDISM: Overthrown Politically in Denmark.

See (in this Volume) DENMARK: A. D. 1901.

LANGLEY, Samuel P.

See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: AERONAUTICS.

{411}

LANSDOWNE, Henry Charles, Marquess of: Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Despatch explanatory of Agreements between England and France, April, 1904.

See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1904 (APRIL).

On each of the Two Defensive Agreements with Japan.

See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1902, AND 1905 (AUGUST).

On the Budget of 1909.

See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1909 (APRIL-DECEMBER).

LARRINAGA, Tulio: Delegate to Third International Conference of American Republics.

See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.

LATHAM, Hubert.

See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION; RECENT: AERONAUTICS.

LATIN BIBLE, Revised Translation of.

See (in this Volume) PAPACY: A. D. 1907-1909.

LAURIER, Sir Wilfred, Premier of Canada: At Colonial Conference in London, 1902.

See (in this Volume) BRITISH EMPIRE.

At the Imperial Conference of 1907.

See (in this Volume) BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1907.

LAURIER MINISTRY: Supported in the Canadian Elections, 1904.

See CANADA: A. D. 1904.

LAVERAN, Charles L. A.

See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.

LAW AND ITS COURTS: England: Institution of a Court of Criminal Appeal.

An important innovation in the administration of criminal law was introduced in Great Britain by an Act of Parliament "to Establish a Court of Criminal Appeal," approved August 28, 1907. In part, the enactment was as follows:

"1. (1) There shall be a Court of Criminal Appeal, and the Lord Chief Justice of England and eight judges of the King’s Bench Division of the High Court, appointed for the purpose by the Lord Chief Justice with the consent of the Lord Chancellor for such period as he thinks desirable in each case, shall be judges of that court.

"(2) For the purpose of hearing and determining appeals under this Act, and for the purpose of any other proceedings under this Act, the Court of Criminal Appeal shall be summoned in accordance with directions given by the Lord Chief Justice of England with the consent of the Lord Chancellor, and the court shall be duly constituted if it consists of not less than three judges and of an uneven number of judges.

"If the Lord Chief Justice so directs, the court may sit in two or more divisions. The court shall sit in London except in cases where the Lord Chief Justice gives special directions that it shall sit at some other place. …

"3. A person convicted on indictment may appeal under this Act to the Court of Criminal Appeal—

(_a_) against his conviction on any ground of appeal which involves a question of law alone; and

(_b_) with the leave of the Court of Criminal Appeal or upon the certificate of the Judge who tried him that it is a fit case for appeal against his conviction on any ground of appeal which involves a question of fact alone or a question of mixed law and fact, or any other ground which appears to the court to be a sufficient ground of appeal; and

(_c_) with the leave of the Court of Criminal Appeal against the sentence passed on his conviction, unless the sentence is one fixed by law.

"4. (1) The Court of Criminal Appeal on any such appeal against conviction shall allow the appeal if they think that the verdict of the jury should be set aside on the ground that it is unreasonable or cannot be supported having regard to the evidence, or that the judgment of the court before whom the appellant was convicted should be set aside on the ground of a wrong decision of any question of law or that on any ground there was a miscarriage of justice, and in any other case shall dismiss the appeal: Provided that the court may, notwithstanding that they are of opinion that the point raised in the appeal might be decided in favour of the appellant, dismiss the appeal if they consider that no substantial miscarriage of justice has actually occurred.

"(2) Subject to the special provisions of this Act, the Court of Criminal Appeal shall, if they allow an appeal against conviction, quash the conviction and direct a judgment and verdict of acquittal to be entered.

"(3) On an appeal against sentence the Court of Criminal Appeal shall, if they think that a different sentence should have been passed, quash the sentence passed at the trial, and pass such other sentence warranted in law by the verdict (whether more or less severe) in substitution therefor as they think ought to have been passed, and in any other case shall dismiss the appeal.

"5. (1) If it appears to the Court of Criminal Appeal that an appellant, though not properly convicted on some count or part of the indictment, has been properly convicted on some other count or part of the indictment, the court may either affirm the sentence passed on the appellant at the trial, or pass such sentence in substitution therefor as they think proper, and as may be warranted in law by the verdict on the count or part of the indictment on which the court consider that the appellant has been properly convicted.

"(2) Where an appellant has been convicted of an offence and the jury could on the indictment have found him guilty of some other offence, and on the finding of the jury it appears to the Court of Criminal Appeal that the jury must have been satisfied of facts which proved him guilty of that other offence, the court may, instead of allowing or dismissing the appeal, substitute for the verdict found by the jury a verdict of guilty of that other offence, and pass such sentence in substitution for the sentence passed at the trial as may be warranted in law for that other offence, not being a sentence of greater severity.

"(3) Where on the conviction of the appellant the jury have found a special verdict, and the Court of Criminal Appeal consider that a wrong conclusion has been arrived at by the court before which the appellant has been convicted on the effect of that verdict, the Court of Criminal Appeal may, instead of allowing the appeal, order such conclusion to be recorded as appears to the court to be in law required by the verdict, and pass such sentence in substitution for the sentence passed at the trial as may be warranted in law.

"(4) If on any appeal it appears to the Court of Criminal Appeal that, although the appellant was guilty of the act or omission charged against him, he was insane at the time the act was done or omission made so as not to be responsible according to law for his actions, the court may quash the sentence passed at the trial and order the appellant to be kept in custody as a criminal lunatic."

{412}

LAW AND ITS COURTS: France: Reform of Judicial Procedure in Criminal Trials.

Criticism of French judicial procedure in criminal trials, under the system which puts the duties of a prosecuting attorney on the judge, was much sharpened in the autumn of 1909 by the attention drawn to a sensational murder trial at Paris—the Steinheil case. The result was to impel the Government to undertake measures of reform, beginning with the appointment, November 20, of an extra-Parliamentary commission to study the whole question of reform. Within a month after the appointment of the commission one of its leading members, in an article in the _Matin_, indicated the main points of the recommendations which the commission was already prepared to make. It would recommend that the authority of the President of the Assize Court should remain intact, and that the Judge should as heretofore continue to direct the jury and preside over the whole process of the instruction or preliminary inquiry. In the view of the Commission the Judge's moral authority cannot but be augmented by the proposal to relieve him of the duty of cross-examining a prisoner at the bar. It would be recommended that in future a summary statement of the case by the Public Prosecutor, or in a civil suit by the plaintiff, should be followed by a presentation of the defendant’s case on the part of counsel for the defence. The jury would thus be made acquainted with the issue, and the witnesses would then be called. Each witness would be liable to cross-examination on behalf both of the defence and of the prosecution, and the Judge, remaining aloof from the discussion in his new rule as arbitrator, could not but gain moral authority in a degree which would materially promote the ends of even-handed justice.

A Bill on these lines was introduced by the Minister of Justice in the following month.

LAW AND ITS COURTS: International: Naval Prize Court, and proposed Judicial Arbitration Court.

See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1909 (OCTOBER).

LAW AND ITS COURTS: United States: The Question of Injunctions in Labor Disputes.

The question of the issuance of writs of injunction by the courts in connection with labor disputes came much into discussion during the canvass preliminary to the American presidential election of 1908, and was a prominent subject of declaration in the platforms of the political parties.

See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908, APRIL-NOVEMBER).

Subsequently, President Taft, in his first annual message to Congress, cited the pronouncement of the Republican party on this question, and said: "I recommend that in compliance with the promise thus made, appropriate legislation be adopted. The ends of justice will best be met and the chief cause of complaint against ill-considered injunctions without notice will be removed by the enactment of a statute forbidding hereafter the issuing of any injunction or restraining order, whether temporary or permanent, by any Federal court, without previous notice and a reasonable opportunity to be heard on behalf of the parties to be enjoined; unless it shall appear to the satisfaction of the court that the delay necessary to give such notice and hearing would result in irreparable injury to the complainant and unless also the court shall from the evidence make a written finding, which shall be spread upon the court minutes, that immediate and irreparable injury is likely to ensue to the complainant, and shall define the injury, state why it is irreparable, and shall also endorse on the order issued the date and the hour of the issuance of the order. Moreover, every such injunction or restraining order issued without previous notice and opportunity by the defendant to be heard should by force of the statute expire and be of no effect after seven days from the issuance thereof, or within any time less than that period which the court may fix, unless within such seven days or such less period, the injunction or order is extended or renewed after previous notice and opportunity to be heard."

LAW AND ITS COURTS: National and State Legislation. Need of Uniformity. Movements to secure it.

Speaking in 1906 at a dinner of the Pennsylvania Society, the Honorable Elihu Root, then United States Secretary of State, addressed, in a few words, a very pregnant suggestion and admonition to the lawmakers of the States in the American Union. He spoke first of the strongly nationalized sentiment of patriotism that has had its rapid growth of late in the country, saying: "Our country as a whole, the noble and beloved land of every citizen of every State, has become the object of pride and devotion among all our people. North and South, within the limits of the proud old colonial commonwealths, through out that vast region where Burr once dreamed of a separate empire dominating the valley of the Mississippi, and upon the far distant shores of the Pacific: and by the side of this strong and glowing loyalty to the nation, sentiment for the separate States has become dim and faint in comparison." Then he added, warningly: "There is but one way in which the States of the Union can maintain their power and authority under the conditions which are now before us, and that way is by an awakening on the part of the States to a realization of their own duties to the country at large. Under the conditions which now exist, no State can live unto itself alone and regulate its affairs with sole reference to its own treasury, its own convenience, its own special interests. Every State is bound to frame its legislation and its administration with reference not only to its own social affairs but with reference to the effect upon all its sister States."

Quoting and affirming these remarks of the thoughtful statesman, the _National Civic Federation Review_, of July, 1909, says: "The plain truth is that the movement of people and of merchandise goes on in our day without any regard to State lines; and it is becoming increasingly clear that unless the States will legislate with substantial uniformity on a number of subjects the tendency toward centralization and a corresponding increase of Federal power cannot permanently be resisted."

In its preceding issue, of March, the _Review_ had made the following announcement: "The National Civic Federation, through its experience in holding national conferences on such subjects as the trusts, taxation, immigration and election reform—conferences to which the Governors of States sent official representatives—has become impressed with the necessity for a systematic national effort toward securing, within reasonable limits, more uniform legislation in the States of the Union.

{413}

"There are useful national organizations of farmers, manufacturers, wage-earners, bankers, merchants, lawyers, economists and other organizations which hold national meetings for the discussion of affairs peculiar to their own pursuits and callings. The Civic Federation, however, provides a forum in its annual conference for representatives of all these elements to discuss national problems in which they have a common interest. Heretofore there has been no effort to crystallize into State organizations this representative membership for the accomplishment of concrete aims.

"A committee has been appointed to organize a Council of one hundred representative men in each State. Mr. John Hays Hammond has accepted the chairmanship of this committee, of which the following are also members: Messrs. Alton B. Parker, New York; Myron T. Herrick, Ohio; David R. Francis, Missouri; Curtis Guild, Jr., Massachusetts; Nahum J. Bachelder, New Hampshire; Edwin Warfield, Maryland; Herman Ridder, New York; C. F. Brooker, Connecticut; Bruce Haldeman, Kentucky; Victor Rosewater, Nebraska; Clark Howell, Georgia; P. I. Bonebrake, Kansas; James Lynch, Indiana; Harry Pratt Judson, Illinois; A. H. Revell, Illinois; John B. Lennon, Illinois; John H. Holliday, Indiana, and Benjamin Ide Wheeler, California.

"The continued existence for eighteen years of the Annual Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, created by the different States at the instance of the American Bar Association, shows that the State Executives and Legislatures are fully alive to the importance of this subject. The last-named organization has been instrumental in securing the passage in thirty-five States of a uniform negotiable instruments law, and is promoting other commercial measures, including a uniform food law to conform to the national law.

"This necessity for uniform legislation is further illustrated by the proceedings at the annual meetings of the National Association of the State Attorneys General and of the State Labor Commissioners, Insurance Commissioners, etc., etc."

Discussing the subject in the July issue of the _Review_, President Amasa M. Eaton of the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, said: "The subject of uniform legislation is in the air all over the United States. At the instance of the President, a National Conference to secure the conservation of our national resources has been held in Washington, and to carry into effect the conclusions of this Conference there must follow uniform State legislation. At the instance of Governor Guild a conference of the Governors of the New England States, with other delegates, met in Boston last fall on the subject of forestry, shell fisheries and automobiles, all subjects calling for uniform legislation. A similar conference of the Governors of New York and the adjoining States has met in New York, at the instance of Governor Hughes of New York, to consider a uniform automobile law. A National Divorce Congress, called by Governor Pennypacker by virtue of an act of the Legislature of Pennsylvania, has framed a uniform divorce law which has been indorsed by the Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. In March a Conference on Uniform Child Labor Laws in the Southern States was held in New Orleans at the call of the Governor of Louisiana, at which the Governors and Delegates of those States were present. The result was the formation of a permanent organization, with the Governor of Louisiana as Chairman, and the executive committee of that organization is to draft a Uniform Child Labor Law and to submit it to the legislatures of the several Southern States.

"All these are but expressions of the deep-seated necessity for uniform legislation that has existed ever since we acquired our independence of Great Britain, intensified by the requirements of a progressive civilization knitting us ever more and more closely into union as a nation."

The whole movement was planned to receive effective organization at a National Conference in Washington which the National Civic Federation, after consultation with other bodies, announced, in the summer of 1909, its intention to call, for January 5-7, 1910. The Conference was held accordingly, in conjunction with a meeting of the Governors of States, which gave attention to the same subject.

LAW AND ITS COURTS: President Taft’s Recommendations for Expediting Procedure.

The following is from President Taft’s first annual Message to Congress, December, 1909:

"The deplorable delays in the administration of civil and criminal law have received the attention of committees of the American Bar Association and of many State Bar Associations, as well as the considered thought of judges and jurists. In my judgment, a change in judicial procedure, with a view to reducing its expense to private litigants in civil cases and facilitating the dispatch of business and final decision in both civil and criminal cases, constitutes the greatest need in our American institutions. I do not doubt for one moment that much of the lawless violence and cruelty exhibited in lynchings is directly due to the uncertainties and injustice growing out of the delays in trials, judgments, and the executions thereof by our courts. Of course, these remarks apply quite as well to the administration of justice in State courts as to that in Federal courts, and without making invidious distinction, it is, perhaps, not too much to say that, speaking generally, the defects are less in the Federal courts than in the State courts. But they are very great in the Federal courts. The expedition with which business is disposed of both on the civil and the criminal side of English courts, under modern rules of procedure, makes the delays in our courts seem archaic and barbarous.

"The procedure in the Federal courts should furnish an example for the State courts. I presume it is impossible, without an amendment to the Constitution, to unite under one form of

## action the proceedings at common law and proceedings in equity

in the Federal courts, but it is certainly not impossible by a statute to simplify and make short and direct the procedure both at law and in equity in those courts. It is not impossible to cut down still more than it is cut down the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court so as to confine it almost wholly to statutory and constitutional questions. Under the present statutes, the equity and admiralty procedure in the Federal courts is under the control of the Supreme Court, but in the pressure of business to which that court is subjected, it is impossible to hope that a radical and proper reform of the Federal equity procedure can be brought about. {414} I therefore recommend legislation providing for the appointment by the President of a commission with authority to examine the law and equity procedure of the Federal courts of first instance, the law of appeals from those courts to the courts of appeals and to the Supreme Court, and the costs imposed in such procedure upon the private litigants and upon the public treasury, and make recommendation with a view to simplifying and expediting the procedure as far as possible, and making it as inexpensive as may be to the litigant of little means."

See (in this Volume), CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY.

LEAGUE, ALL-INDIA MOSLEM.

See (in this Volume) INDIA: A. D. 1907 (DECEMBER).

LEAGUE OF LIBERATION.

See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.

LEAGUE OF UNION AND PROGRESS.

See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER), and after.

LECOT, Cardinal.

See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1906.

LEGARDA, BENITO.

See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1901.

LEGISLATION.

See (in this Volume) LAW AND ITS COURTS.

LEGUIA, Augusto B.: President of Peru.

See (in this Volume) PERU: A. D. 1908-1909.

LENARD, PHILIPPE.

See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.

LEO XIII.: Death.

See (in this Volume) PAPACY: A. D. 1903 (JULY-AUGUST).

LEOPOLD II., KING OF BELGIUM: His Administration of the Congo State.

See (in this Volume) CONGO STATE.

LEOPOLD II., KING OF BELGIUM: His death.

See (in this Volume) BELGIUM: A. D. 1909 (DECEMBER).

LERROUX, Señor: Socialist-Republican Leader in Spain.

See (in this Volume) SPAIN: A. D. 1907-1909.

LÈSE MAJESTÉ: Prosecutions in Germany.

See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1903 .

LETCHWORTH PARK.

See (in this Volume) NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1907.

LEWIS, THOMAS L.: President of the United Mine Workers of America.

See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.

LEWIS AND CLARK EXPOSITION.

See (in this Volume) PORTLAND, OREGON.

LEWIS ESTATE, Evicted Tenants of the.

See (in this Volume) IRELAND: A. D. 1907.

LHASA: A. D. 1904. Reached by British Expedition under Colonel Younghusband.

See (in this Volume) TIBET: A. D. 1902-1904.

LIAO-TUNG PENINSULA.

See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY).

LIAO-YANG, Battle of.

See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).

LIAUTEY, General: Operations in Morocco.

See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1907-1909, and 1909.

LIBERAL-CONSERVATIVE SEPARATIST PARTY.

See (in this Volume) AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1904.

LIBERIA: A. D. 1904-1905. Good Relations between Colonists and Natives. Improved Prospects.

"When it was decided in the United States to found a home for repatriated Africans, the prior experiment of Sierra Leone turned attention toward the same coast, and in 1821 and at subsequent dates settlements were effected, firstly at Monrovia, and later on at Roberts Port, Grand Basa, Sino, and Harper (Cape Palmas). Usually those who conducted the enterprise went through the form of buying small plats of land from local headmen or chiefs; but, as a rule, the promoters of this movement did not trouble overmuch about the rights of the ‘bush niggers,’ as the indigenous natives were termed. Consequently the first fifty years of the history of Liberia were marked by constant struggles between the American-Liberian invaders and the native blacks. During the last ten years, however, there has been a marked advance in good relations between the American settlers and their native subjects, as many of them may fairly be called. The wise policy of President Barclay has greatly promoted this good feeling since 1904. He has been able to assemble at different times at the capital chiefs or their representatives from almost all parts of Liberia, even from the Mandingo districts just beyond the limits of the coast belt. Therefore they have no subject of disagreement. Curiously enough one example of this mild rule of black by black is that the white man in Liberia is everywhere received with great friendliness, because he is not associated in the minds of the natives with anything like conquest or oppression.

"How far the original experiment will succeed the next twenty years will, perhaps, indicate. The negroes of American origin who have settled in Liberia have not, as a general rule, been able to stand the climate very much better than Europeans, and, as a rule, they have not been able to rear large families of children. Yet it seems to me as though Liberians of the new generation born in the country are beginning to take hold, but this is partly due to the increasing and I think very sensible practice of intermarriage with women of the fine, vigorous, indigenous races. Probably the future of Liberia will be a negro state very like Sierra Leone in its development, with English as its government language, and such English or American institutions as may prove to be suited to an African country, a coast belt inhabited by negroes professing Christianity and wearing clothes of European cut, and a hinterland of Mohammedans dressed in the picturesque and wholly suitable costume worn at the present day by the Mandingos and by most Mohammedan negroes between Senegal and the White Nile."

_Sir Harry Johnston, Liberia (Annual Report, Smithsonian Institution, 1904-1905, pages 254-255)._

LIBERIA: A. D. 1907-1909. English, French, and American attention to Conditions in the Republic.

"The policy of the Liberian Republic has caused anxiety for some time past both to England and to France, the Powers whose territory adjoins the Liberian boundary. Some two years ago President Barclay came to Europe to discuss the situation with the British and French Governments. As a result of this exchange of views, Liberia appointed Europeans to her Customs Department, secured a gunboat to patrol her coast-line, and arranged for a frontier force. These measures were approved by the British and French Governments and also by the American Government, and their execution was facilitated by a loan negotiated on behalf of Liberia by the Liberian Development Company. {415} The growth of British interests in the Republic led the Foreign Office to appoint a Consul-General at Monrovia, the capital, in the person of Captain Braithwaite Wallis, formerly

## acting district commissioner in Sierra Leone. So far as the

first part of the reform programme was concerned the consequences have been eminently satisfactory. Liberia has been able to pay off some of her debts, and her revenue has increased."

_Correspondent London Times, April 22, 1909._

While these movements were in progress, in June, 1908, three commissioners from Liberia came to Washington asking for aid in maintaining and administering its government. Probably in course of this application, the American Ambassador in London, Mr. Reid, addressed a note to the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, on the 29th of June, in which he wrote:

"We should be glad to have your views as to how the two Governments could best co-operate at the present time towards promoting the welfare of Liberia."

In his reply to this Sir Edward Grey said:

"As I had the honour to explain in March last to the United States Charge d’Affaires, his Majesty’s Government have in any measure they may be called upon to take in Liberia no designs whatever upon the independence or integrity of the country, and they do not intend to undertake any responsibility with regard to it. The services of British officials have been lent to the Liberians solely with a view to the better preservation of order, more particularly in that part of Liberia which marches with Sierra Leone, and improved administration.

"The French Government also, as your Excellency is doubtless aware, takes a special interest in the affairs of the Republic, and his Majesty’s Government have already assured them that they would have no objection to the services of some French officials being lent for the same objects as the British officials. It is doubtful, therefore, whether there is at the present time any scope for the co-operation of the United States Government in the Customs or police, and if they desire to render active assistance to the Liberian Government they will perhaps prefer to direct their attention to other branches of the administration which are as urgently in need of reform.

"That reforms are required in one other branch at least his Majesty’s Government have reason to know, for among the chief difficulties which his Majesty’s Government experience in regard to Liberia are the frequent complaints received from British subjects as to the treatment they receive in the Liberian Courts. If therefore the United States could see their way to introducing reforms into the judiciary, either by lending the services of an official to act as judicial advisor or in some other manner, much good would in the opinion of his Majesty’s Government be derived not only by the various subjects of foreign nationalities resident in the country but also by the Liberians themselves.

"While calling attention more specially to this one branch of the administration, which has been a frequent source of trouble, I need hardly add that his Majesty’s Government would welcome the co-operation of the Government of the United States with them in Liberia in any other manner which may appear more suitable or more desirable on a consideration of all the circumstances."

This and other information obtained by the State Department led President Roosevelt, on the 18th of January, 1909, to ask Congress for an appropriation of $20,000 to pay the expenses of a commission to go to Liberia "to examine into the situation, confer with the officers of the Liberian government, and with the representatives of other governments actually present in Monrovia, and report recommendations as to the specific action on the part of the United States most apt to render effective relief to the Republic of Liberia under the present critical circumstances." The conclusion reached by the State Department was that it "is quite clear that Liberia is very much in need of assistance, that the United States can help her substantially, and that it is our duty to help her."

The seriousness of the situation was set forth by Secretary Root in a memorandum to the President. Between forty and fifty thousand civilized negroes, for the most part descendants of the original colonists from the United States, occupy a territory comprising 43,000 square miles, in which there are also over a million and a half members of uncivilized native tribes. The civilized part of the population have been to a great degree cut off from any intimate relation with the rest of the civilized world for two-thirds of a century. They began with little education, with no acquired skill in the art of government, and they have had little opportunity to improve through intercourse with other and more advanced communities. They find it especially difficult to control the native tribes, or to conduct their own government in accordance with modern requirements.

The British colony of Sierra Leone to the north and the French possessions closing in their hinterland to the east are almost continuously complaining of the failure of Liberia to maintain order upon the border. "Notwithstanding the very kindly disposition on the part of Great Britain, and the similar disposition on the part of France, there is imminent danger that the republic, unless it receives outside assistance, will not be able to maintain itself very long," said Secretary Root.

The Commission to visit Liberia was appointed in the following April, and was conveyed soon afterward to Monrovia by a squadron of three cruiser scouts. It was composed of three members, Mr. W. Morgan Shuster, who had been for a number of years in the Philippine service of the United States, Dr. George Sale, and Mr. Emmett J. Scott, private Secretary of Dr. Booker Washington. These Commissioners were accompanied by Captain Sydney A. Cloman, as Military Attache, and by Major Percy W. Ashburn, of the United States Of America Medical Department, who would study the sanitary conditions in Liberia.

Early in October the Commission returned, but its report to the State Department was not transmitted to Congress until the 25th of March, 1910. It recommended an extension of prompt and effective aid to the Liberian Government, in the refunding of its debt, the reform of its finances, the settlement of its boundary disputes, and the organizing of a competent constabulary force. Also that the United States establish in Liberia a naval coaling station and a research station.

{416}

LICENSE LAWS.

See (in this Volume) ALCOHOL PROBLEM.

LIFE INSURANCE.

See (in this Volume) INSURANCE.

LILIENTHAL, Otto.

See (in this Volume) Science and Invention: Aeronautics.

LIMA, WENCESLAO DE.

See (in this Volume) PORTUGAL: A. D. 1906-1909.

LINCOLN, ABRAHAM.

February 12, 1909, the 100th anniversary of his birth, was made a legal holiday by act of Congress. The same bill appropriated $50,000 for making a highway from Washington to Gettysburg, to be known as the Lincoln Way.

LINDSEY, JUDGE BEN D.: His Juvenile Court at Denver.

See (in this Volume) CHILDREN, UNDER THE LAW; AS OFFENDERS.

LINEVITCH, General.

See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (SEPTEMBER-MARCH).

LIPPMAN, GABRIEL.

See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.

LIQUOR QUESTION.

See (in this Volume) ALCOHOL PROBLEM.

LLOYD-GEORGE, David: President of the Board of Trade.

See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1905-1906.

LLOYD-GEORGE, David: Address at the Imperial Conference of 1907 on Preferential Trade.

See (in this Volume) BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1907.

LLOYD-GEORGE, David: Success in arranging for the Pacific Settlement of Labor Disputes in the English Railway Service.

See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: ENGLAND: A. D. 1907-1909.

LLOYD-GEORGE, David: Chancellor of the Exchequer.

See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1908 (APRIL).

LLOYD-GEORGE, David: On the Working of the Old Age Pensions Act and its Disclosures of Poverty.

See (in this Volume) POVERTY, PROBLEMS OF: PENSIONS.

LLOYD-GEORGE, David: On the Development of the Natural Resources of Great Britain.

See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: GREAT BRITAIN.

LLOYD-GEORGE, David: His Budget of 1909. His speech on it.

See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1909 (APRIL-DECEMBER).

LOCAL OPTION: Progress in the United States.

See (in this Volume) ALCOHOL PROBLEM: UNITED STATES.

LOCKOUTS.

See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION.

LODGE, SIR OLIVER.

See (in this Volume) SCIENCE, RECENT: ELECTRICAL.

LODZ, Disturbances in.

See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.

LOEB, WILLIAM, JR.: Collector of Customs at New York. His unearthing of Corruptions.

See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).

LOISY, ABBÉ: Appointment to be Professor of the History of Religions in the College de France.

See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1909 (MARCH).

LONDON, ENGLAND: A. D. 1907-1909. Control of the London County Council lost by the Progressives. Defeat in Borough Councils Elections of 1909.

The local party of Progressives, so called, who had controlled the London County Council since 1889, lost their majority in the elections of the spring of 1907, and the Conservatives, or Moderates, or Reformers, as they are variedly styled, were brought into power, electing 120 members, against 85. The Progressives, in their eighteen years of ascendancy, had wrought immense changes in the great city, widening congested streets, such as the Strand, opening great new thoroughfares and new parks, electrifying the street railways, remodelling antiquated public institutions, and the like. The cost of their works had been heavy, and ratepayers had become persuaded that there was extravagance in the progressiveness of the party. It had antagonized many powerful interests in the city, moreover, and the wonder seems to be that it had been permitted to conduct the City Government so long.

Again, in elections to the borough councils, in 1909, the Progressives lost heavily, and the Conservatives, who have taken the name of Municipal Reformers, are strongly entrenched in most of the boroughs. Several women were elected, 61 of their sex having been candidates.

LONDON, ENGLAND: A. D. 1908. Statistics of Elementary Schools.

See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: ENGLAND: A. D. 1909.

LONDON, ENGLAND: A. D. 1908-1909. International Naval Conference.

See (in this Volume) War, The Revolt against: A. D. 1907 (appended to account of Second Peace Conference at The Hague).

LONG, John D.: Secretary of the Navy.

See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1905.

LOPUKHIN, M.: His exposure of the Police Spy, Azeff, to the Russian Revolutionists.

See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY-JULY).

LORDS, British House of: Decision in case of the Free Church of Scotland.

See (in this Volume) SCOTLAND: A. D. 1904.

LORDS, British House of: Defeat of Education Bill, 1906.

See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: ENGLAND: A. D. 1906.

LORDS, British House of: Menaced Limitation of its Legislative Powers by the House of Commons. Its own proposals of Constitutional Change.

See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1906 (APRIL-DECEMBER); 1907-1908; 1909 (APRIL-DECEMBER), and 1910.

LORDS, British House of: Rejection of Licensing Bill.

See (in this Volume) ALCOHOL PROBLEM: ENGLAND: A. D. 1908.

LORDS, British House of: Rejection of Budget of 1909.

See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1909 (APRIL-DECEMBER).

LORENTZ, HENRIK ANTON.

See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Recent Rapid Growth of the City.

"The advance of this city to the important position of metropolis of Southern California falls into two quite distinct periods, each, however, beginning with the advent of a transcontinental railroad. The first period opened with the completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad as a through line from San Francisco to the East, in 1881, and saw the transformation of Los Angeles from a sleepy, half-Spanish town of about 12,000 souls into a bustling progressive city of 70,000 population. The second period of advance began with the entrance of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad in 1885. This improved communication with the States east of the Rocky Mountains gave an impetus to tourist travel, especially in the winter season, and the fame of the city and of near-by localities as places of winter resort spread far and wide. The people of Los Angeles were quick to recognize the opportunity for gain and the whole community joined in methods of advertising of the most systematic character. By the aid of its local press and through the agency of an energetic Chamber of Commerce Los Angeles has become one of the best known cities of North America.

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"Since 1900, railroad communication has been further improved by the opening of an additional road to San Francisco by way of the ocean shore and the Salinas and Santa Clara Valleys. This line, known as the Southern Pacific ‘Coast Line,’ avoids the heavy grades of the Tehachapi Mountains and greatly shortens the running time between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The opening of the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad eastward of Los Angeles in 1903 gave the city direct connection with the central Rocky Mountain region.

"Two other important influences within the past decade contributed to the city’s remarkable advance in wealth and population. These are the building of a vast system of suburban electric railways making a large region of fertile attractive land, now densely populated, directly tributary to Los Angeles, and secondly, the introduction of cheap fuel through the discovery of local supplies of oil. The net-work of suburban electric railways of which Los Angeles is the center is one of the most perfect in the world. These lines reach out in every direction through distances of from 10 to 50 miles, and connect Los Angeles with the many rapidly growing cities of Los Angeles County and its neighbor, Orange County.

"Manufacturing in Los Angeles was for a long time handicapped by the high cost of fuel. This difficulty has been removed by the introduction of crude oil as fuel, and the city now has over 1500 manufacturing establishments, employing over 12,000 people, with an annual output of over $40,000,000. These include rolling mills, brass-works, paper-box factories, manufactories of mining machinery, pumps, glass, etc. Los Angeles is becoming a manufacturing center for the mining and agricultural lands of Utah, Southern Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and the Northern parts of Mexico, as well as Southern California itself.

"The steady expansion of Los Angeles has been maintained by a policy of annexation of suburbs. The latest event in this line of growth has elevated the city into the rank of a sea-port. The city has long enjoyed abundant means of ocean traffic by way of Santa Monica, Redondo and San Pedro, but by the annexation of San Pedro and Wilmington, in 1906, with a connecting strip of territory 19 miles long by ½ mile in width, Los Angeles itself becomes a sea-port with the control of traffic on San Pedro Bay. The city thus achieves an extreme length from north to south of 33 miles."

_Frederick H. Clark, Head of History Department, Lowell High School, San Francisco._

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Experiments and Experiences in Municipal Government.

See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1905-1909. Water Supply. The Owens River Aqueduct.

"The present water supply of the city of Los Angeles is taken from the flow of the Los Angeles River, supplemented by the underground flow of the San Fernando Valley in which the river lies. The demand for water within the city is supplemented by the need for water for irrigation purposes in the surrounding country. Some years ago it became evident that an increased supply must be obtained, or the further development of the city and its environs be brought to a standstill. Extensive investigations resulted in the decision that Owens River offered the best source of supply. This river, the principal drainage of the Owens Valley region, at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, has a large number of tributaries, and empties into Owens Lake, from which the waters escape by evaporation only. The Los Angeles authorities adopted the plan of an aqueduct to conduct the waters of this river along the mountain slopes, over the Mojave Desert, and, by tunnel, through the San Fernando Mountains, to their city,--a total distance of 217½ miles. On the 7th of September, 1905, an election was held at which the voters of Los Angeles, by a majority of about fourteen to one, declared in favor of a bond issue of $23,000,000 for the undertaking. Besides the construction of the conduit, the project includes the building of a large reservoir in Long Valley, above the Owens Valley proper, for the storage of flood waters; also the construction of a system of additional reservoirs along the line of the aqueduct for the regulation of flow as well as for storage; and a terminal reservoir from which the distributing system proceeds. All of this work is well under way at this date (1909), and according to the last published report of the Aqueduct Bureau the chief engineer confidently expects that this great project will be brought to completion within the estimated period of five years--and within the estimated cost of $23,000,000.

"Outside of the above estimates, the City also plans to build a great electric power plant which will utilize the drop of 1500 feet where the aqueduct emerges from the San Fernando Mountains. This plant is estimated to cost from $4,500,000 to $5,000,000, and through the sale of electric power will become the source of very considerable revenue to the City. Taken altogether this Owens River Aqueduct is the greatest municipal undertaking in California at the present time, and one of the most important engineering achievements of recent years."

_Frederick H. Clark, Head of History Department, Lowell High School, San Francisco._

LOUBET, Emile: President of France.

See (in Volume VI.) FRANCE: A. D. 1899 (FEBRUARY-JUNE).

LOUBET, Emile: Visit to the King of Italy.

See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1906.

LOUBET, Emile: Expiration of term as President of the French Republic.

See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1906.

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1908. Enactment against Race-track Gambling.

See (in this Volume) GAMBLING.

LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION.

See (in this Volume) ST. LOUIS: A. D. 1904.

LOW, Seth: Mayor of New York.

See (in this Volume) NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1901-1903.

LOWELL, ABBOTT LAWRENCE: President of Harvard University.

See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1909.

LOWTHER, JAMES WILLIAM: Elected Speaker of the House of Commons.

See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1905 (JUNE).

LUBIN, DAVID: Originator of International Institute of Agriculture.

See (in this Volume) AGRICULTURE.

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LUIZ FELIPE, CROWN PRINCE OF PORTUGAL: His assassination.

See (in this Volume) PORTUGAL: A. D. 1906-1909.

"LUSITANIA," The Turbine Steamship.

See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: TURBINE ENGINE.

LUZURIAGA, JOSÉ.

See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1901.