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? …

{394}

"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.

{395}

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."

{397}

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.

{398}

"(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."

{399}

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.

{406}

"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._

{408}

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.