of the report of the Industrial Commission are devoted, is constantly brought up as an issue whenever questions of labor are discussed. It is fortunate that our Commission did not limit its inquiries too closely, for in modern life the interaction of interests is so great, that it is almost impossible to disentangle anyone and study it by itself. A comparison of the forms of publication is altogether favorable to our Commission. In the first place, the volumes are numbered consecutively from 1 to 19, and they are issued bound and cut in octavo form, which makes them convenient to handle and convenient to shelve. The English books are printed in folio; they were issued at irregular intervals; they are sent to the reader unbound, and it is no small task merely to bind, label, and properly arrange them. The indexing of our Commission's report is admirable. Not only is each volume indexed by itself, but there is also a general index for the eighteen volumes of testimony, which is placed next to the index to the summary and report at the end of the nineteenth volume. In the English Commission's report there are no less than six topical indices, including the glossary of technical terms, besides the index to the summary of evidence, and each was published separately in a thin folio volume. In these busy days of voluminous printing, any author who would have a large audience must use every mechanical device for making the task of reading easy, and in this respect the Industrial Commission has shown itself to be thoroughly up to date.

It goes without saying that in so large a mass of testimony the different parts must be of very unequal value and that care should be used in drawing conclusions. Thus, in the hearing upon

agriculture and agricultural labor, Mr. Thomas Turnbull of San Francisco appeared as a witness, and, after he had been duly sworn, the following colloquy occurred:

"Q. Have you a prepared statement?

A. I have a brief statement.

Q. You may proceed in your own way to make that statement as to the industrial conditions on the Pacific slope.

The witness read as follows:"-Then follow about seven pages of solid matter which Mr. Turnbull read but which in point of fact, with the exception of a short introduction, are copied verbatim

et literatim from an article written by Professor Plehn of the University of California and printed in the YALE REVIEW for February, 1896. In the stenographic report it will be noticed that Mr. Turnbull does not say that he has himself prepared a statement but simply says, "I have a brief statement." While this cautious answer may disarm any attempt to charge Mr. Turnbull with plagiarism, it would have been more conformable to the ethics of authorship, if he had mentioned the name of the writer of the paper which he was about to read.

The general rejoicing which seems to have greeted the appointment of the presidential arbitrators, both on the part of the miners, who omitted a whole day's work in order to show their pleasure at being able to return to work, and on the part of the public, is premature. Arbitration has, in point of fact, though often advocated by those who look at the matter superficially, been singularly barren of results in labor disputes. When a dispute arises regarding a status, such as a boundary line, or property rights in a concrete object, the award of an arbitrator settles the question for good and all. But the decision of a labor dispute imposes on the parties a continuous line of action. It can never settle the question in perpetuity, since no one could make or keep a labor contract for more than a limited period, and if either party feels aggrieved by the decision, the burden, repeated every pay day, becomes a perpetual source of irritation and leads to renewed difficulties. This danger is particularly great where the question, as in the present case, involves not merely the mode of payment but also the amount. In fixing the rate of wages, the difficulty of reaching any decision that will seem conclusive, even to outsiders, is enormous, unless the preliminary question can be settled according to what rule wages are to rise or fall. If, for instance, we adopt the principle of the sliding scale, which was in operation for many years in the southern coal fields, then an increase in the price of coal would certainly involve an increase in wages. But the sliding scale was overthrown two years ago at the request of the miners themselves, and it would be difficult for the arbitrators to restore it without their consent.

If we take the ground that wages should be determined simply by the supply of and the demand for labor, in other words, by the higgling of the market, the difficulty is by no means removed, inasmuch as the labor market in the anthracite coal region does not furnish the conditions under which the higgling may be relied upon to bring about a definite result. Under free competition we have a large number of buyers and a large number of sellers. In the case of the buyers, there are a number of different maximum limits of price, determined by the varying sums which the different individuals might be willing to pay for an object, if they could not get it more cheaply. In the case of the sellers, there are likewise a number of minimum limits of price, determined by the various sums below which the different individuals will not sell. The price is finally fixed at a price at which the quantity demanded will equal the quantity supplied. In the present case, however, where the buyers of labor are all acting together in one group and the sellers of labor in another, we have virtually the case of one seller and one buyer. Now, it is perfectly clear that the lowest rate which the seller of labor might be willing to take, if he could not get more, is below the highest rate which the buyer of labor might be willing to pay, if he could not get labor for less. Otherwise, either the miners would move away or the operators would close their mines. The whole struggle, as far as this one question is concerned, is like the struggle between the buyer and the seller of a piece of land, each one of whom is trying to secure by persuasion or bluff the best terms for himself. Under such conditions, to find a rate of wages that will hold for more than a very short time must be extremely difficult.

But there is another course which promises better results. The arbitrators may persuade both parties to accept a better method of fixing compensation than the primitive method to which the strike has brought us. That method may be the sliding scale; it may be the establishment of joint boards; it may conceivably be some new plan not yet tried anywhere. Unless this can be done, arbitration will establish no permanent peace. If it can be accomplished, we may perhaps find some compensation for the enormous expense of the strike.

THE REPORT OF THE INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION.

I. LABOR.

ALTHOUGH much has been said and written about the

progress which has been made in American economics in recent years, we are still more likely to underestimate than to overestimate the advance which has been accomplished, and especially are we apt to forget within how short a space of time this transformation in American economic thought has taken place. The writer of the article in The Nation for January 16, 1902, giving an account of the last annual meeting of the American Economic Association, speaks about the activity in economics in this country as largely due to men who began their academic work some thirty years ago. Now the truth is that the men whom he had in mind, men prominent in effecting the organization of the American Economic Association, were, for the most part, not even undergraduates thirty years ago, but were still engaged in their preparation for college. Most of these men are still on the sunny side of fifty, and some of them are nearer forty than the former age. While the work which was done by men of a still older generation should not be disparaged, while this earlier work was, indeed, a necessary preparation for the more recent work, it is, nevertheless, true that the great change in economic thought in our country, which has given the United States a leading position in economic science, has taken place within twenty years, and that it has been brought about by men who believe that they still have before them the better part of their own work.

Reflections of this kind are especially appropriate as an introduction to those portions of the Report of the Industrial Commission which deal with labor, because the advance which economics has made during the preceding twenty years finds such marked expression in the methods employed and in the conclusions reached by the Industrial Commission, and especially by the economists who, as experts, were connected with the work of this Commission. It is difficult even for those who have fol

lowed with some care the treatment of labor problems for the past fifteen or twenty years to realize the progress which has been made in their discussion, both in respect to positive knowledge and to scientific methods followed. It is now somewhat difficult to do justice to those who, twenty years ago, were actively engaged in a scientific discussion of labor questions in this country, and to realize that a large part of the pioneer work in this field dates back to a period even less remote. The distinction between anarchistic and socialistic movements is now understood by every economist, and even by the general, intelligent public, but it required careful study to discriminate between these two movements in 1885. Every graduate student now understands the difference between the principles underlying the American Federation of Labor and the Knights of Labor, but so careful a student of labor problems as Brentano, twenty years ago, denied the existence of any labor organization based upon the principles underlying the Knights of Labor. These are simply illustrations of the condition of thought and of knowledge even at so recent a period as 1885, when the American Economic Association was organized, and serve to show how much work has been done in order to give us that basis of knowledge with which any economist now begins a study of labor.

Another way of getting at the same thing is to contrast the Report of the Industrial Commission, created by act of 1898, with the voluminous Report of the Senate Committee on Labor and Education, in 1885. This earlier report has some value, because it gives the opinion of all sorts of people on all sorts of questions in any way connected with labor in 1885. It allowed a good many cranks and some thoughtful people an opportunity to express their views, and perhaps served as a safety valve, which is probably the chief purpose which those had in mind who were responsible for the existence of the committee. The American economists are so numerous, and they have made themselves felt to such an extent in every part of the country, that probably we shall see no more federal reports on labor like the one issued by the Senate Committee of 1885. It is a great thing that it is known that there are in this country a body of economic experts, and that the state of public opinion is such as to demand