enemy when he does otherwise. How about you when you employ labor-do you employ members or non-members of organized labor? Do you buy label or non-label goods? By your purchases shouldn't you be judged as to whether you are a friend or a foe of organized labor?-Washington Trade Unionist.

WORKINGMEN'S HOMES.

Scarcity of Decent Dwellings the Shame of Civilization.

The outrage of our American cities is the way we bid for home seekers when we have no homes to offer them after we lure them to come. Our factories scour the country for workers, bring them in and turn them loose to find shelter wherever they can. Our business organizations offer bonuses for new factories, bidding for these which bring in the largest number of families. "Another factory! A hundred families! More prosperity!" they announce in big headlines.

One of the saddest sights of the slums is to see the thrifty wife of the workingman, with her rosy brood of children, used to country air and sunshine, used to space, privacy, good surroundings, cleanliness, quiet, shut up amid the noise and dirt and confusion in the gloom of the slum. That is an unusual family that can maintain the sanctity of its home life in the tenements.

The brave fight may be made if the father and mother are spared to hold control and provide the bread. But how many workingmen in our cities, the records show, fall a prey to tuberculosis, typhoid, pneumonia and other "house diseases!" How many mothers are beckoned from their little families by the same ghastly finger! Any one who will search the records will find that a startling number of dependent families become so on account of death or prolonged illness of the breadwinner.

And the children?

The ranks of the dependent and delinquent are recruited-in what percentage we ought to know, but any percentage is too large from the families of the

workingmen that are brought into our cities and dumped into our dilapidated old death traps.

And so I say that the responsibility is upon those who import workingmen to see that there are decent homes for them when they come and not to set snares to destroy them and their children.—Albion Fellows Bacon in Survey.

WHERE UNION MONEY GOES.

It might open the eyes of some people who imagine that trade unions exist mainly for the purpose of strikes and making trouble for the employers, to learn that during the year 1913, the latest date to which reports have been compiled, the international organizations in Canada and the United States disbursed the sum of fifteen million dollars in benefits to their members. Only three and a half millions of this was given out in strike pay, the balance being devoted to the liquidation of death and disability claims, etc.

It is also to be remembered that these figures refer to money going through the ordinary channels, and in addition many thousands of dollars are being granted for special cases, of which no account is taken in the compilation of official figures.

The workingman can hold no better asset than a paid-up union card; no fraternal organization can begin to compare with the labor union in benefits directly received through its agency. The dues paid into the union is a gilt-edged proposition, securing to the members shorter hours, increased wages, and better working conditions. All this, not taking any account whatever of the many social and fraternal advantages, such as death and disability, unemployment, sick and accident benefits, and old-age pensions to members too old and feeble to work.

It's a long bill of fare in return for the small amounts paid in. Is it any wonder that the trades union movement is making such phenomenal headway?-Toronto Industrial Banner.

SHOULD NOT BE BOUGHT AND SOLD.

The unresisting heart of man is always in revolt against ties founded on force. Yesterday it declared that government is the control of man by man, and that the rights of rulers are drawn from the consent of the governed. To-day it avows that property is the control of man by man. That the rights of the ruled are the source of the rights of the rulers in property as much as in government. The central doctrine of the slave power was that the laborer was merely merchandise. The central doctrine of the money power is that labor is merely merchandise. Society supports the latter, as it did the former, with the consolidated array of all its institutions and laws. But both doctrines, and all that is built upon them, are absolutely destructive, not only of the liberties of the laborer, but of the liberties of all. The conscience that said the laborer shall not be a commodity though despised of the builders is now a cornerstone. A new conscience takes its stand before all our institutions and says to them: Labor shall not be a commodity, for the labor is the laborer. The new theory that though the workingman is not a thing his labor is a thing, marks but a slight advance on the old. It means that the labor can be bought and sold regardless of the man behind it; that the buyer, the employer, can take any advantage of the seller, provided he does it under the formulas of supply and demand; that to buy his life of him cheap and sell it dear is all we have to do with the laborer; that the only conscience the buyer needs is to observe the rules of the market; that he can depress or raise prices without moral responsibility for the backs bent or hearts broken by his manipulations; that he can take more than he gives, regardless that the "goods" he gets are the lives of workers who cannot survive if they receive less than they give; that buyer and seller have a right to deal with each other as if they were business animals, instead of business men. The labor is the laborer, because the man has to live twenty-four hours in order to be able to work eight or ten. His heart and head, his thoughts, his

wants, his aspirations, all co-operate to produce the so-called commodity which at the sound of the factory bell is ready to begin the work of the day. When the man leaves the factory he but takes the "commodity" away to recuperate his wasted energies for another day. That which he has left within those walls is not a thing. It is himself. The great fundamental principle of anti-slavery is that man cannot hold property in man," said Garrison. The doctrine that "labor is a commodity" gives man property in man, and is therefore iniquitous and void. If you shall not buy the whole man you shall not buy or sell part of a man. You shall not count into your purses the ruddy drops from the morn

till noon, from noon to dewy eve, and then say: "I know not whence they came or how."

LIBERTY.

They tell us, sir, that we are weak. unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed and when a British guard shall be stationed in each house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effective resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope until our enemies have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which an enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone. It is to the valiant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable, and let it come I repeat it, sir, let it come!-Patrick Henry.

THE POWER OF UNION.

Assayers say that tin, low in itself, when joined to copper to make bronze, develops qualities more desirable than those of copper itself. It has a dormant value which comes out in a partnership. "In union there is strength," is not a mere saying. It is a practical fact.

"One shall chase a thousand," said the old writer, "and two put"-not two thousand, but "ten thousand to flight."

The union of the two brings out an element of strength that acnnot come from the two applying themselves individually.

So it is that the power of organized labor cannot be computed by ordinary arithmetic.

It possesses potentialities that can only be developed by organization.

COINS IN OLDEN DAYS.

In Biblical days silver and gold coins were struck of such weight that one of them represented the value of a particular animal. Thus the word kesitah (used in Genesis), translated “pieces of money,” means literally a lamb. The Latin pecunia, from which comes our word pecuniary, comes from pecus, a general name for sheep and the smaller animals. In early times coins bore figures of a horse, a bull or a hog, together with the names of the animals pictured. Afterward, as values changed, the figures upon the coins no longer bore representations of their value in cattle, but figures representing a rose, an eagle, etc.

BIRTH OF BROTHERHOOD.

Where did unionism have its beginning? Where and when did the workers first become impressed with the efficacy of collective action in relieving unbearable conditions? More than four thousand years ago, historians tell us, 100,000 men worked twenty years building the great pyramids of Egypt. These men were slaves and convicts and were beaten and starved under the rule of a merciless and despotic king. In the midst of the toil and misery one slave grasped the hand of another and said: "Brother, you and I together can do what is impossible for either of us to do singly." Here, then, was the foundation of unionism and through the centuries since it has grown in power and influence until to-day there are but few so dense as to doubt its worth.

A sure cure for conceit is a thorough self-examination.-Ex.