through the commissioners of each separate state, their recommendations for such uniform state statutes upon labor subjects as may seem wise and desirable."

If we rightly interpreted the action of local governments in establishing these bureaus of labor, as a step towards more scientific legislation in those states, surely this plan of a national conference of state commissioners of labor stands for a still more important extension of the scientific method in questions of labor legislation. It also illustrates a tendency that is becoming more and more evident, namely, the fuller reliance that is being placed upon intelligence as a social regulator and publicity for controlling industry and commerce. Make known the actual conditions that prevail, point out the appropriate remedy, and the weight of an informed public opinion will go far to force reform whether through an act of legislation or through the influence which may be exerted by consumers upon producers. Indeed the battle cry of the day is, Give us but an enlightened public opinion and our fight is three quarters won.

The suggestion of regulating business relations through the pressure of public sentiment has been seized upon with almost too great avidity by some who would apply it as the immediate and sufficient solution of all labor difficulties and as an argument against the enactment of any statutory regulations whatever. Such a proposition appears, however, of doubtful value at present under the conditions of unenlightenment that unfortunately prevail, and it may be feared, does not proceed from the best friends of labor.

Recurring to this fact of opposition, already earlier noted, it has been questioned whether this counter movement does not offer a real menace to the future growth of the labor laws, and indeed to the continued existence of the present body of legislation. In a number of instances where labor laws have been brought to the test of a court decision they have been pronounced unconstitutional and annulled upon the ground that they contravene freedom of contract, are class legislation, and so forth. This has been the fate of statutes regulating the hours of labor for women over twenty one years of age in Nebraska, California, and Illinois; of weekly payment laws

in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Missouri, West Virginia, and Indiana; of anti-truck acts in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and West Virginia; and of those prohibiting company stores or coercion of purchase in Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Tennessee.

In Massachusetts, on the contrary, the regulation of hours was sustained as a health or police regulation. Also at the time when the bill for the extension of the act covering weekly payments was before the legislature the justices returned as their opinion to the house of representatives that such an act was within the constitutional power of the general court to pass. It is also worthy of notice, that in spite of the decision by the Supreme court of Nebraska in 1894, a new law defining hours of labor for women was passed in 1899, and to-day applies not only in factories, but in restaurants and hotels as well. Again, in the report just reviewed, the commissioners have recommended the general enactment of an anti-truck and freedom of purchase act in spite of the decisions of Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Tennessee courts.

Verdicts of unconstitutionality have therefore hardly affected more than the very border of the factory laws; the regulation of child labor, of workroom conditions, of hours of labor for minors, have never been questioned. It hardly seems likely that any of these laws will ever be put to the court test at all. Both in England and in this country, they have proven generally beneficial to public interest, they have been pretty cheerfully accepted and obeyed; they have gained public approval; they have the political support of a large labor party. Perhaps the apparently adverse action of the courts ought to be looked upon as a healthfully conservative influence against possible evil results of hasty and ill considered legislation or attempts to interpose legislation where the object could be better obtained by the effective organization of labor and should be left to the initiative of the unions.

Factory legislation has been inevitably necessitated by the action of economic and social forces, and may, in fact, be regarded as a natural phenomenon accompanying the growth of the factory system of manufacture. It has developed against the opposition of extreme doctrines of free contract, and having demonstrated itself in the facts of actual life

has also created a new theory of the relation of the state to labor and industry.

The state may determine the plane of competition; it may equalize the conditions of contract as between employer and employee; it may intervene to protect the standard of living of the workers. The only limits that theory places upon these lines of interference are consideration of the general good.

In the historical development of factory laws, well marked tendencies are traceable. The early attitude of timidity has given place to that of peremptory command. Progress has been steadily toward increased severity in the regulations imposed, increased exactness in detail and definition, towards distinctly placed responsibility and towards more adequate inspection.

The expansion of industry in this country has of course been accompanied by a like territorial extension of the labor laws. Accomplished through the independent action of the several state legislatures, the result has been an unfortunate confusion of unrelated and nonuniform measures. One of the recent and most important tendencies of this legislation is the movement for greater uniformity, made especially prominent by the attention given to it as a part of the study of the industrial commission. It indeed seems probable that these efforts will eventually issue in the determination of a minimum standard of labor legislation for the country as a whole, above which common basis the states will rise in grade according to the development of industrial organization and consequent increase of regulation demanded. This is necessarily a matter of voluntary conformity on the part of the separate state legislatures and therefore a fulfillment to be awaited with all patience.

CO-OPERATION OF LABOR AND CAPITAL.

BY WILLIAM H. PFAHLER.

[William H. Pfahler, president of the National Association of Iron Founders; born Columbia, Pa.; educated in the public schools and at the Millersville state normal school; entered the iron manufacturing business; served four years as private and officer in the civil war; has always been active in economic movements, especially those for the improvement of the relations between employers and employees, and is a member of the executive committee of the National Čivic Federation.1

Copyright 1902 by American Academy of Political and Social Science

There is no subject of greater general importance before the world to-day, none more simple in its character, and yet none so handicapped by fanaticism, as that of the relation of employer and employee.

Remove the curtain between the two real parties to the controversy, which is often held by men of selfish purpose on both sides, and you behold two simple factors, the wage payer and the wage earner, each dependent upon the other and both serving the same master, the great consuming public, of which they are also equal and very important parts.

The wage payer, being directly in contact with the purchasing consumer, claims that he must have a result in production equal in every way to the wages paid, while the wage earner contends that he must have a wage equivalent to his contribution in time, energy, and skill, to the article produced.

Every visible article of use, for food, clothing, or shelter, of necessity, luxury, or culture, represents three component parts, and the production of each such article depends upon the proper combining of these parts, which are: 1. Raw material. 2. Capital. 3. Labor.

Raw material, supplied by nature, is controlled only by the law of supply and demand, except when by legislation the natural law is for a time superseded, and it then becomes a matter of political action, in which the entire community, except the few who are directly interested in profit, join to abolish the corrupt legislation and restore the natural condition. Raw material, is, therefore, the basis of cost in determining the price of every product to the public.

Labor, whether skilled or unskilled, engaged in the reduction of the raw material to the finished product, is also dependent upon the law of supply and demand to fix its value or wage; and any effort to change this value brings the wage earner in direct conflict with the consumer, through his representative, the employer, whose duty it is to know, and who does know, what proportion of the entire cost of any article can be distributed in wage so as to retain the value of the article at a price not in excess of the ability of the consumer to purchase, and yet within limits which will prevent a more favored nation or district from furnishing the same article in competition, and thereby cause idleness for the wage earner and loss to the employer.

Capital represents plant, machinery, transportation, interest, and all the factors known as unproductive, and yet absolutely essential for the combination of material and labor. Capital is usually, though not always, the owner of material and the direct employer of labor, and therefore must stand for the silent partner in the combination. What is so frequently called a war between capital and labor is simply an effort on the part of the wage earner and wage payer to determine what part of the product of labor, as distinct from material, is represented in the price to the public, and after deducting the proper charge for plant, etc., how the balance, which is profit, shall be divided between the employer and the employee-or wage payer and wage earner.

The growth of prosperity in this country has always been in ratio to increased production, and until a recent period such increased production has been the direct result of the cooperation of the wage earner and the wage payer. In the beginning of our commercial history it was only necessary for one man to exchange the product of his own industry for that of other men to obtain the necessities of life, and then the results of labor were not measured by a unit of value or wage, but by the amount of energy expended in production.

When the rapid growth of the country required greater productiveness, and the enlargement of territory made necessary a change in the distribution of the products of labor, the factory system was introduced, whereby capital, or unproduc