Wages.-Legislation on the subject of wages in public and in private employment was enacted in nine states. Maryland fixed the rates of pay of all laborers employed by the mayor and city council of Cumberland at not less than $2 a day, while in Massachusetts the wages of several classes of employees were established by law. Women cleaners and scrub women employed by Suffolk County must be paid not less than $8 a week; male laborers employed by the Board of Prison Commissioners must not be paid less than $2.50 a day; while the wages paid to mechanics employed on public works must not be less than the prevailing rate of wages in the same occupation in the locality. The Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Board is authorized to increase the wages of its engineers, firemen, oilers, coal passers and screenmen, not to exceed in the aggregate $5,000. The annual salary of elevator men at the State House is increased to $1,100, and the annual salary of porters at the State House is increased to $850. New Jersey required all county employees in counties of the second class to be paid semi-monthly. Semimonthly pay laws affecting private industries were enacted in Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina; the last two states also forbade the discounting of trade checks, while Massachusetts amended its weekly payday law to include workshops and mechanical establishments. Alaska, Kentucky, Louisiana and New York enacted or amended wage-lien laws.

the office. Applicants for situations imprisonment or both, and such peraffected by the dispute must be ad- son is thereafter disqualified from vised of the statements. No person holding any position in the bureau shall suffer any discrimination or be (Ch. 181). No legislation was enactotherwise prejudiced on account of re-ed bearing on private employment fusing to accept employment upon the agencies. ground that a strike or lockout exists or that the wages are lower than current for that trade and district. Separate divisions may be organized in any office for men, women and juveniles, and these may be subdivided into divisions for farm labor and such other classes as the commissioner of labor may decide. Applicants between the ages of 14 and 18 may register at school on special forms, which when transferred to the employment office must be treated as personal registration, and provision is made for coöperation between the superintendent of the office and the school principal in securing suitable employments for children. The advisory committees must appoint special sub-committees on juvenile employment, consisting of employers, employees and persons possessing knowledge of education or of other conditions affecting children. The commissioner of labor must arrange for the coöperation of the branch of ficers, including the interchange between them and public posting of lists of vacancies, which he may also supply to newspapers and to other sources of information; he may also expend five per cent. of the appropriation for the Bureau in soliciting business by advertising or otherwise. No fees direct or indirect may be charged to or received from any applicant. The Bureau of Statistics and Information must publish a bulletin giving all possible information on the state of the labor market, including reports of the various offices. All employment agencies other than those Following the appointment of a established by the act must keep a commission in Ohio in 1913 to study register of applicants for work and conditions surrounding the screening for help in such form as required by of coal, legislation was enacted in the commissioner of labor, who may 1914. This law, which was the occainspect such registers and to whom sion of a strike during the summer, information therefrom must be fur- has been upheld by the Ohio Supreme nished as required. The maximum Court. The act provides that miners penalty for a superintendent, clerk, and loaders of coal who are paid by subordinate or appointee who accepts weight must be paid according to the any fee, compensation or gratuity total weight of coal contained in the from any one seeking labor or employ- car in which it is removed from the ment is a fine of $500 or six-months' mine. The coal must, however, con

mains $200 to $1,000 for each offense. (Ch. 368.)

tain no greater percentage of slate, sulphur, rock, dirt, or other impurity than that determined from time to Five states and the Federal Governtime by the Industrial Commission. ment took action on hours and workMiners and loaders and their employ- ing conditions affecting women. Misers, or the Industrial Commission sissippi established for women a tenupon the request of either, must fix hour day and a 60-hour week, and for stipulated periods the percentage Virginia extended its ten-hour law to of nut and other fine coal allowable; cover certain establishments not preif the commission finds that the per- viously affected, while New York made centage of fine coal is higher than that its nine-hour day and 54-hour week fixed by it, it must issue and enforce general for women employed in all orders for the reduction of the per- mercantile establishments and limited centage. The employer may not their working week to six days. screen coal in such a way as to re- Amendments to other woman's-work duce its total weight. Employer and laws were made in Massachusetts, employee may agree on deductions from pay on account of impurities in excess of the percentage fixed. The penalty for an employer screening coal so as to reduce weight is a fine of $300-$600 for each offense; the penalty for a miner or loader loading a car with impurities in excess of the percentage fixed, 50 cents for the first, $1 for the second and $2 to $4 for the third offense within a period of three days. (S. B. 3.)

where pulleys, casters or other mechanical contrivances are now required on boxes weighing with their contents 75 lb. or more, and in South Carolina, where women employees in mercantile establishments may not be allowed (instead of required) to work later than 10 p.m. Congress established for females in the District of Columbia an eight-hour day and a sixday week of 48 hours, prohibited the employment of those under 18 before 7 a.m. or after 6 p.m., and provided a staff of three inspectors, two of whom must be women. The act applies to any manufacturing, mechanical or mercantile establishment, laundry, hotel, restaurant, telegraph or telephone office, or to any express or transportation company, in the District of Columbia, and is administered by the commissioners of the District of Columbia (Public, No. 60, 63d Cong., 2d sess.).

Woman's Work. - Minimum wage legislation in 1914 was represented only by a Massachusetts act amending the existing law (A. Y. B., 1912, pp. 406, 423) in several particulars as a result of the year's experience under it. The number of representatives of employers and employees on wage boards may now be any equal number, instead of not less than six as formerly. The commission must notify employers and employees in the occupation of its intention to establish a Workmen's Compensation and Inwage board and must request both surance. - With the enactment of sides to nominate representatives, workmen's-compensation laws in Kenfrom whom, provided the names are furnished within ten days, the commission must select. In addition to the records previously required, employers must now keep a record of the amount paid each week to each woman and minor. An employer may not discharge or discriminate against an employee who "has served or is about to serve upon a wage board, or is or has been active in the formation thereof, or has given or is about to give information concerning the conditions of such employee's employment," or because the employer believes the employee may do these things. The penalty for such discrimination re

tucky (Ch. 73), Louisiana (No. 20), Maryland (Ch. 800), and New York (Ch. 41), 24 states, or just half of those in the Union, now have legislation of this type. The New York act was made possible by the constitutional amendment of 1913 (see A. Y. B., 1913, pp. 55, 432) which nullified the effect of the decision in the Ives case, by which, in 1911, the compulsory workmen's-compensation act of 1910 was declared unconstitutional. All of the new acts apply to enumerated lists of hazardous employments. The acts of New York and Maryland are compulsory, while those of Kentucky and Louisiana are elective.

to be final, and children under 18 (or over that age but physically or mentally incapacitated from earning) by a former marriage. The maximum compensation for total incapacity is raised from $3,000 to $4,000, and for partial incapacity the period of benefit is extended from 300 weeks to 500 weeks, with a maximum of $4,000. (Ch. 708.)

New York, Maryland and Kentucky cause he has deserted her, the findcreate state workmen's-compensation ings of the Board on such questions funds. In the latter state, the employers subject to the act are required to contribute, while in New York a special inducement to join the state fund is made, since the employer by joining relieves himself from personal liability, while other methods of insurance do not have this effect. Fifty per cent. of wages is the scale of benefit in Kentucky, Louisiana and Maryland, while in New York (and the amendments of 1914 in Massachusetts) it is 66% per cent. of wages. Kentucky provides for additional benefits by way of penalty when the employer has violated laws enacted for safety or has employed a minor contrary to law. In other details, such as waiting period, medical care, lump-sum payments, computation of average wages, liability of third parties, modification of awards and submission to medical examination, notice of claim and limitation, notice of accident or injury, the new acts present the usual features.

Miscellaneous Legislation.-In New York the disastrous failure of a department store firm and the consequent loss by its employees of money compulsorily contributed by them to an establishment benefit fund led to the enactment of a law against such forced contributions. The measure provides that mercantile corporations must not, by deduction from wages, by direct payment or otherwise, compel employees to contribute to any benefit or insurance fund maintained for them by any corporation or person; contracts whereby such contribution is exacted are void. (Ch. 320.) Alaska forbade coercing employees

inducing workmen to change their places through false information about work, and the importation of armed guards.

Of special importance are the amendments made in the Massachu- to buy goods at any particular place, setts act, where two-years' experience has indicated several desirable changes. In this state, benefits are increased from 50 per cent. to 66% per cent. of wages; death benefit must be paid for 500 instead of 300 weeks, but the total amount is limited to $4,000. Medical and hospital services must be furnished not only during the first two weeks after the injury, as previously, but also for the time of incapacity if not immediately caused by the injury, and in unusual cases, in the discretion of the Industrial Accident Board, for a longer period. The classes of total dependents in case of death are broadened to include a wife living apart from the deceased for justifiable cause or be

Mississippi and Virginia regulated the bonding of common carrier employees, and Massachusetts enacted several minor laws requiring preference on public work to be given to citizens of the state (Ch. 600), extending to four years the period during which lamplighters losing their employment may be transferred to other work without civil-service examinations, and requiring engineers or other persons in charge of steam boilers, heating, lighting and power plants maintained by the state to be placed under civil service.

XVII. AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, FORESTRY, AND

FISHERIES

AGRICULTURE

E. W. ALLEN

Agricultural Extension.-An event | Each state will receive the basal apof great significance was the passage propriation of $10,000 uniformly, but by Congress of an act, signed May 8, the additional appropriations are to providing generous means for agricul- be allotted annually to the respective tural extension in every state. This states in the proportion which their rounds out and completes the move- rural population bears to the total ment for agricultural education inau- rural population of the country. They gurated in 1862, with the passage of are also to be met by equal amounts the Morrill Act for the establishment provided by the several states; hence of agricultural colleges. The new on the maturity of the Act in 1922 Act, named for its authors the Smith- a total of nearly nine million dollars Lever Act, provides an annual appro- annually will be provided for agriculpriation of $10,000 to each state for tural extension. Such states as Pennagricultural extension work, "in order sylvania and Texas will then receive to aid in diffusing among the people considerably over $250,000 a year of the United States useful and prac- from the Federal appropriation, and tical information on subjects relating a like amount from sources within to agriculture and home economics, their borders, while nearly half the and to encourage the application of states will receive $100,000 or more the same." The appropriations are from the Federal appropriation. A to be assigned to the agricultural col- clause carried in the Agricultural Apleges in the respective states, and the propriation Act provides that corrework is to be conducted in coöpera- spondence, bulletins, and reports retion with the U. S. Department of lating to the extension work are to be Agriculture, which has funds for sim- carried in the mails free of charge ilar purposes. This work is to con- for postage. This in itself will be an sist of "the giving of instruction and important aid and economy in the practical demonstrations in agricul- conduct of the enterprise. ture and home economics to persons not attending or resident in said colleges in the several communities, and imparting to such persons information on said subjects through field demonstrations, publications, and otherwise."

In

Under this Act extension divisions have been organized at each of the agricultural colleges, and plans made for conducting a campaign of demonstration and extension teaching. most of the states coöperation has been entered into with the DepartThe initial appropriation of $480,- ment of Agriculture, under which 000 became available on July 1. An the Department's demonstration work additional sum of $600,000 is appro- will be closely united with the demonpriated for the fiscal year 1915, and stration and other extension work unthereafter the amount increases by a der the new Act. The county-agent half-million dollars a year until it plan will be very generally followed, reaches a total of $4,580,000, eight these agents arranging cooperative years hence, when it continues as a demonstration trials with farmers, permanent annual appropriation. aiding farmers in furnishing them in

Most of the various regulatory and Department of Agriculture. The police functions assigned to the DeAgricultural Appropriation Act for partment received increased support, the year 1914-15 again established the in addition to the permanent approprinciple of Federal aid to agricul- priations. An increase from $10,000 ture in the broadest use of the term, to $50,000 was provided for the proproviding for the maintenance and de- tection of migratory game and invelopment of the manifold activities sectivorous birds. The appropriation of the National Department of Agri- for the enforcement of the Plant culture to a larger extent than ever Quarantine Act was increased from before, and opening the way to an $40,000 to $50,000, with $50,000 addiincreased efficiency through a reor- tional to enable coöperation with ganization of its work and coöpera- states quarantined against the intertion with the states. The act carries a state movement of Irish potatoes, on total appropriation of $19,865,832, an account of dangerous diseases. The increase of $1,878,887, or more than Appalachian Forest Reserve Act of 11 per cent. over the previous year. 1911 (A. Y. B., 1911, p. 423) was Nearly two-thirds of the total amount amended by increasing from five to 25 is now absorbed by its administrative per cent. the proportion of the gross