United States was unchanged. The hubbub about the oppression of the public to benefit the mine-owners by the tariff on coal is so much empty noise.

"It is particularly the opportunity of the operators to set their house in order, to correct obvious abuses, and to so manage their business that if they should have to face a similar crisis they may have full claim to public support. The most loyal and ardent supporters of the operators for the past months could hardly assert that their case has been well conducted. From the beginning they were most unfortunate in their spokesman. President Baer's pious cant about the divine right of himself and his fellow-presidents disgusted thousands of men who see in labor demagogues one of the greatest dangers this country has to confront. But more than this, it has seemed almost as if they had deliberately undertaken to make themselves ridiculous before the people by their public utterances.”—New York Evening Post.

THIS IS SEVERE, especially from so conservative a source as the Evening Post, which has no sympathy with organized labor. Yet, it is probably mild as compared to some things Mr. Baer will have to hear behind the scenes. Of course, it is to be assumed that the practical men of large affairs were not correctly represented by the performances of Mr. Baer. For the time being he was their mouthpiece, and they had to "grin and bear it," but it is safe to predict that he will never again occupy such a position. How quickly the strike came to an end when a new hand and a larger mind took the helm! If a man of the caliber of Mr. Morgan, or a Rockefeller, a Schwab or a Cassatt, had been at the head of affairs, this strike probably would not have occurred and the discredit to the corporations and the consequent stimulus to socialism would have been avoided.

AN INTERESTED correspondent calls our attention to an editorial in the Observer (Hoboken), setting forth that the laborers are actually worse off now than during the calamity years of the Cleveland regime.

The Observer says the labor department and treasury

bureau statistics at Washington furnish figures (it does not cite them) which "warrant the statement that prices of all commodities are higher now than they have been at any previous time since the civil war, when there was such an inflation as may never be seen again," and that it is costing the laborer "more to live than at any time previous during the present generation. He is getting less of the good things of life than he did as recently as the year 1896." How utterly false! From the close of the war (1865) to 1891, general prices of all articles (agricultural and manufactured) fell from 190.7 to 92.2, or over half. Since 1891, the average prices of all commodities have risen slightly less than 2 per cent.; so that to-day general prices are about 50 per cent. lower for the same articles than at the close of the civil war.

The statement that prices are higher "than at any time during the present generation" is a bit of the same kind of prevaricating. Prices to-day are fully 30 per cent. lower than a generation ago (1870). It is true that wages have not risen as fast as they ought to have during the present period of prosperity; but all such talk as is here put forth by this Hoboken paper is a discredit to the poorest type of journalism.

THE SUPREME COURT of Rhode Island has recently handed down a most significant decision on the constitutionality of a ten hour law, which will be far-reaching in its effect.

It has been a part of the tendency of civilization to shorten the working day, sometimes by mutual arrangement through the influence of trade unions, sometimes by legislation. With one or two exceptions thus far the legislation has been limited in its application to women and children. This line was drawn on the theory that the children are minors, and women are wards of the state, not being citizens and having no voting rights.

The legislature of Rhode Island passed a law restricting the working hours of employees of street railway cor

porations to ten per day, and making any contract to the contrary illegal. The supreme court has just decided that this law is constitutional, on the ground that it is for the public good, and in this opinion the court had only one dissenting vote. The majority declared that "the public safety cannot be made dependent on private contracts." In other words, that workmen shall be protected against being compelled by mere necessity to make contracts which endanger public safety.

The plea that laborers desire to make a contract to work twelve and fourteen hours a day is sophistry; it never was true in practice. They make a contract to work twelve hours because they are not permitted to make a contract to work less. This law is not an infringement on the laborer's right to make a contract of twelve or fourteen hours, but is simply a protection to his right to make a contract to work ten.

IN THE LECTURE on "Trust Regulation," published in the Lecture Bulletin of the Institute of Social Economics, for October 1st, the suggestion was made that national regulation of the so-called "trusts," along reasonable and conservative lines, might be a feasible proposition without any amendment of the federal constitution. The precedent was cited of our national banking law, which at the time. of its passage in 1864 was opposed by its enemies as unconstitutional; while other more recent examples are the interstate commerce law, the Sherman anti-trust law, and the national bankruptcy act. All these are cases where the national authority has been exercised over industrial affairs, in ways not expressly provided for in the constitution.

Attorney General Knox, in his notable speech at Pittsburg on October 13, has now taken advanced ground in the same direction. While not committing himself to the opinion that a national incorporation law for large industrial enterprises would be constitutional, nevertheless he believes that federal action could be much more effective than at present and still keep entirely within constitutional

limits. Portions of the attorney general's argument are reproduced in our department of "Current Comment" this month.

It is altogether likely that public opinion will tend in this direction more and more strongly. In fact, it is not unreasonable to surmise that if congress should enact an outright national incorporation law, open to all concerns doing an interstate business, the supreme court might be inclined to exercise its right of "interpretation" in favor of the constitutionality of the measure. The court has done just this, over and over again, when public necessity has seemed to demand a more liberal reading of the nation's fundamental law.

Correction: In the article on "Conditions Which Affect Beef Prices," by Mr. Henry W. Wilbur, in our October number, the receipts of cattle at Chicago, and at four principal cities in the West, as indicated in the table on page 283 and in certain references on page 284, appear as if applying to one day only,-June 1st,-in the various years mentioned. These figures in each case apply to the entire month of June. The price quotations are for June 1st, but the receipts of cattle are for the entire month.

THE OPEN FORUM

This department belongs to our readers, and offers to them full opportunity to "talk back" to the editor, give information, discuss topics or ask questions on subjects within the field covered by GUNTON'S MAGAZINE. All communications, whether letters for publication or inquiries for the "Question Box," must be accompanied by the full name and address of the writer. This is not required for publication, if the writer objects, but as evidence of good faith. Anonymous correspondents are ignored.

LETTERS FROM CORRESPONDENTS

Facts From the Coal Regions

(The following lucid description of conditions as they exist to-day in the bituminous coal region was received in response to a personal inquiry by the editor. The writer is a thoroughly responsible and successful mine owner and manager, whose statements of fact may be accepted as literally accurate.)

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir: I am in receipt of yours of the 13th, and carefully note contents. The general public is certainly woefully ignorant as to conditions governing the mining of coal. They appear to form a judgment the principal basis of which is violent prejudice against the operators and maudlin sympathy for the miners. The miners and their leaders are shrewd enough to know this, and they work the situation for all it is worth. The fact is, there is no class of laborers that I know of who work so few hours a day, and who are so independent, happy and care free as these self-same miners. On the other hand, viewed from the employers' side, there is no business I know of that is such a heart-breaker as the mining business. The vicissitudes of one kind and another are such as to make it almost impossible to make any plans or calculations that can be depended upon. In the first place, the miners are so uncertain and so irregular in their work that you can rely upon no regular output of coal. At times you cannot get cars;