tion. It could exist only under the most despotic form of government, where individual rights were practically unknown. Why All Laborers Do Not Join Unions Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE, Dear Sir:-In view of all the persecution to which nonunion men are subjected, and the protection they get by joining unions, there must be some fundamental reason why the large majority of workingmen refuse to join such unions. What is the great reason why such a mass of the workingmen persistently refuse all efforts to get them into the unions? M. B. A large number of workmen do not join the unions for exactly the same reason that so large a number do not join a political party, clubs, civic organizations, churches, etc. It is partly because of indifference, partly because there are dues to pay and duties to be performed. No matter what the object, if it is to save the nation from ruin, there is always a very large number who are willing to let other people do it. In the fields of ethics, social reform, general politics or whatsoever, the organized work is done by a small minority. The non-union men really share the benefits of the efforts and sacrifices and expenditures of the union men. It took years and years, both in England and in this country, to get what are now commonplace reforms, like restriction of the hours of labor for children, popular education, even sanitation in workshops and protection to life and limb of laborers from machinery, and yet there never was more than ten or fifteen per cent. of the classes interested who earnestly joined the movements to accomplish the desired objects. But, after they were accomplished, those who never gave a penny or lifted a hand got the full benefit just the same as those who did the work. The progressive work of the world is always done by the few active and energetic, and the indifferent procrastinators join in receiving the fruits. As the sun shines upon the unjust as well as the just, so ciety gives benefits to the laggard as well as to the industrious. There is no fundamental reason, in the sense of valid objection, which makes so many refuse to join labor organizations, any more than to refuse to join the other numerous moral movements in society. Ethics of "Class Legislation" Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE, Dear Sir:-In your recent lecture on "Class Legislation," you seemed almost to imply that anything whatever which benefited one class was a benefit to all. Is not that altogether too sweeping an assertion? Suppose, for instance, all manufacturers, or all bankers, or all farmers, and so on, should be exempted from taxation on the theory that their greater prosperity would benefit the whole community, would you defend such a distortion of justice? Is it not an obvious fact that there is a wide field of possible class legislation which is directly to the injury of other classes, which no politically free community would tolerate on any plea of the resulting general benefits to come through these specially favored groups? R. T. S. It was not contended in the lecture referred to that "anything" which would benefit one would be a benefit to all. What was stated was that anything which benefits any group or class, without injuring others, is an added benefit to the nation and ultimately becomes beneficial to all. The idea of exempting bankers, farmers, etc., from taxation is equivalent to asking if robbery and pickpocketing are beneficial. Nothing is a benefit which is unjust, and nothing is just which injures some for the benefit of others. There may be circumstances which call for some to make a slight temporary sacrifice for the benefit of others, as, for instance, the taxing of those who have no children for education; but the general benefit from education, both to those who have not as well as those who have children, is so much greater than the sacrifice involved by the slight indirect contribution in the form of school tax that it is well worth the doing from the point of view of the highest morality and civilization. Helpful legislation should always be directed towards increasing the opportunities and possibilities of given groups to make the most of their own resources. It should take the form of protection to rights and the securing of opportunities for economic and social improvement, and by improvement of course is meant self-development. Simple acquisition, or the advantage of some at the expense of others, is in the class with stealing; but in the long run that would not be beneficial even to those who pocketed the theft, because it is demoralizing and only temporarily beneficial in a material sense. To help any group, small or great, to gain an advantage at the expense of others, is injurious to all. Such a policy would be destructive to social, political and national growth. All benefits in the form of opportunity and stimulus for improvement necessarily come, not to all at once, but to groups, and legislation to protect or aid such opportunities for group improvement is not an injury to the whole, but, to the extent that it leads to higher development of the character, capacity and well being of the group affected, it is directly beneficial to the group and indirectly beneficial to all. That kind of "class legislation" is not only wholesome but is practically the only way in which government can stimulate and safeguard the movement of social progress. BOOK REVIEWS SAVINGS AND SAVINGS INSTITUTIONS. By James Henry Hamilton, Ph.D. Cloth; 436 pages. The Macmillan Company, New York and London. Among the immediate disciples of Adam Smith, saving was regarded as the chief economic virtue. Capital was regarded as the result of saving, and hence as the reward for abstinence. From this point of view, all the improvements in productive methods were attributed to the virtue of saving, or abstinence, and among the common people personal saving was the great social virtue. Franklin's maxim that "a penny saved is a penny earned" (which never was quite true), was the embodiment of economic teaching on the subject. However true this theory might once have been, the progress of society has relegated it to the realm of insignificance. To-day a very small percentage of the productive capital is due to personal saving; on the contrary, it is mostly reinvested earnings, or surplus earnings. Who ever think of the Carnegies and Rockefellers, the Goulds and Sages, the Morgans and Hills, as deriving their capital from saving through any form of personal abstinence? From what do they abstain that they have the slightest desire to possess? Whatever may have been true of the original nest-egg of capital, the great bulk of the capital to-day is not derived from personal savings. The other aspect of the savings question relates to the individual savings of the common people, the manual workers, and it is to this phase of the question that Mr. Hamilton's book is specially devoted. It is discussed as a part of the problem of the improvement of the wage class. It is a popular assumption that the true way for laborers to avoid poverty is to save something of what they earn, be it ever so little. As in the case of capital, this was the accepted view of the early economists, and is very largely so still. Jean Baptiste Say, who was the great French disciple of Adam Smith, laid special stress upon making it part of the training of the people that they must save a part of their incomes, and even went so far as to suggest that a modicum be withheld by the employer for tha purpose. This theory is based upon the assumption that if laborers in general saved ten per cent. of their earnings they would be that much the richer. The theory further assumes that saving is entirely independent of and has no casual relation to the amount of wages received. It assumes that the laborer's income does not depend upon his expenditures, but rather that his expenditures depend entirely upon his income. Like many other things in society, this is nearly the reverse of what it seems; it is one of the paradoxes in social movement. Of course, this view naturally grows out of the idea that wages are governed by the supply and demand of laborers, or according to the amount or quality of work they perform. But modern experience and economic study have shown that neither of these is correct, but that at the bottom the real propelling force that keeps up and raises wages is not the number of laborers, nor the amount of work the laborers perform, but their cost of living as determined by the character of their social surroundings and customs. Whatever is customary for a certain class of people to have in order to be contented enough to work, they will insist upon at the point of refusing to work, inaugurating strikes, or perpetrating almost any kind of social disturbance. In other words, social necessity fixes the standard of their demands. For this reason, we find laborers of a certain social grade in one locality who will absolutely refuse to work for what similar laborers in another locality willingly accept. The reason for this difference is not in the quality of their workmanship, nor the supply and demand of laborers, but it is the difference in social standing by which their demands are measured in the respective places. For instance, carpenters, painters, bricklayers, etc., in New |