Better organization, then, is an important remedy, because it brings more definite responsibility and facilitates negotiations between employer and employed. It is no sufficient answer to say that by better organization power for harm is increased along with the power for good. Without the power, there is the certainty of evil; with it the possibility of evil and of good. There is nothing peculiar in these conditions of industrial progress. Political power and political progress teach the same thing. The dangers of political power in the hands of ignorant, of selfish, of anything less than well-intentioned and well-informed men, are too painfully familiar. Yet the course is forward, not backward. It is in education that we seek the remedy, not in repression,-in education in the broadest sense; education in the duties and the responsibilities which come with power, in the severe discipline of disappointment and failure attending unwise acts. The errors of this laboratory method of education are costly. No one can deny it. Errors in politics have taught us how costly; errors in industry-strikes, lockouts, violence, murder, assassination, seditionare teaching us to-day. There is no royal road. Often it must needs be that offence cometh; but woe unto him by whom the offence comes!

It is for this reason that these State courts of arbitration deserve greater attention and encouragement. The comparative smallness of their accomplishment is an impeachment, not so much of their efficiency as of public intelligence and appreciation. If at times their work has been perfunctory, or lacking in thoroughness or promptness or tact, it is, in fact, the fault of a listless or ignorant public, which has failed to sustain the efforts of men who, in their capacity of official peacemakers, must be singularly dependent upon the support of public sympathy and criticism. If conciliation and mediation in the name and with the authority of the State are to accomplish what they may and what they ought to accomplish, public opinion

must look to it, not only that the name and authority of the State are worthily represented, but that they are respected both by the disputants to whom the claims of society in regard to the conduct of private business are presented, and by society itself. No one can be said to bear exclusive reproach in this matter. Theoretical students are often indifferent to the methods and results of these practical experiments. Business men and corporation managers often cultivate an ironical contempt for what they affect to regard as a harmless bit of official philanthropy in general, and a piece of official impertinence in particular- when personal experience chances to force upon them a recognition of the serious intent of the law. Trades-unions also fail to treat the name and authority of the State with respect,― sometimes through ignorance, prejudice, or distrust of the official tribunal, often through distrust of their own cause or overweening confidence in their own power to coerce. Coupled with all this, is the unfortunate certainty that public opinion will not hold either employers or labor organizations to any strict account for the social injury resulting from deliberate neglect of peaceful methods and deliberate choice of the deadly weapons of industrial warfare.

The increasing cogency of public opinion in these matters is everywhere manifest. In England the rapid progress in this respect has been clearly marked by successive stages. Formerly the steadily growing sentiment in favor of arbitration and mediation found expression at critical moments in the intervention of distinguished men, acting in a private capacity, but carrying the prestige of a national reputation. A significant step in advance was the semi-official mediation of a distinguished member of the government in settling the great coal strike of 1893. The letter in which Mr. Gladstone invited the Miners' or Coalowners' Federation to send representatives to a conference to be held forthwith under the chairmanship of Lord Rosebery contains the following significant passage:

...

The attention of her Majesty's government has been seriously 'called to the wide-spread and disastrous effects produced by the long continuance of the unfortunate dispute in the coal trade, which has now entered on its sixteenth week. ...

The government have not, up to the present, considered that they could advantageously intervene in a dispute the settlement of which would far more usefully be brought about by the action of those concerned in it than by the good offices of others. But having regard to the serious state of affairs referred to above, to the national importance of a speedy termination of the dispute, and to the fact that the conference, which took place on November 3 and 4, did not result in a settlement, her Majesty's government have felt it their duty to make an effort to bring about a resumption of negotiations between the employers and employed, under conditions which they hope may lead to a satisfactory result.*

Recently, also, there has been a further disposition to facilitate arbitration and mediation by means of permanent and recognized organs; and the majority of the Royal Commission on Labor expressed a desire "to empower municipal and county councils to establish industrial courts to decide questions arising out of existing contracts or trade customs, to give one of the central government departments an adequate staff, with adequate means to procure, record, and circulate information relating to the work of voluntary conciliation boards, and by advice and assistance to promote their more rapid and universal establishment, and to give a public department, on receipt of a sufficient application from the parties interested or from local conciliation boards, power to appoint a suitable person to act as arbitrator, either alone or in conjunction with local boards or with assessors appointed by the employers and workmen concerned.

"On the other hand, the minority consider that it would be more advisable to grant adequate power to the Labor Department to obtain the fullest possible information about the facts of every dispute, the actual net wages earned, the cost of living, the salaries and interest

*Weekly Times, November 17, 1893.

paid, the employer's profit, and such other details as may seem material."

It is impossible to shift the responsibility all upon our legislators, law-makers, and executive officers. Public opinion is not only theoretically, but practically, more powerful and more responsible. It is public opinion which makes and unmakes majorities. The trouble is, industrial practice and ideals are still lagging behind in a feudal stage. The feudalism of our industrial ethics is revealed by the outbursts at Homestead and Chicago, and by the chaotic condition of public opinion in regard to such outbreaks. The cause lies in the rapid growth of industrial conditions which are new to us, to which we are not yet adjusted, which we do not fully understand. There is no hope of avoiding such demoralizing collisions until public opinion progresses to a more civilized appreciation of individual and corporate rights and responsibilities. Unhappily, a weak sentimentality sometimés prevails over the sober judgment of those who form the most active and efficient part of public opinion in regard to labor disputes. Belief that the laborer engaged in a strike has a real grievance is allowed to outweigh the greater grievance which society has against those who forfeit their claim to consideration by resort to war without even the formality of peaceful overtures. If society is to escape the unpleasant dilemma of a prolonged period of industrial warfare or a temporary relapse into the maternal tutelage of stricter regulations, public opinion must concede more duties as well as rights to industrial organizations; it must provide itself with the best means of accurate judgment in blame or praise of contending parties; and it must rouse the public conscience enough to make the blame or praise effective.

EDWARD CUMMINGS.

*Speyers, The Labour Question, p. 227.

THE QUANTITY-THEORY OF MONEY.

, THE quantity-theory of money is simply an expression, with reference to a special case, of the general law that value is determined in the relation between- demand and supply. Prices being nothing more or less than values expressed in terms of money, those who hold the quantitytheory merely point out a specific instance for the application of a principle which has been established by competent induction, and the applicability of which is not challenged in any other instance within the view of the political economist. It is not, therefore, for those who hold this theory to prove their case. It rests upon the critics of that theory to show some reason why a principle, admitted to be otherwise of universal application, should be suspected of failing at this point.

The cause of the incredulity which has attended the quantity-theory is found in the difficulty of defining the terms demand and supply, when used with reference to money. The elements of the case are necessarily complex and elusive. The demand for money arises from the fact that there is a certain amount of money-work to be done; that is, exchanging has, to a certain extent, to be effected in that community through the use of this agent. In the situation existing- the quantity of goods to be, exchanged being such as it is, prices ruling as they have done, producers and consumers living at such distance. from each other as may be the case, the habits of the people as to carrying and using money being what they are, the machinery of exchange being what it is - there is occasion for a certain exercise of the money-function in that community. The money-function cannot be exercised in a lower degree than is thus required without personal inconvenience and economic loss. Shall we say