electoral machinery. The facts are clearly stated; maps of the various electoral and administrative districts of the city are provided, and in general the seeker for information is enabled to find what he wants with a minimum of difficulty.

American Political History to the Death of Lincoln, by Viola A. Conklin (Henry Holt, 1901), is an expanded course of "parlor lectures." The author has been successful in making selections from standard works with good judgment.

It is a pleasure to record the appearance of the thirteenth volume, forming the beginning of the fourth series, of the Recueil des Traités et Conventions, conclus par la Russie avec les Puissances Étrangères, by Dr. F. de Martens, permanent member of the council of the Russian university of foreign affairs (St. Petersburg, 1902). The feature of copious historical notes, which characterizes this collection, is well illustrated in the present volume, in the preparation of which valuable materials have as usual been drawn from the unpublished Russian archives. As of special interest to American readers, we may particularly advert to the editor's treatment of the subject of the Armed Neutrality, and of the negotiations relating to the conclusion of the treaties of peace of September, 1783.

Professor F. W. Blackmar's Life of Charles Robinson (Topeka, 1902) may be divided into two parts, rather unequal in size. The first ten chapters relate primarily to Kansas history as a whole, with Dr. Robinson's contributions woven in with those of the other prominent characters. The last two, on the other hand, are of the nature of biography. The first part is full of interesting and instructive facts, stated with clearness and correctness, though their sequence is not as firmly fixed as one could desire. One who already knows Kansas history fairly well will get great benefit out of Professor Blackmar's narrative, but one who does not know it at all can begin his reading better in other presentations of it. In the last two chapters Robinson's character traits are distinctly revealed. One sees here a man who had none of the art of attributing to himself the credit for what many other men did, and very little of the disposition to insist upon receiving the credit for what he did himself; a man whose whole habit of thought was objective and who never appeared, in anything he undertook, to have posed to himself the question, "What is there in this for me?" a man of far-reaching insight, impartial judgment, generous feelings, steady nerve and unquestionable courage; a man of large and profitable experience, of great administrative ability and of practical business ability, —

in a word, a statesman, educator and philanthropist of a very high order. There is no question that, as time creates the proper perspective for Kansas history, the character of Robinson will assume larger and larger proportions, while the parts played by noisy men like Lane and Brown and the others will at least lose the importance heretofore attached to them, if they are not largely forgotten or ignored. Professor Blackmar's book is a solid contribution to the final production of this much-to-be-desired result.

Miss E. M. Leonard's Early History of English Poor Relief (Cambridge, University Press, 1900) throws much light upon the origin and success of the famous statute of Elizabeth. The author proves that in the sixteenth century, as in the nineteenth, the cities, and especially London, were pioneers in improving the system of poor relief and that successive statutes were based then, as later, largely upon municipal experience. Thus the cities forbade begging and provided for the collection of common funds for the relief of the poor before Parliament did so; they imposed poor rates before Parliament resorted to taxation for this purpose, and they made "settlement" the basis of relief long before the Act of Settlement was passed. Even more significant is the information Miss Leonard has collected in reference to the part the privy council of Charles I played in the enforcement of the 43d of Elizabeth. She traces in detail the steps by which that body gradually assumed direction of the whole system of poor relief and gives abundant evidence in support of her thesis that "from 1631 to 1640 we had more poor relief in England than we ever had before or since." The book deserves special commendation for its unvarying reliance on contemporary sources in its statements of fact and for its recognition of the truth that administration, rather than legislation, determines the character of a system of poor relief. The author has been tireless in her efforts to get behind the often misleading phraseology of statutes and to discover how the destitute were actually dealt with during this period of English history. Even should some of her conclusions prove overdrawn, the materials she has collected will be of permanent value and make her book an indispensable supplement to Nicholls's useful but somewhat superficial History of the English Poor Law.

POLITICAL

SCIENCE

QUARTERLY.

IS AUTHORITATIVE ARBITRATION INEVITABLE?

FOR

OR the first time we are seriously considering whether disputes between employers and employed shall be settled by compulsory arbitration. Whenever hitherto this question has been raised, it has been answered by a prompt and decided "No." The example of New Zealand, however, has had some effect upon us, and the disastrous strike of coal miners has had more. The multiplying of strikes in which the interests of the public are sacrificed, while the government finds no constitutional way to protect them, thrusts upon us the question: How much longer shall quarrels that result in stopping the supply of necessary articles be regarded as private affairs? Strikes which make fuel scarce and dear, or cause food to perish in warehouses, or stop the carrying of goods and so interfere with industries generally, are things which a state should never tolerate. Yet the privilege of striking is a part of the system by which wages are adjusted. Workers have something to sell, and they must be able to withhold it if they are to have an effective voice in fixing the price that they will get. In most cases it may not be necessary actually to withhold it, but an ultimate power to do so is inherent in our system of bargaining. The public suffers every time that this ultimate expedient is used, and it is now used constantly and on a very large scale. Our country is never at peace and many of the internal wars which rend it are so great that they involve an appalling amount of harm and danger.

The consolidation of industries has already gone so far that a strike in one of them may cut off nearly the whole supply of some article; and it may be an article that the public cannot consent to be deprived of. If it is a necessity for the poor, the injury which the stoppage causes is most grave; but even though it be not an absolutely necessary article, and even though the consumers of it be not the very poor, the sudden closing of the sources of supply harms a vast number of people who have no part in the pending dispute but do have an undoubted right to protection. Trusts have made strikes injurious and dangerous, and may soon make them unendurable.

Under the old system of competition the evil was relatively trifling. The stoppage of work in one shop out of a hundred did not gravely affect consumers of the product there made, for other producers supplied the goods that were called for. When a trust controls nearly the entire output of some variety of goods, a quarrel that stops production is a very different matter and calls for very different treatment. Under a régime of consolidation continuity of service is a hundredfold more imperative than it was under the former régime of independent establishments. Moreover, when a strike cuts off the supply of some needed article and the public demands that the important service to itself be resumed, the exasperating phrase "nothing to arbitrate," which is sufficiently inaccurate as a description of the relation of two parties in any open quarrel, becomes preposterous. The people who need products have a prima facie claim that work shall go on, and a question to be adjudicated is, on what terms as to wages, hours of labor, etc., the state may compel work to go on without doing a wrong to employers or to employed.

If the question whether or not arbitration shall be insisted on is to be decided on broad grounds of equity, and if the rights of the public are to be considered, the reasoning which proves that we must have such arbitration is short and conclusive. The people have a right to continuous service. In enforcing this right they must see that justice is done between employers and employed. They must not order employers to pay whatever

the men may demand, but they must see whether the men's demands are or are not just; and if the former proves true, the people's demand for continuous service becomes just also. Testing the equity of the demands is arbitration, and is essential as preliminary to the requirement that a necessary service of the public be continued. When conciliation fails, arbitration alone can protect the people on the one hand and the contestants on the other. A resort to it should be required.

One of the premises of this syllogism will not go unquestioned, namely, that justice between employers and employed can be insured by means of tribunals of arbitration. If this is not possible, the public will certainly be slow to force arbitration on contending parties. This measure may, in any case, have opposition to encounter from corporations and from those trade unions which are able, at need, to maintain the fiercest strikes. Partly from a distrust of courts of the ordinary kind, which extends itself over tribunals for settling disputes as to wages, and partly for a less legitimate reason, strongly organized bodies of workmen may prefer to make contracts with their employers, with a strike in view in case negotiations fail, and, as a last resort, to fight the issue through to the bitter end, rather than to allow any one besides the contending parties to have anything to say in the matter. It is in this last resort that the rights of the people as a whole suffer, and that, too, in a way that cannot always be endured. If the discovery is made that even the interests of the parties in an industrial quarrel are safe in the hands of a rightly constituted tribunal of arbitration, it will be clear what policy is sound and equitable. We must provide every needed safeguard for the interests of employers and employed, but we must no longer allow them to rend society by their quarrels.

From another point of view the argument in favor of requiring by law the acceptance of arbitration when offered, appears equally conclusive. Trade unions are formed for the purpose of making collective bargains; but they do not content themselves with that function. They assert a certain ownership of their jobs, in that they not only strike, but stand guard over the places