The following table gives the strike statistics for each year from 1894 to 1899, inclusive:

a For strikes and lockouts ending in each year shown, including those that may have begun in the year preceding.

The industry group of mining and quarrying supplied the largest proportion of persons affected each year, except 1897 and 1899. In 1897 the great engineering dispute and in 1899 the dispute in the jute industry caused their respective groups to overshadow that of mining and quarrying. Next in importance with regard to the number of persons involved in disputes during the six-year period were the textile and the metal, engineering, and shipbuilding industries.

The two following tables show the number of strikes and lockouts and persons affected during each year from 1894 to 1899, by industries:

STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS, BY INDUSTRIES, 1894 TO 1899.

PERSONS AFFECTED BY STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS, BY INDUSTRIES, 1894 TO 1899.

The following two tables show the principal causes of strikes and lockouts, and the number of disputes and persons directly involved in each cause from 1896 to 1899:

STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS, BY PRINCIPAL CAUSES, 1896 TO 1899.

1896. 1897. 1898.

1899..

1896..

1897.

1898.

1899.

STRIKERS AND PERSONS LOCKED OUT, BY PRINCIPAL CAUSES, 1896 TO 1899.

By far the greater number of disputes during this period were due to wages. Next in importance were disputes relating, respectively, to working arrangements, rules, and discipline, the employment of particular classes of persons, and hours of labor.

The following tables show the number of disputes and persons directly involved each year from 1896 to 1899, classified according to results:

1896.

1897 1898.

1899.

STRIKERS AND PERSONS LOCKED OUT, BY RESULTS, 1896 TO 1899.

Nearly one-half of the persons directly involved in strikes and lockouts during this period failed completely, and only a little over onefourth were entirely successful. The rest were involved in disputes which were compromised, or which remained unsettled or indefinite. In the following table the disputes beginning in 1896, 1897, 1898, and 1899 are classified according to the various methods of settlement:

STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS BEGINNING IN 1896, 1897, 1898, AND 1899, BY METHOD OF SETTLEMENT.

The method most generally adopted for settling disputes in 1899, as in the three previous years, was by direct negotiation of the parties concerned, or their agents, and there appears to have been an increas ing tendency in the proportion of persons affected by strikes and lockouts settled in this manner. During 1899, 562 disputes, affecting 156,743 persons, were arranged by direct negotiation; 38 disputes, affecting 11,705 persons, were settled by mediation, conciliation, and arbitration; 22 disputes, affecting 7,054 persons, were settled by the submission of the employees; and in 88 disputes, affecting 3,980 persons, the employees directly involved were replaced by others.

DECISIONS OF COURTS AFFECTING LABOR.

[This subject, begun in Bulletin No. 2, has been continued in successive issues. All material parts of the decisions are reproduced in the words of the courts, indicated when short by quotation marks and when long by being printed solid. In order to save space, immaterial matter, needed simply by way of explanation, is given in the words of the editorial reviser.]

DECISIONS UNDER STATUTORY LAW.

CONSTITUTIONALITY OF STATUTE-AIDING SEAMEN TO DESERTHandel v. Chaplin, 36 Southeastern Reporter, page 979.-In an inferior court of the State of Georgia, one Edward Handel was convicted of a violation of section 655 of the penal code of said State. He was sentenced to confinement in the county chain gang and made application to the superior court of Chatham County for a writ of habeas corpus. His application was refused, and he then carried his case, upon a writ of error, before the supreme court of Georgia, which rendered its decision August 7, 1900, and affirmed the action of the superior court.

Section 655, above referred to, reads as follows:

If any person shall aid an articled seaman or apprentice to desert from or leave his vessel while in the waters of this State, or shall inveigle, entice, convey away, abduct, or carry, with or without violence, or secretly carry off an articled seaman or apprentice from any such vessel, or shall board such vessel with intent to do so, he shall be punished as for a misdemeanor.

The record of the case shows that Handel was convicted of a violation of the above statute in that he aided one John Bendecksen to desert from his ship, a Norwegian bark, while it was in the waters of the State of Georgia. It also shows that in his application for a writ of habeas corpus Handel claimed that section 655 was void and unconstitutional for the following reasons:

(a) The power to legislate upon the subject-matter of said section was and is the exclusive right of Congress, and taken completely from State legislatures. (b) That by reason of the nature of the subjectmatter legislated upon in said section 655, and the questions and interests involved in said law, the power to legislate thereon resides with, and should be exercised exclusively by, Congress. (c) Congress had full power to legislate upon the subject-matter involved in said section 655, and to pass laws to prevent the evil consequences of the acts in said section aimed at by the legislature of this State, and in pursuance of such rightful power Congress has passed a full and complete body of laws, and said laws are now still in force; and therefore said section

655 is void and unconstitutional, and especially so in that said section 655 is in many and material respects at variance with and in repugnance to the aforementioned laws of the United States. (d) Said section 655 is void by reason of its repugnance to the laws of the United States. (e) Said section 655 is void by reason of section 2, Article VI, of the Constitution of the United States, and paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of section 1, article 12, of the constitution of the State of Georgia. Section 2 of Article VI of the Constitution of the United States. above referred to, reads as follows:

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shail be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

Paragraphs 1, 2, and 3 of section 1 of article 12 of the constitution of Georgia, also referred to above, are as follows:

Paragraph 1. The laws of general operation in this State are-First, as the supreme law: The Constitution of the United States, the laws of the United States in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made under the authority of the United States.

Par. 2. Second, as next in authority thereto: This constitution. Par. 3. Third, in subordination to the foregoing: All laws now of force in this State, not inconsistent with this constitution, and the ordinances of this convention,

* * *

The record also shows that, in refusing to issue the writ of habeas corpus applied for, Judge Falligant, the justice of the superior court, used the following language:

The petitioner was convicted and sentenced by the city court of Savannah, under section 655 of the penal code of 1895, for aiding one John Bendecksen, a seaman, to desert from the bark D. H. Morris. It is admitted that the bark was a foreign, Norwegian, bark, and that there is no law of the United States covering the precise case, and that the section of the criminal code does not conflict with any statute of the United States, nor interfere directly or indirectly with foreign or interstate commerce. It is claimed, however, that the United States having exclusive jurisdiction, and having legislated with reference to American seamen and ships, the silence of Congress upon the subject of foreign ships and seamen amounts to the exclusion of State action; and the section is therefore claimed to be unconstitutional, for the reasons stated in the petition, and the conviction and sentence void and of no effect.

Regarding this State statute as a purely local law, under the police power, affecting persons within this jurisdiction, and not in conflict with any law or jurisdiction of the United States, interfering in no respect with foreign or interstate commerce, or with any jurisdiction of the laws of the United States, but, rather, promotive of both, it is held that section 655 is a valid, constitutional law; and, petitioner having been lawfully convicted under said law, his application for release is refused, and he is hereby remanded back into custody, that the sentence of the city court of Savannah may be carried out.