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typical of the unions generally throughout the country in the matter of benefit features. It was found that 21 unions paid out, in 1895-96, an average of $4.01 (16s.) weekly to each one out of work, while 112 made no report; 73 local unions spent, on the average, for each member who was sick, $5.04 (£1) per week, and 82 made no report; 107 unions spent on the average for strikes $6.43 (£1: 5s.), and 79 made no report; 93 unions spent an average of $74.12 (£15) for each death in the order, and 82 made no report. The other unions, in each case, reported no expenses under these heads.

In Indiana, in 1893, according to the report of the state bureau of industrial statistics, 96 unions paid sick benefits aggregating $8254 (£1651), and 125 paid death benefits aggregating $16,409 (£3281). The membership of these unions then was 19,081 and the average number of hours per day worked was 9.7, or almost exactly the same as in Michigan.

In New York state, 474 organisations, with 121,925 members, reported to the New York state bureau of labour statistics in 1895, that they expended in benefits, in 1894, $511,817 59 (£102,363). Of this amount $89,150.04 (£17,830) was spent for strike benefits, and $10,676-74 (£2133) was donated to other labour organisations, presumably for strike purposes, or a total under this head of 19.5 per cent of the total benefits. For out-of-work benefits, $106,801 69 (£21,360) was spent; for sick benefits, $60,207.98 (£15,041); for death benefits, $93,437-92 (£18,685); and for other benefits, $151,543.22 (£30,308). A large part of the latter item seems to have been paid to members who were unable to procure employment. In 67 other labour organisations, 11,660 members reported that they financially aided their members, but failed to state the amount spent. The remaining 319 labour organisations, with 23,612 members, failed to make any report upon this head.

The first successful effort to federate a large number of American trade unions was made in 1866, when the National Labour Union was founded, composed of sixty organisations, only part of which, however, were national in extent. Its nomination of a presidential ticket in 1872 divided its membership, and the panic of 1873 completed the ruin of the union.

In 1881 there was organised at Pittsburgh, Pensylvania, the Federation of Organised Trades and Labour Unions of the United States and Canada, whose name was changed in 1886 to its present form of The American Federation of Labour. The growth has been steady, until to-day nearly all the important unions having a national organisation, excepting those in railway employment, are affiliated to it. It is impossible to give the number of unionists thus affiliated,

because most of the unions do not pay a per capita tax to the federation on all their membership. This tax is three cents (1 d.) per member per year in the case of national unions and twelve cents (6d.) in the case of such locals as have no national organisation. A further difficulty arises from the fact that the same person may be represented in the federation twice, once as a member of his union and again as a member of the central labour body of his city.

At the 17th annual convention of the Federation, held in Cincinnati, Ohio, in December 1896, there were 64 delegates, representing 38 national unions which had paid in a per capita tax on 239,600 members. At the same convention 35 delegates represented local unions of perhaps as many hundred members. Three represented the state federations of Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts, and 15 represented the central bodies of Boston and Laurence, Mass.; Baltimore, Md.; Washington, D.C.; Erie, Pa.; Cincinnati, Toledo, Hamilton, and Zanesville, Ohio; Indianapolis, Ind.; Louisville, Ky.; Nashville, Tenn.; St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo.; and Duluth, Minn.

Although in 61 cities the central labour union, or federation of all the unions of the city, affiliate with the American Federation of Labour, New York, New Orleans, Buffalo, and a few other large cities do not affiliate.

The American Federation, though hampered by a small revenue and by contests, now growing less in number and bitterness, with the Knights of Labour, has been of value in bringing labour leaders together through corre spondence in the annual conventions,-in helping forward the eight-hour movement, and all kinds of labour legislation. Occasional loans and even gifts are also made to trade unions, chiefly to secure proper legal presentation before the courts of what seem likely to be leading

cases.

A few comparisons between the British trade union congress and the American convention of labour may be made, based upon an article in the American Federationist for December 1896 (published in Washington). Whereas in England the parliamentary committee is the only representative and executive body of the trade unionists between their congresses, a committee whose business it is to ask parliament for legislation, the representative and executive body in America between conventions, is the executive council of the American federation of labour, consisting of the president, four vice-presidents, a secretary, and a treasurer, annually chosen. The president now receives a salary of $1800 (£360) a year and travelling expenses, and the secretary $1500 (£300). It may be stated in passing that the salary, aside from travelling expenses,

of the chief of the Cigar-makers' International Union, is $30 (£6) a week, that of the Firemen $2500 (£500) a year, of the Railway Trackmen $1500 (£300), and of the secretary of the Bricklayers and Masons $1200 (£240),

The executive council of the American Federation concerns itself not only with state and national legislation, but with organisation, strikes, boycotts, grievances, etc. The president presides at all the sessions of the annual conventions, unless temporarily relieved at his own request, and appoints standing committees for the different phases of business considered by the convention, such as legislation, boycotts, labels, The Federationist, salaries, organisation, propaganda, grievances, etc. The British congress has no standing deliberative committees, and therefore has little time to consider anything save legislation.

In the American conventions the unit rule is unusual. The convention meets on the second Monday in December, and continues in session until all the business is transacted, usually nine or ten days. Reporters have never been excluded. Government representatives, excepting those for bureaus of statistics, are not seen at the conventions, but a few economists and others are usually in attendance.

The rank and file of American wage-earners in and out of trade unions are not yet committed to any very definite or large schemes of state activity, and are greatly kept back in this matter as compared with English wage-earners by constitutional limitations in national, state, and local government. The doctrine of laissez-faire, until lately fostered in America by industrial conditions that opened opportunities for advance to every one, is not at once shaken off. The greatest recent political achievement of labour in America appears to be in the law signed by President Harrison in his last year of office, prohibiting more than eight hours a day of labour on all future contracts for the national government. Another and older law forbids more than eight hours of work by government employés. These two laws are being introduced in the state and city governments. unions are everywhere the chief supporters of factory and other labour legislation.

The

The

The years 1892 and 1893 witnessed a rapid growth of desire for state activity along the line of the so-called "new trade-unionism." last convention of the federation in 1893 submitted to the consideration of the local unions the demands of the English trade-unionists for compulsory education; direct legislation; a legal eight-hour working day; sanitary inspection of workshops, mines, and homes; liability of employers for injury to health, body, or life; the abolition of the contract system in all public work; the abolition of the sweating system; the municipal ownership of street cars and gas and electric light plants for public distribution of heat, light, and power; the nationalisation of telegraphs, telephones, railroads, and mines; and the collective ownership by the people

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of all means of production and distribution. The attempt to commit the federation to this entire platform, including its last plank of pure socialism, by recommending it not only to the consideration but to the "favourable " consideration of the unions, was voted down by the slight majority of 1253 to 1185, and this was only secured by the method of voting in these conventions, which gives trade unions a vote for every 100 members for which per capita dues have been paid, but allows only one vote to each of the central bodies of the cities. Of the 15 representatives of the latter 14 voted to retain the word "favourable," and of the 86 delegates from all organisations 54 voted in the same way. Recent restrictions by the courts of strikes on railroads, when in the hands of receivers, as many now are, is increasing the demands by railroad employés for government ownership.

In the convention of 1894, at Denver, the federation struck out the demand for the collective ownership by the people of all means of production and distribution, but passed a vote upon all the other planks, which was interpreted by the convention in New York in 1895, by a large majority, as meaning that these planks should be considered legislative demands of the wage-workers, and not a political platform. In the convention in Cincinnati in 1896 the following resolution was passed :

"Whereas the influences of corporations, holding, or seeking to obtain, possession of public franchises, are one of the most potent influences antagonistic to reformative measures, and the most active cause of corruption in politics and of mismanagement and extravagance in public administration; therefore, be it

Resolved, that the sixteenth annual convention of the American Federation of Labour urges upon all the members of affiliated bodies that they use every possible effort to assist in the substitution in all public utilities-municipal, state, and national, that are in the nature of monopoliespublic ownership for corporate and private control."

The use of injunctions in labour disputes since 1893 has further increased the interest of the wage-earner in such political action as may check this new action of the courts. According to recent decisions, a judge may try without jury, and sentence for contempt for an indefinite period, all violators of some order of court prohibiting perhaps, the marching on the highways in crowds. or the use of offensive epithets in the neighbourhood of a strike, or the interference in "any manner" as a recent injunction, in 1897, in Pennsylvania declared, "with the plaintiff's employees while they may be passing to and from their work on or near plaintiff's premises." Labour contests in the strongest organisations are more and more prevented by conciliation and arbitration. Conference committees of employers and employés often make yearly agreements in coal mining, glass, iron and steel making, cigarmaking and the building trades. American tradeunionists, outside at least of railroad organisations, have a growing dislike to working with the nonunion men, and in very many unions the members refuse to do so. This action finds its apology if not

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its defence in the apparent economic success of the policy and in the use of similar methods by many combinations of capitalists, which refuse to deal with competitors who do not join the combination, or with customers who patronise such competitors. When the non-union man, denominated a "scab by the union, tries to take the place of strikers, violence is often visited upon him by the union, as unfortunately occurs in England; but the majority of the unions do not countenance violence.

During the 13 years from 1st January 1881 to 30th January 1894 there were 14,390 strikes in the United States, involving 69,167 establishments and 3,714,406 employés. In the 10,375 establishments having successful strikes, 188186 inclusive, 518,583 employés were involved. In the 3004 establishments in which strikes were partly successful, 143,976 employés were involved, while in the 8910 establishments in which the strikes were failures 660,396 or 49.9 per cent of the employés in all the establishments were thrown out of employment. In the 20,397 establishments having successful strikes from 1st January 1887 to 30th June 1894, 669,992 persons were involved. In the 4775 establishments where strikes were partly successful 318,801 employés were involved, while in the 21,687 establishments in which strikes failed, 1,400,988 persons, or 58.6 per cent, were involved.

The percentage of those failing in strikes during 1887-92 inclusive, prior to the depression, was 55.5 per cent. In the whole 13 years 32 per cent of those thrown out of employment by strikes won, 12:46 per cent partly succeeded, while 555 per cent failed entirely. From the other 004 per cent no report has been obtained.

Of the establishments involved, 82.24 per cent, during 1881-86 inclusive, were subjected to strikes by order of labour organisations, and from 1st January 1887 to 30th June 1894, 69-6 per cent. The average duration of the strikes for the 13 years was 254 days. In the first period, 18811886, there were 9409 establishments involved in strikes for a rise of wages. In 65.99 per cent of these the men were wholly successful, and in 8:43 per cent were partly so. In the second period 12,041 establishments were involved in strikes for this cause, and in 511 per cent the men were successful, and in 10.7 per cent partly 80. In the first period there were 4344 establishments concerned in strikes for the reduction of wages, and in 24-29 per cent the men were wholly successful, and in 22-24 per cent partly so. The respective percentages in the 6199 establishments effected during the next period were 56.8 and 1.5. Of the 1734 establishments in which there were strikes against reduction of wages, in the first period the men succeeded in 34.2 per cent, and partly in 9.1 per cent. During the second period the percentages in the 3830 establishments were respectively 169 per cent and 254 per cent; of the 1314 establishments in which there were strikes for the recognition of the union in the second period, the men failed in 927 per cent. Of the 3620 settlements in which there were sympathetic strikes the men failed in the second period in 73.7 per cent.

Much of the opposition to non-union men which prevails among those not wage-earners is due to the comparative newness of unions in America and to the fact that the absorption of free government land, and the growth of manufacturing and mining, have only recently developed the need for labour organisations, a need which a majority of the American-born population reared under different conditions are yet unable to appreciate. The presence in the country of coloured, Chinese, Italian, Bohemian, Hungarian, French, Canadian, German, Irish, and many other nationalities, introduces many complications in labour disputes. These nationalities largely fill up the hard-handed industries which native Americans, perhaps in consequence of this foreign element, are loath to enter. Naturally the foreign-born enter the unions of their trade and give to many the impression that the trade unions are antagonistic to native Americans. Yet the returns of a large number of the unions indicate that the percentage of native Americans is fully as large in most trade unions as in the trade at large, and that the German only is considered to vie with the native American in aptitude for organisation. The absence, until very recently, of technical or trade schools accounts in part for the moderate percentage of Americans in some trades. In some cities every skilled tailor, for example, is of foreign birth, yet outside at least of a few trades in a few cities on the Atlantic coast there is, according to trade-union officials, more prejudice among the unions against than in favour of the immigrant. Nearly all of the trade unions organised prior to 1870 were chiefly composed of native Americans and led by them. workman trained abroad must pay an initiation fee of $50 (£10) to enter either the American FlintGlass Workers' Union or the United Green-Glass Workers' Union of the United States and Canada, perhaps the most successful of the large unions in keeping up wages and securing a six weeks' summer vacation, and a seven to eight hours' day.

A

The tableware branch of the American FlintGlass Workers' Union presents the only instance known to the writer of an American union openly restricting the number of pieces its members shall make per day on piece-work.

The attitude of the unions toward apprentices attracts much attention in America. The rapid development of machinery and the dislike of both the boy and the employer for the restrictions of a three or four years' apprenticeship have dealt a fatal blow to this system of trade instruction in most trades. In industries where machinery is not the dominating factor, such as glass-making, iron-moulding, type-setting, brick-laying, and stone-work, plumbing, pattern-making, and a few very small trades like tack-making, knife-grinding, and tile-laying, there is a fairly successful effort by the unions to enforce apprenticeship laws, and even in some places to restrict the ratio of apprentices to journeymen. Even in those cases such statistics as have occasionally been gathered by state bureaus of labour statistics, as in Massachusetts in the census of 1885, indicate that there are usually more young men

in training without any formal apprenticeship, and much fewer apprentices than the tradeunion rules would allow. Only about one per cent of American strikes relate to apprenticeship rules, and few of these succeed. Efforts are now being made to create a substitute for the apprenticeship system in manual training in schools.

Many unions have gained concessions from employers by having labels affixed to all goods made by their members. The members of all labour organisations are then urged to buy only such labelled goods, when purchases are made in trades where the label is in use. The secretary of the American federation of labour thus reported at the 1896 convention; "The unions now reporting the union labels are: the cigar-makers, boot and shoe workers, hatters, printers, garment workers, bakers, carriage and waggon makers, sardine packers, salmon fishermen, tobacco workers, tailors, moulders, wood workers, cracker bakers, coopers, flour-mill employés, brewery workers, mattress makers, broom makers, laundry workers, teamsters. The clerks, barbers, and waiters have cards, and the agents a badge. The growth of the union label is steady and sure. It is the back

bone of some of our unions, and a great aid to them all. Label leagues are being instituted in many places, both on local and state lines, and are doing good work."

The trade unions of America have never sustained a broad, ably-edited labour paper, but support scores of monthly journals and a few weeklies devoted to the interests of the trade union which publishes such. A few have been excellent of their kind. A new and somewhat hopeful effort to bring out a strong journal has just resulted in the issue of the Federationist, a monthly organ of the American Federation of Labour.

Among the great organisers and leaders of the American labour movement in the past or present should be mentioned the following, with a word in regard to each. George E. M'Neil of Boston, author of an important history of American labour organisations, entitled The Labour Movement, and one of the first trade unionists to urge the eight hour day.-Uriah S. Stevens, a garment cutter of Philadelphia, and founder of the Knights of Labour in 1869.-Terence V. Powderly of Scranton, Pa., grand master workman of the Knights of Labour from 1879 to 1893.-Adolph Strasser, the virtual creator of the Cigar-Makers' International Union.-P. J. M'Guire of Philadelphia, secretary since 1881 of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners.-Samuel G. Gompers of New York, president since 1882 of the American Federation of Labour.-P. M. Arthur of Cleveland, O., and chief since 1874 of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.

[Reports, constitutions, and magazines, of the organisations treated, and correspondence with their officials.

George E. M'Neill, The Labour Movement.— Richard T. Ely, The Labour Movement in America. Thard Report of the Minnesota Bureau of Labour Statistics.-Report for 1892 of New York

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Bureau of Labour Statistics.-Quarterly Journal of Economics, January 1887, October 1891, July 1893, articles by Carroll D. Wright and Edward W. Bemis.-T. V. Powderly, Thirty Years of Labour.-New York Tribune Almanac for 1894, pp. 282-283, for list of eighty-one American trade unions, with address of secretaries and approximate membership. -Third and Tenth Annual Report of United States Bureau of Labour Statistics.-Reports of the Bureaus of Statistics of Labour of New York State for 1894, 1895, and 1896.-Report of the Michigan Bureau of Labour Statistics for 1896. Journal of Political Economy, June 1894, article, "The Homestead Strike," by Edward W. Bemis. Annals of the American Academy, September 1894, article, "The Relation of Labour Organisations to the American Boy and to Trade Instruction," by Edward W. Bemis.— The Chicago Strike of 1894, report of the National Commission of Carroll D. Wright and others.Revue d'Economie Politique, July 1895, article, "The Chicago Strike of 1894," by Edward W. Bemis.]

E. W. Be.

TRANSHUMANCE is the French name given to the periodical migrations of sheep and cattle from certain regions to others, for instance during summer from valleys to highly situated pasture lands in the mountains. Under this form it is still practised in Provence, Piedmont, in Southern France, where, however, some and Switzerland, though it is falling into disuse income of 0.75 fr. to 1 fr. (say 7d. to 10d.) villages situated in the alpine region derive an per head on sheep pastured on their territory. Since the necessity of replanting the slopes of the Alps became recognised, the French law of 1882 has imposed certain conditions and limitations on the passage and right of pasture of these flocks. Experience, moreover, has shown that it is more profitable to bring cows than sheep into these mountainous regions. French villages of the Département des Hautes Alpes send during the winter their cows to the neighbouring Piedmontese valleys, where the inhabitants feed them and are paid by the milk.

Some

The system of transhumance is only appropriate to a low stage of agriculture, as it is apt to cause extensive damage to the fields through