hand there were more strikes in 1890 than in 1900, and the average annual number of strikes in the five years 1886-1890 was 1,406 as compared with 1,390 in the five years 1896-1900. The similar averages for the employees involved, were 369,200 and 385,564, respectively, an increase of less than 5 per cent. Although there has been undoubtedly a large increase in strikes since 1900, this increase is probably due to temporary conditions, and taking one year with another, there is no reason to distrust the plain testimony of the figures that strikes are not increasing as rapidly as the industrial population. -- 4. Trade Unions and the Strike: The relative decrease of strikes is undoubtedly due, I think, to improvement in the organization and personnel of the trade union. Before a strike can be declared in our larger and stronger trade unions, the local officers must attempt to settle the difficulty by amicable agreement, the local union must approve the strike by a secret ballot in which a two-thirds vote is often necessary to support the strike, the national president must be called in to attempt a peaceful settlement, and then, if all these negotiations fail, the strike must be approved by the national officers or the board of directors before it can be declared. All this means increasing control by the national unions whose officers are not only as a rule much more intelligent and conservative than the local officers, but have much more to lose in place, power and prestige, by an unsuccessful strike. Labor leaders are often charged with inciting satisfied workmen to strike, and the charge is true in part; they often do encourage fairly well satisfied men to strike when times are good and the prospect of winning excellent. But we too often forget the strikes they discourage or prevent when times are hard, and workmen dissatisfied, ready for strikes or even violence. The trade union makes for the regulation, not for the suppression of strikes; for their encouragement in season, for their discouragement out of season; but on the whole its influence is conservative. If we are to maintain an attitude of impartiality, all these truths must be acknowledged. Nearly forty years ago, in 1866, the committee on strikes of the great National Labor Union reported as its "deliberate opinion that, as a rule, they [strikes] are productive of great injury to the laboring classes; that many have been injudicious and ill-advised and the result of impulse rather than of principle and reason; that those who have been the fiercest in advocacy have been the first to advocate submission." As late as 1880 the National Convention of the Knights of Labor formally resolved that: "It is the opinion of our order that strikes are, as a rule, productive of more injury than benefit to working people; consequently all attempts to foment strikes will be discouraged." To-day all this is This rather complex statement seems to be borne out by the fact that although strikes are much more frequent in Great Britain and the United States than in the continental countries of Europe, in whichwith the possible exception of Denmark-labor organization has not reached such a high degree of development, they are, nevertheless, decreasing in the two first named countries. According to the Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol. XVII, p. cxxix, the annual number of strikers per 10,000 of the industrial population is about 336 in the United States. 276 in Great Britain, 183 in France, 150 în Austria, 138 in Italy and 111 in Germany. changed, and the Industrial Commission summing up the testimony of the most prominent labor leaders on this subject aptly and correctly says: "While the most intelligent and conservative labor leaders freely recognize the expensiveness of strikes, and desire to supplant them as far as possible with peaceful methods of negotiation, they. almost universally maintain that workingmen gain, îñ the long run, far more than they lose by the general policy of striking." This then is the first truth: that the strike of the past was for the most part sporadic, violent and passionate, a resentful rebellion against conditions regarded as too grievous to be longer endured, while to-day the strike has become a business proposition, a deliberate demand formulated when the time is ripe, an index of prosperity. The second truth is that this calculating regulation has lessened not only the violence but even the relative number of strikes. In Table II, which follows, the strikes ordered by labor organizations are compared with those not ordered by organizations. Of the "organized" or "union" strikes there were 4,358 in the five years 18861890, and only 4,175 in the five years 1896-1900. Of the "unorganized" or "non-union" strikes, there were 2,319 in the former period, but 2,560 in the latter period. The "union" strikes decreased 4 per cent. ; the "non-union" strikes increased 10 per cent. And as our trade unions get stronger and older, it is very probable that the strike will be even more vigorously restricted, because it is the new and poorly organized unions which foment strikes. TABLE II SHOWING THE RESULTS OF STRIKES ORDERED BY ORGANIZATIONS AND THOSE NOT ORDERED BY ORGANIZATIONS: 1881-1900 9.6 34.1 18.4 17.3 1898. 638 69.7 6.2 24.1 1899 . 1,115 76.3 14.2 9.5 682 1900 . 1,164 48.1 21.9 30.0 615 29 29.9 Total. 14,457 52.9 13.6 33.5 8,326 418 34.0 7.6 58.4 36.6 14.9 48.5 35.6 9.0 55.4 Table II not only emphasizes the superior success of the "organized" strike, but it contains strong evidence of that deliberate regulation of strikes which has been emphasized in the preceding paragraphs. Compare the number and results of the two classes of strikes in the industrial depression which began in 1893. The labor organizations, realizing that conditions were not auspicious, steadily restricted the number of strikes, with the result that in this period of stagnation the percentage of successful strikes was actually higher than in normal years (53.88 per cent. during 1893-1897 as contrasted with 52.86 per cent. during 1881-1900). Among the "unorganized" strikes, however, the movement was reversed. As times grew hard and wages fell, the discontent of the unorganized workmen vented itself in an increased number of strikes, with the inevitable result of a diminution in the percentage of successful strikes (32.82 per cent. during 1893-97; 35.56 during 1881-1900). 5. Causes of Strikes: In Table III, which follows, valuable information is given concerning the cause of strikes, and the success or failure of the various kinds of strikes. Among other interesting data, information is given concerning the three species of strikes upon which the public seems to have set the seal of its disapprobation: the sympathetic strike, the strike against the employment of non-union men, and the strike to compel the employer to accept the union regulations regarding apprenticeship and other details of his business. The figures show that these three kinds of strikes together constitute only about |