After the strike was at last terminated, and after the necessities of the people in the Western provinces had been met, I returned to Ottawa and made a report to Parliament, in which I emphasized the advisability of devising means whereby (in disputes likely seriously to prejudice the public welfare) the contending parties should be made to meet together and the facts made a matter of public record, where this might be necessary to prevent a lockout or strike, or to give to the public an intelligent appreciation of its cause in the event of either taking place.

It was in the belief that these means, could they be found, would go a long way toward maintaining industrial peace, and that it was the obvious duty of the State to seek these means, that I wrote the report from which the three following paragraphs are taken:

When it is remembered that organized Society alone makes possible the operation of mines to the mutual benefit of those engaged in the work of production, a recognition of the obligations due Society by the parties is something which the State is justified in compelling if the parties themselves are unwilling to concede it. In any civilized community private rights should cease when they become public wrongs. Clearly, there is nothing in the rights of parties to a dispute to justify the inhabitants of a province being brought face to face with a fuel famine amid winter conditions so long as there is coal in the ground and men and capital at hand to mine it. Either the disputants must be prepared to leave the differences which they are unable to settle amicably to the arbitrament of such authority as the State may determine most expedient, or make way for others who are prepared to do so.

Inasmuch as coal is in this country one of the foremost necessaries, on which not only a great part of the manufacturing and transportation industries, but also, as the recent experience has shown, much of happiness and life itself depend, it would appear that if legislation can be devised, which, without encroaching upcn the recognized rights of employers and employees, will at the same time protect the public, the State would be justified in enacting any measure which will make the strike or lockout in a coal mine a thing of the past. Such an end, it would appear, might be achieved, at least in part, were provision made whereby, as in the case of the Railway Labor Disputes Act, all

questions in dispute might be referred to a board empowered to conduct an investigation under oath, with the additional feature, perhaps, that such reference should not be optional but obligatory, and pending the investigat and until the board has issued its finding the

parties be restrained, on pain of penalty, from declaring a lockout or strike.

In view of past experience and the present situation I would, therefore, respectfully recommend that the attention of Parliament be, at as early a date as possible, invited to a consideration of some such or other measure with a view of preventing a possible recurrence of an experience such as this country has been forced to witness during the past month, and of promoting in the interests of the whole people the cause of industrial peace.

The experience of that year was sufficient to ensure a sympathetic hearing from Parliament. Having been requested by the Prime Minister to draft my recommendations in the form of a bill, I did so, making abundant use in some of the sections of existing legislation in Canada and other countries, and supplementing these by such additional provisions as experience seemed to indicate would be in the public interest.

The Department of Labor was not, at that date, as it now is, a separate department of the Government of Canada, but the portfolio of Minister of Labor was held by the Postmaster General. The Honorable Rodolphe Lemieux, M. P.. was Postmaster General and Minister of Labor, and on December 17th, almost within a month of the date of Mr. Ramsay's letter to Sir Wilfrid Laurier quoted above, Mr. Lemieux presented to Parliament the bill embodying the principles and provisions I have outlined. It passed rapidly, practically without amendment, through the House of Commons and Senate and received the Royal Assent on March 22d, becoming law from that time.

As indicated, the bill had its genesis in the coal mine strike, and strong arguments in favor of it were based upon the situation created and the needs of the people in the winter of 1906. But the bill itself was made broad enough to include not coal mines only, but all other enterprises which enter into the services of the public. The underlying idea of it is that any cor

poration, firm, or individual, doing business in what has come to be a necessity of life or essential to the public welfare, must not allow that industry to be paralyzed and its function rendered useless through any dispute without first having made every reasonable effort to settle the dispute, and, at any rate, made the cause of the dispute a public record.

The provisions of the Act are very simple. Whenever a strike or lockout is threatened in any one of these industries, the parties, if unable to adjust their differences amicably, must refer them to a board for settlement before such a strike or lockout can legally take place. If the men are going to strike, they must serve a notice on the Government that unless a board is appointed a strike will take place. If the management proposes a lockout, it must serve a similar notice on the Government. The notice will say that all possible means of arriving at a settlement have been exhausted and pray the Government to appoint a board of investigation. The notice served on the Government must contain a statement of the differences between the parties and a copy of that statement must also go to the other party to the dispute.

When such a notice has been served, in compliance with the terms of the Act, the Minister of Labor calls on each of the parties to name a member of the board. These two members have the opportunity to name a third member who shall be the chairman. If they are unable to agree within a reasonable time, the Minister of Labor himself appoints a chairman. If either party fails to name a member of the board, the Minister of Labor appoints some one to serve on the board as the representative of the party defaulting in making an appointment.

The board has all the powers of a court of record. It may compel the production of documents; it may subpoena witnesses; it may take evidence under oath; but its duty is primarily that of a conciliation board and a board of inquiry and only secondarily that of a court.

After meeting, if a settlement can be effected, the board simply reports to the Government the settlement of the dif

ference. If no settlement is effected, the board publishes a report of the dispute. This is given to the press and public and sent broadcast throughout the land. It sets out the board's opinion of the real trouble, and what, in its opinion, ought to be done to prevent a strike or a lockout.

There the function of the Government ends. There is no compulsion on either party to accept the finding of the board. There is no restraint on the parties. Once they have had this inquiry, they may do just as they please about the strike or lockout. It has so often been thought by persons who are not familiar with its provisions that this Act is in a sense an act of compulsory arbitration, that I am glad to take this opportunity of pointing out that there is not the slightest compulsion placed upon either labor or capital as a result of an investigation conducted under its provisions.

When I say there is no compulsion I mean, of course, no legal compulsion. There is the restraint which the law imposes of delaying an interruption to industry before and pending inquiry, and there is, once an investigation has taken place, the restraining influence of public opinion intelligently formed. If, after investigation, any company, or any group of labor, operating a public utility of any sort, cares to tie up that public utility so that the public have not full and complete use of it, the public at least knows what the causes of the disputes are, and also has an opinion concerning what seems to be the right and the fair thing to do under the circumstances. This restraining influence of public opinion we have found in Canada a very powerful aid to industrial peace; in the last analysis, it is a most powerful element in settling all conflicts between capital and labor.

This original Act of 1907 has been slightly amended since its introduction. As Minister of Labor, I introduced in 1910 an amendment to compel a thirty days' notice to be given by either company or men, where any change of wages or of hours of labor is proposed. The change, if objected to, cannot go into effect till an inquiry has taken place. This clause gives the men opportunity, in case the

company announces a reduction in wages, to appeal to the Government, and also gives the companies a similar opportunity, if the men demand increases in wages or changes in the hours of labor. This is the most important amendment that has been made to the Act. It was made at the request of representatives of labor. It places the burden of showing cause for a change in conditions, if exception be taken, upon the party that proposed the change. Another amendment, made at the same time, concedes to union officials, where a union is recognized by a company, certain privileges in the manner in which applications for the boards are made to the Government.

This legislation is very simple. It is well understood not only by labor and capital, but by the general public. It has led the people to take a closer interest in, and to follow much more in detail, the disputes that arise in Canada. The Act has practically made the people of Canada a party to every dispute in industries that supply public necessities.

This Act has now been on the statute books for more than six years. A complete record of its operation from the end of March, 1907, to the end of March, 1913, shows that during that time there have been, altogether, 145 applications for boards. Of these, 40 have had to do with coal mining, 11 with metal mining; 61 with railroads; 13 with street railways; 7 with shipping; 2 with commercial telegraphers; 2 with telephone workers; 4 with civic laborers; and 5 with industries other than mines or public utilities, such as the boot and shoe industry, which may come under its provisions if the parties acquiesce.

Of the 145 applications for boards received during six years, strikes were averted or ended in all cases save 18; that is to say, in all cases, save, on an average, three in every year. There have been isolated cases where men have struck without knowing that the Act was on the books, but in these cases the differences have been settled under the law almost immediately after its provisions became known.

Of these 145 cases, 18 were settled after application had been made for a

board, but before a board was actually appointed. This is an evidence of the restraining effect of such an Act. In these cases, either one or the other of the parties to the dispute realized that they did not have a good enough case to take before a board, and were prepared, therefore, to make a settlement without further investigation. For the same reason, the actual effect of this law is probably very much wider than the figures seem to indicate. I know from personal knowledge of cases in which, under former conditions, strikes or lockouts would have taken place, but which, because of the fear of publicity through investigation, have been settled and smoothed away by an agreement between the men and the companies without even an application for a board. It is impossible, of course, to assume, with any degree of accuracy, how many disputes have thus been privately settled, which in other years might have become serious. Small disputes, which are perfectly easy to settle in the first place, if not dealt with in time, often grow into tremendous battles between capital and labor, where there is no compelling force or power to bring the parties to a dispute together in amicable conference.

To go back to the records, during the six years following the enactment of this legislation, in 127 cases boards actually held inquiries and reported upon their work. I will outline very briefly some of the details of the settlements that were effected. In considering its application to steam railroads the scope of the law must be kept in mind. It applies not merely to the classes of labor comprising the operating crews of railroads, as is true of the Erdman Act in the United States, but it embraces all classes of persons employed by railroads: roundhouse employees, car builders and repairers, clerks, freight handlers, and so forth.

Limiting the application of the Act to cases where only the operating crews of railroads have been concerned, the record shows that only one strike occasioning any serious interruption to transportation has occurred on the railroads of Canada since the Act was placed on the statute books. That was the Grand Trunk strike of 1910, which took place

after there had been an investigation by a board. It lasted about two weeks and was finally settled very much on the basis recommended by the board. There have There have been, in all, five other strikes of employees of railroads, but none of these has perceptibly affected the public welfare.

In the street railway field we used to have strikes in Canada every year. They were among the worst strikes we have had in the country, by which I mean that they inconvenienced the public more than other strikes, that they not infrequently led to the destruction of a great deal of property, and that they occasionally resulted in the inflicting of permanent injury and, in one or two cases, loss of life itself. Since the passage of this Act, for this period of six years we had only one strike on all the street railway systems of Canada. That was a strike that took place in Winnipeg after a board had made an investigation and that lasted only for a few days and was then settled on the basis of an award made by the board.

Formerly our steamship companies were tied up in the seaports almost every spring as the result of industrial disputes. Since the Act went into effect we have had little or no stoppage in transportation either on the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence, or ocean ports, due to lockouts or strikes.

We used to be troubled, also, with strikes of telegraphers and telephone operators. Since this Act was passed we have suffered no interruption of these important agencies of communication.

I have touched here on the main elements that enter into the transportation and communication systems of the country. It is obvious from the records that in Canada,with the exceptions named, we have had for six years what might be called an all but complete immunity from industrial strife on the agencies of transportation and communication in the Dominion. In mines, the record has not been quite so good, though there, also, it has been very favorable.

If the Act had done nothing more than perceptibly to minimize the yearly average of industrial disputes it would be deserving of being classed not only as a

successful piece of legislation but as a law that had conferred upon the people of the whole Dominion a security in industrial affairs hitherto unknown. But it has done more than this; it has maintained industrial peace to a degree the money value of which it is impossible to estimate.

If one asks whether this system of compulsory investigation, which we have made a law, does not work hardship upon either capital or labor, or perhaps upon both, the only reply that need be made is that leaders of both industry and of labor have over and over again endorsed the Act as sound, fair, and equitable. The managers of the companies are almost unanimous in the approval which they give to its provisions. Some labor officials have opposed its provisions, but such labor leaders as Mr. Calvin Lawrence, the legislative representative of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, Mr. E. J. Dowley, the legislative representative of the Brotherhood of Firemen and Enginemen; Mr. John Maloney, the legislative representative of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen; and Mr. D. Campbell, of the Order of Railroad Telegraphers, have endorsed the Act strongly. Mr. A. B. Lowe, president of the International Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, said in a letter to the Department of Labor, in 1910, "My opinion of the Act itself has never changed-that it is one of the best pieces of legislation that has been passed (to my knowledge) in the interests of industrial peace." That it has met with the approval, and surpassed the expectations, of the general public, is beyond all question.

Nor is the success which has attended this legislation and its general acceptance a matter of wonder when one considers a few fundamental truths on which it is based and which it helps to exemplify. One is that in the carrying out of all legislation, men are more important than measures. The Canadian Act, by according to each of the parties its own representatives on boards of inquiry, and permitting them to appear in person to aid in the work of conciliation and investigation, ensures a degree of sympathy with the Act and all that takes place under it which

would not be possible in the case of a statute more mechanically administered.

Another truth is that in evoking confidence, personality is a more potent element than policy. The Canadian Act is not dependent upon precedent; in the carrying out of its provisions, on the other hand, it permits a range of the whole Dominion in the selection of the persons best qualified to deal with a particular situation.

Furthermore, publicity as a means of preventing and redressing wrong is often more effective than penalty. It is a fact of human nature that however mean and contemptible men may be as individuals, collectively and in the light of day they hesitate to have their actions so appear. The Canadian Act, by ensuring the widest publicity, prevents the mean man from profiting because of his meanness.

Lastly, as Edmund Burke has said, "Justice is the common concern of mankind." The Canadian Act, by recogniz ing the public as a party immediately concerned in the prevention of industrial wrongs, helps to ensure that measure of justice in the investigation of industrial differences which makes the verdict of public opinion, or the fear of it, all-powerful as an element in the maintenance of industrial peace.

The Canadian statute may have its shortcomings and limitations, but being in its essentials an instrument calculated to ensure fair play between employer and employed in situations in which the public is immediately and immeasurably affected, it bids fair to become more and more, as time goes on, a not less welcome than efficient means of maintaining industrial peace.

T

HERE may be several ways of accounting for Miss Gertrude Breckenridge Beeks, and she is worth accounting for.

She was sent by President Roosevelt and Secretary of War Taft to Panama in 1907, to make investigation and give expert advice upon the social life, food, and housing of American employees there. In 1913, she was chosen by the New York University's School of Commerce to organize and head the first systematic course in welfare work ever given in the history of education. These are two specific items in her career. In general, she is acknowledged as probably the foremost welfare worker in America to-day, having organized and developed the Employers' Welfare Department of the National Civic Federation, of which

she is nominally secretary and actually the very pulse.

During her presidency of the National Association of Business Women, Miss Beeks found that Chicago offered no suitable lunchroom for business women of a fairly prosperous class. She thought the matter over, then proceeded to bring together three elements, namely, a few people who could furnish financial backing for the start; a set of pleasing Dutch-blue dishes; and some excellently broiled chops. The enterprise was launched, was patronized, and it paid. What it taught her of the needs of the worker and of economic management was the basis of all she has done since.

At that time welfare work was new, and its advocates were without a definite idea of where it would lead. In a few