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covers ordinances of this description. It company, said: "Where dealers seek to reads as follows:

The court cannot undertake to guarantee the company any fixed or certain returns upon its investment. The exercise of such a power would work an utter destruction of the legislative right to regulate rates of water companies and other corporations operating works of public utility. We think the decisions have already gone to the verge of safety in nullifying legislative acts of this character; and to go farther and say that the courts will not only preserve property from confiscation and destruction by legislative power, but will also assure to its owners a definite and fixed rate of profit upon their investment, would be an act of judicial usurpation.

Exorbitant

An aspect of the coal question Coal Prices that deserves immediate attention is that of price. The rich man's present annoyance and difficulty are as to obtaining coal at any price, while the wants of the very poor man have, to a considerable extent at least, been met by provision for the sale of coal in pails at a price not much higher than ordinarily prevails for this kind of trade. But there are a vast number of people who are unwilling to purchase their coal supply by the pailful, to whom, nevertheless, the increase from a fair to an exorbitant price is a very serious burden. It is understood that the operators and wholesale dealers are selling coal at not over $5.50 per ton for domestic purposes; but in New York the retail prices still reach $8 and even $12. Is there no remedy for this? Have the operators no public duty in the matter? It may be said that the retail dealers have a right to a larger profit than usual on account of their losses during the summer, and the cost and trouble of selling coal one ton at a time instead of the larger usual quantities; but, allowing for this, the margin of profit still remains not only large, but, in the opinion of many, extortionate. It is believed by those who understand the trade that the retail dealers depend upon the operators, and that in ordinary times the retail prices are largely governed by the operators' wishes. Now, it will be remembered that the operators have made certain public promises. In one interview Mr. Baer is reported to have said: "There will be plenty of winter coal here at a fair price." On October 23 last Mr. Baer, in a letter to the general manager of his

obtain an unfair profit from the public, you will promptly take steps to supply the reasonable demands of the public directly;" and still later it was generally announced by the press that the coal operators would open agencies in New York, if it were necessary, to bring the price of coal down to $6.50 per ton. It is not necessary to maintain that Government has a right to regulate prices in order to show that when an article of universal need is sold at exorbitant profit-running in this instance from $3 to $6 per ton--the rights of the people to secure the necessities of existence at living prices must be upheld in some manner.

The Duty on

Coal

One way of upholding the people's coal rights is to remove the duty. A correspondent in western Connecticut informs us that, "inspired by The Outlook's editorial [in the issue for December 20] on the duty of Congress and the duty on coal, citizens are circulating this petition in this and several other Connecticut towns:

"To the National Congress: We,undersigned citizens and voters, in view of the widespread want for coal in our homes, our factories, our

schools, and our churches, and in view of the continued high prices of what little coal there is to be had, demand of Congress an immediate suspension of all duties on all coals from outside of our National boundaries, for a period of not less than six months. And that Congress shall do all in its power not only to make the importation of coal free, but also to encourage by all possible means its immediate people. We call upon our local member of importation to meet the serious needs of the Congress to present this petition immediately to the assembled Congress."

He adds: "Men of every class are signing with intense interest and the strongest determination that something shall be done. The signers are merchants, manufacturers, factory hands, professional men, and farmers. I have never seen anything of the kind taken hold of with such unanimity and intensity. The very politicians whom I thought might hesitate, for sup posed prudential partisan reasons, have thrown all such feeling to the winds. A man whom I most expected to hesitate exclaimed: What! sign to suspend the duty on coal for six months? I would be glad to sign to remove such duty forever!" The form of petition which our

correspondent sent us is a convenient one, and we hope that other communities will adopt the method which he describes of bringing the sentiments of the voters directly to the attention of Congress. It is well to write personally to individual Representatives and Senators, but it must be remembered that many citizens will sign a petition who will not venture to take the responsibility, or who cannot take the time, to write a personal letter. We have as yet to see a single sound objection made to the proposal that American citizens should be relieved, at least temporarily, of the illogical and-at the present moment-insufferable burden of being taxed for exercising their right to protect themselves against cold and disease.

The Child Labor Conflict

at the South

One more Southern State seems to have responded to the appeal for legislation restricting the employment of children in factories. In Virginia the House of Delegates has passed an act prohibiting factory labor for children under twelve, and regulating the labor of those between twelve and fourteen. The Senate is likely to concur, and the influence of Virginia be put on the side of those who have so long been struggling for a similar law in Alabama and hope to see the fruits of their labors when their Legislature meets next month. Unfortunately, however, another Southern State nearer than Virginia has kept its influence on the wrong side-the Georgia Legislature having adjourned for four years without enacting the moderate child labor law demanded. As Alabama also now has a Constitution providing for legislative sessions only once in four years, the corporate influences opposed to restriction are likely to take courage from their success in Georgia and fight desperately in Alabama also against any restrictive measure, knowing that the defeat of the reform this year gives them four years more of license, and puts upon the reformers the necessity of keeping up an agitation during a long period when public attention is hard to arouse because no legislative action is possible. This obvious effect of infrequent sessions of the Legislature ought to be considered in the Northern States which are considering the proposed

abandonment of annual sessions. Fortunately, we have no reason to fear that the Alabama reformers will abandon their agitation even if they are defeated this year. A recent letter from one of them says:

I have just returned from a mill where the employees, children and all, are worked for thirteen hours a day-from 5:30 in the morning to 6:30 at night, with but twenty minutes for dinner. The same mill, when it is rushed, works its hands from three to four nights in succession until 9:30 and sometimes 10 o'clock. Such exploitation as this of the physical strength of half-grown children, such deprivation of the pleasures of childhood and of the mental equipment needed for maturer years, are sure to touch the hearts of all who have no pecuniary interests in maintaining the false system, and the supporters of the reform know that they have only to continue their work to succeed. Our correspondent believes that the cause will also appeal to the consciences of those who are financially interested in maintaining the present system, and asks us, so far as we are able, to appeal to the New England stockholders in Southern mills to use their influence with their corporations on the side of humanity. "If," he writes, "the Northern men who are involved in these Southern enterprises will get squarely and explicitly on the side of legislation, every State in the South can have a child-labor law before the first of March."

Damages Awarded Against a Trade-Union

The consternation created in tradeunion circles last year, when the House of Lords decided in the Taff Vale Railway case that a tradeunion could be made a party to a suit, was increased last week when the jury, in a damage suit brought by the same railroad, awarded the company damages to the amount of $135,000 against the union to which its striking employees belongedthe Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants. Until the decision of the House of Lords last year, the historians of labor legislation in Great Britain had uniformly laid it down as a fundamental principle that a trade-union could neither sue nor be sued. In fact, Parliament had so carefully avoided any enactment compromising this principle that it was generally sup posed to have adopted it in its full vigor.

In the case brought before the Law Lords it was only the right of a court to enjoin a union from a certain form of picketing that was directly involved, but the decision that the union as an association could be made the party to a suit carried with it the doctrine that the funds of such an association were liable to attachment in any damage suit that might be brought. In the case decided last week this doctrine was applied. The Amalgamated Society and its officials, including Richard Bell, M.P., have been found guilty of maintaining a system of picketing and terrorism to bring about a strike and prevent the employment of nonunion men, and are held responsible for all damages resulting to the railroad from these actions. These damages, as before stated, are reckoned at 27,000 pounds sterling. In England the situation is likely to call for Parliamentary action defining more precisely just what forms. of picketing a union may employ, and just what acts of individual unionists may be laid at the door of the organization. The English unions have always found Parliament much more friendly to them than the courts, and they naturally expect to do so again, but it does not seem likely to American observers that Parliament will give new sanction to the old doctrine that a union cannot be held legally responsible for its official acts. Certainly in New York State, under the code of civil procedure," unincorporated associations consisting of more than seven members". which have been held to include unincorporated trades-unions-can be sued through actions brought against their presidents and treasurers, and the property of the association bound by the judgments given. The general principle that there can be no power without responsibility is one to which no exception can be made in favor of the labor union.

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back. All these men have been thrown upon the labor market since August. Simultaneously there came slack times and lower wages in the great industrial centers of England and Scotland, espe cially in the engineering and ship-building trades. The various Government factories have also been dismissing men in large numbers since the peace, and as trade generally is showing some decline, the outlook for the industrial population is more gloomy this winter than it has been at any time since 1892-3. At that time the municipalities, at the instigation of the Government, found work for many of the unemployed, and it now seems probable that public works will have to be started to help the growing army of the unemployed over the present winter. While the war was on, it was expected in England that a large number of soldiers would settle in South Africa when peace was declared. The War Office took measures to facilitate such settlements. But the vast majority of the men whose periods of service ended with the war preferred to return and take their chances in the labor market at home. From July to September last there was a considerable working-class emigration to South Africa. There are, however, comparatively few opportunities for an industrial population in South Africa, and many of the men who went out from England are back again and are adding to the congestion of the labor market at home. Many more are stranded in the coast cities of South Africa, and in Cape Town the Government has had to take measures for the relief of these men. In Germany even darker conditions are depicted in the labor reports, though in that country the situation is neither complicated nor explained by returning troops. According to the quarterly bulletin of the New York Department of Labor-the best publication of its kind in the country-it was simply the speculation and overproduction in certain industries" which produced the crisis. Significantly, this speculation and relative overproduction were most marked in the industries controlled by the great syndicates or trusts, which proved no better able than competing concerns to reckon the future market for their products. In Austria, according to a recent despatch from Vienna,

there are "in the iron trade alone one hundred and forty thousand men without employment. Many factories are closed or are running half-time. The authorities fear an epidemic of typhus and far-reaching famine." The Austrian despatch goes on to state that the industrial situation there is causing an enormous emigration to the United States, and our immigration reports here confirm this conclusion. Immigrants to the port of New York are more numerous than ever before, and the height of the tide is the measure not only of prosperity here but of relative adversity abroad. Even from the most selfish standpoint, the hard times abroad are matters for concern here. The army of unemployed there means decreased consumption of American goods, and lower wages there means cheaper production of manufactures to displace American products in the newly gained markets. The industrial world is one body, and a severe injury to one member has in time a weakening effect upon all.

in Germany

Facts are increasing to The Woman Question show that in official circles in Germany a reaction has set in against further concessions in the woman question. In the Fatherland this problem is confined almost entirely to the departments of higher education and public service, and only to a very limited degree has it also a political aspect. Remarkable progress had been made, especially in the attendance of women at the universities. Here the high-water mark of 1,262 was reached one year ago, and even last spring a total of 1,029 was reported. Now only 737 women are enrolled in the twenty-one universities of the country, and the probabilities are that there will be a further decrease, as the authorities in a number of cases have assumed a hostile attitude toward the agitation. Notably is this the case in Berlin, where the conditions for admittance have been made more stringent, with the result that the enrollment decreased from 622 to 370 in a single semester. Still more significant is the fact that the University Senate, in response to a petition to admit women to university privileges on exactly the same footing as the men, has promptly refused

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to do this. This means that not only in Berlin women will not be matriculated, and can attend lectures only as "hearers by special permission, but that probably the majority of these institutions throughout the country will follow the example of the leading Prussian school. As matters now stand, only the Duchy of Baden, with its two territorial universities of Heidelberg and Freiburg, will permit women to matriculate and take a degree with exactly the same conditions that obtain in the case of men. In all of the other universities women cannot become full-fledged students, and can be admitted to examinations only as a special favor. Baden has in general exhibited a marked degree of liberality in extending the privileges of its high schools to women, not only admitting them to its universities, but also to the regular gymnasium or secondary schools at Pforzheim and elsewhere, and even establishing regular colleges for girls, e. g. at Carlsruhe, leading up to the universities. In this latter respect it has been timidly followed by Oldenburg and one or two other smaller States of the German Empire; but as yet nearly all of the girls' colleges in Germany corresponding to the regular classical gymnasium and the scientific Oberrealschule for boys, of which colleges the best are found in Berlin, Leipzig, Breslau, and Hanover, are the work of private enterpri e. As long as the all-powerful State of Prussia shows so little inclination to make real concessions to the movement, but little permanent and tangible gains can be expected. And in Prussia the reaction is seemingly stronger than elsewhere. stronger than elsewhere. In Koenigsberg new restrictions were enacted that virtually exclude women from the medical department, and this example has been followed by Halle and Saxon Leipzig. It is rather remarkable that even where women can matriculate they make little use of this privilege. In Heidelberg, out of 70 women students only 16 are matriculated, and in Freiburg out of 43 only 18. A woman contingent is found at all of the German universities except the three smaller institutions at Greifswald, Münster, and Rostock, the attendance at the others ranging from 370 in Berlin to 2 in Tübingen. This same reactionary tendency appears also in the official decree of the German Imperial Government

directing that henceforth special care shall be taken not to employ weak women in the post-office and telephone departments, nor in the public schools, the statistics of recent years having shown that the phys cal condition of women only in exceptional cases permitted them to do their full duty in these callings, a fact probably explained by the rigorous demands made by the German Government on all of its officials.

and South Africa

The conference on the The Customs Union Customs Union to be held early in the new year will be the first occasion on which there will be a meeting of representatives of the old and new British colonies in South Africa. Cape Colony, Natal, and Cape Colony, Natal, and the Free State were in a Customs Union before the war. The Transvaal had stood outside the Union, and had a tariff with many high duties which pressed heavily on the mining companies and on the commercial and industrial population of Johannesburg and the Rand. From May, 1900, all the Transvaal laws have been in force; although during this time the country has been under British rule. In October, however, the old tariff was revised and many changes made by proclamation issued by Lord Milner. Reductions were made in nearly every instance by these changes, for the revision was undertaken with the object of reducing the inordinately high cost of food supplies and of building materials imported from oversea. Everything except brick and stone which goes into a building in Johannesburg has to be imported from England, Germany, or America. Some idea of what this entails may be realized from a single instance. A barrel of cement which costs five shillings on the dock in London sells for thirty-eight or forty shillings on the Rand. The high price of food and the enormous cost of building material have formed one of the most pressing local questions confronting the High Commissioner since in July last people began to return to Johannesburg. It was to ease these conditions that the Transvaal tariff was revised in October. As it stands it is only a provisional tariff, and it will not be made permanent until after the approaching conference, at which all five colonies-Cape Colony, Natal,

the Transvaal, the Orange River Colony, and Rhodesia-will be represented. Under the existing Customs Union the general rate of duties averages seven and a half per cent. None of the South African colonies has any other productive industry than mining. There is no protection to any industrial interests in the existing tariff; but the Dutch farmers of Cape Colony have adequate protection for home-grown produce, and they have also preferential rates on the railroads, which add considerably to the protection afforded colonial agriculture. In spite of this protection to agriculture, neither Cape Colony nor Natal raises sufficient produce to supply its own needs. In the cities of the older colonies there is a strong feeling that duties on foodstuffs should be reduced, and that any deficit due to these reductions should be made good by ́excise taxes, of which there are none at present. The Transvaal representatives will go into the conference to obtain lower duties on all foodstuffs, but they will meet with much opposition from the Dutch element in Cape Colony, which has always stood out for protection for home-grown produce. For a generation past the Dutch have dictated the tariff policy of Cape Colony, and, owing to the weight of Dutch influence, Cape Colony is likely to be the most difficult colony to deal with in the Customs Union Conference.

Religious Conditions

in the Sudan

For some years the statement has been repeatedly made and as often denied that Lord Kitchener, after destroying the power of the Mahdi and assuming the administration of the Sudan, issued a decree prohibiting Christian missionary work among the Mohammedans in the dependencies confided to his charge; and that this action was later confirmed by Lord Cromer, British Plenipotentiary in Egypt, who, on his first visit. to Khartûm, took occasion to assure the Sudanese Sheiks that there would be no interference with their Muslim faith and religious customs. It has been questioned whether this pledge, if given at all by these proconsuls, has been maintained during the four years which have since elapsed, and whether, as regards a Christian propaganda among the Moham

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