vidual initiative. Industry is too complex and too highly organized to permit a return to the old system of decentralized control. And since the only substitute for the old system of individual control is collective control, it appears to be inevitable that government regulation of business will become a fixed policy in all democratic states. The laissez faire policy is supposed to favor progress by allowing producers to make such changes in business methods as may be prompted by the desire for larger profits. The doctrine as ordinarily accepted contains at least two erroneous assumptions, viz., (1) that any innovation in production which makes it possible for the capitalist to secure a larger return is necessarily an improvement in the sense of augmenting the average efficiency of labor, and (2) that policies are to be judged solely by their economic effects. Even if non-interference resulted in industrial changes which in all cases increase the efficiency of labor, it would not follow that such changes are, broadly considered, always beneficial. Before drawing any sweeping conclusion we must consider all the consequences direct and indirect, immediate and remote, political and social as well as economic. Hence the ordinary test-the direct and immediate effect upon productive efficiency-is not a satisfactory one. Moreover, many changes in the methods or organization of business are designed primarily to alter distribution in the in

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terest of the capitalist by decreasing wages or by raising prices. In so far as a policy of non-interference permits changes of this sort, it is clearly harmful to the community at large, though advantageous to a small class.

In all democratic countries the conservative classes are beginning to realize that their ascendency in production is imperiled by the ascendency of the masses in the state. It thus happens that in the hope of checking or retarding the movement toward regulation of business in the interest of the people generally, they have taken refuge behind that abandoned tenet of democracy, the doctrine of non-interference.

At the same time they strongly favor any deviation from this policy which will benefit themselves. This is exemplified in their attitude in this country toward our protective tariff system, which, as originally adopted, was designed to encourage the development of our national resources by offering the prospect of larger profit to those who would invest their capital in the protected industries. Under a capitalistic system development naturally follows the line of greatest profit, and for this reason any protective tariff legislation which did not augment the profits of the capitalist would fail to accomplish its purpose. This was recognized and frankly admitted when the policy was first adopted. Later, however, when the suffrage was extended and the

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laboring class became an important factor in national elections the champions of protection saw that the system would have to be given a more democratic interpretation. Thus the Whig platform of 1844 favored a tariff “discriminating with special reference to the protection of the domestic labor of the country." This was, however, the only political platform in which the labor argument was used until 1872, when the Republican party demanded that "duties upon importations . . . should be so adjusted as to aid in securing remunerative wages to labor, and promote the industries, prosperity, and growth of the whole country." Protection, since that time, has been defended, not as a means of augmenting profits, but as a means of ensuring high wages to American workers. The interests of the wagereceiving class, however, were far from being the chief concern of those who were seeking to maintain and develop the policy of protection. It was to the capitalist rather than the wage-earner that the system of protection as originally established made a direct appeal, and it was primarily in the interest of this class that it was maintained even after the labor argument came to be generally used in its defense. The capitalist naturally favored a policy that would discourage the importation of foreign goods and at the same time encourage the importation of foreign labor. It was to his advantage to keep the labor market

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open to all who might wish to compete for employment, since this would tend to force wages down and thus give him the benefit of high prices.

Any system of protection established in the interest of labor would have excluded all immigrants accustomed to a low standard of living. But as a matter of fact the immigration of cheap foreign labor was actively encouraged by the employers in whose interest the high tariff on foreign goods was maintained. The efforts of the wageearning class to secure for themselves some of the benefits of protection by organizing to obtain an advance or prevent a reduction in wages was largely defeated through the wholesale importation of cheap foreign labor by the large manufacturing, mining and transportation companies. The agitation against this evil carried on by the labor unions finally resulted in the enactment by Congress of legislation forbidding the importation of labor under contract of employment. This, however, did not, and even if it had been efficiently enforced, would not have given the American workingman any real protection against cheap foreign labor. The incoming tide of foreign immigration has been rising and the civic quality of the immigrant has visibly declined. The free lands which formerly attracted the bestclass of European immigrants are now practically a thing of the past, and with the disappearance of this opportunity for remunerative self-employ

ment the last support of high wages has been removed. With unrestricted immigration the American laboring man must soon be deprived of any economic advantage which he has heretofore enjoyed over the laboring classes of other

countries.

There has been one notable exception to this immigration policy. The invasion of cheap Asiatic labor upon the Pacific coast aroused a storm of protest from the laboring population, which compelled Congress to pass the Chinese Exclusion Act. But this legislation, while shutting out Chinese laborers, has not checked the immigration from other countries where a low standard of living prevails. In fact the most noticeable feature of the labor conditions in this country has been the continual displacement of the earlier and better class of immigrants and native workers by recent immigrants who have a lower standard of living and are willing to work for lower wages. This has occurred, too, in some of the industries in which the employer has been most effectually protected against the competition of foreign goods.1

In the year 1857 over 37 per cent. of the immigrants arriving in the United States were from Germany, and over 39 per cent. were from Great Britain and Ireland. The bulk of our foreign immigration continued to come from these two countries until about 1886 or 1887. In 1890 these countries together contributed but little more than 47 per cent. of our foreign immigrants, and in 1904 but 17 per cent. Italy, including Sicily and Sardinia, supplied but 6 per cent. of the total number of immigrants in 1886 and 23 per cent. in 1904.