the tentative efforts in London of "kind people wishing to do good," and was even more promising when started from the two typical beginnings (a) from the side of the employer, (b) from the side of the employed in actual business. He held that the advantages of Labour Co-partnership would mean more than a mere alteration in the mechanism of production and distribution, for there would be something not only of conciliation of interests, but also of moral and intellectual education. Dealing with the question of loss sharing by wage earners, he said that where the cause of loss is not general depression, but mistakes of workmen or managers, there may be equity in throwing the burden of the loss on those who caused it. But wages are matters of contract, and it is well that they should remain so, especially in the case of the less skilled workmen. They are the condition of mere existence, rather than of well-being. He further dealt with the mutual distrust of employers and employed, excessive work, insecurity of the workman's position, displacement of labour by inventions, the evils of sweated trades, and the serious disadvantages of unskilled as compared with skilled labour under the present system. In reply to the objection that these societies are few in number, and have succeeded in only a few trades, he said it was not realized how extensively the seed had been sown, and he gave a list of the chief developments of labour co-partnerships, which are full of encouragement for the future.

The Bishop of Rochester presided over a large and enthusiastic public meeting held the same evening. His Lordship was supported by Earl Grey, Mr. George Harwood, M.P., Sir James Kitson, M.P., the Vicar of Leeds, and many others. The Bishop, after pointing out the special work and value of labour co-partnerships, said that there were reasons for profound dissatisfaction with many of the results of the present organization of economical and social life. It was not merely the great inequalities of wealth and poverty, but the tearing apart and setting one against the other the different ranks and classes of society, and the withdrawal from the world of labour of much that lent to it brightness and hope. They should be very ready to welcome anything which really gave them a prospect of making advances in these directions. The hopeful thing about English thought to-day was that we were not looking for an improvement of the working classes merely from changes of structure, but were realizing that we had to aim at a gradual improvement of existing conditions. Thus labour co-partnership begins with things as they are, and bit by bit endeavours to transform the whole tone and character of our industrial system.

Earl Grey in a vigorous speech declared that the industrial life of England was as much in need of the gospel of honesty and efficiency as the public life of America. An industrial system which tended to introduce and, in a certain sense, to support such dishonest methods as the widespread practice of illicit commissions, called for investigation and reform. One of the most effective remedies would be found in the general adoption of labour co-partnership. Mr. Geo. Harwood, M.P., spoke of the want of hope and the stifling monotony in the present lot of the worker. Labour co-partnership brought into the workshop the spirit of brotherhood, the stimulus of new interests, and the moral elevation of true social service. Councillor O'Connellan, Secretary of the Leeds Trades Council, also supported labour copartnership in a practical speech.

There was present at the meeting a vigorous, though not a numerous, body of socialists, who at various stages of the proceedings expressed their dissent from some of the speeches. But the meeting as a whole was in cordial sympathy with its purpose, and cannot fail to have a considerable educational effect.

R. HALSTEAD.

ACCIDENTS TO WORKMEN.'-In respect of workmen's accidents the industrial world of France finds itself at the present moment very much in the same position as our own; that is, it has had a new law imposed upon it, notoriously incomplete and notoriously defective, but effective as firmly establishing the principle of what has been called the risque professionnel, and making the employer directly liable, within certain limits, for damage befalling his workmen in connection with their work. Both laws are the result of agitation carried on in the interest of the working classes. Both laws were adopted with a view to propitiating working-men voters. Both laws are admittedly wanting in breadth of application, and both bear upon them otherwise the unmistakable stamp of a compromise effected, so to speak, in the dark, without the command of anything like sufficient data. We are studying the ascertainable results of our new Act; the Government has shown its sense of the value of such inquiry by recently publishing a return of business transacted before the courts-which return, unfortunately, practically tells nothing. 1 La Loi du 9 Avril, 1898, sur Les Accidents Industriels. Par A. Vassart et A. Nouvion-Jacquet. [600 pp. 8vo. 12 francs. Larose. Paris, 1899.] La Loi du 9 Avril, 1898, sur Les Accidents du Travail. de Législation Industrielle à la Faculté de Droit de Lyon. Paris, 1898.]

Par P. Pic, Professeur [59 pp. 8vo. Larose.

Under these circumstances the observations offered upon the shortcomings of the French Act-which only came into force on July 1by three so peculiarly qualified men as a distinguished professor of industrial legislation, a practising barrister in a large industrial centre, and a typical employer of labour, accepted as an authority on questions of employment, cannot come to us as otherwise than opportune. As it happens, the shortcomings complained of in some instances bear a striking resemblance to those with which we are, under our own Act, brought face to face.

The French law was, after a very long period of incubation, at the last moment launched upon the world in the very hottest haste. Parliament was about to be dissolved. And the unanimous vote of 520 deputies given for the Bill in its final shape on March 26, 1898, accordingly expresses rather the common sense of a closely impending election, than an appreciation of the merits of the measure. There had been much discussion before. Like our own employers, the French employers and their friends exhibited the greatest possible reluctance to bow under the iron rule of compulsion. They desired to remain free to insure or not, as they might choose, facing at their own option the alternative of prosecution at law, no matter whether the security of the workmen be compromised by such settlement or not. Though making a wry face over it, they were willing, indeed, to subscribe to the principle of the risque professionnel, as a pious opinion or theory. But as to giving practical effect to that theory, they could not agree to anything of the sort. At most would they allow insurance to be obligée, that is, made indirectly compulsory, by reason of the indisputable advantages that it might be made to offer, which would, so it was judged, push employers to resort to it. Tout comme chez nous. To act otherwise would be to recognize the superiority of a German method, which to Frenchmen would obviously be infra dignitatem, and to accept "state-socialism." In the teeth of the latter objection the employers were content to allow the French law to be made almost the most socialistic law yet passed, inasmuch as the State is thereby appointed both receiver of contributions and payer of compensations, and quâ State the guarantor of the payor's solvency, which it safeguards by means of a levy made, in the shape of an industrial licence duty, upon all employers of labour.

The two publications here noticed are very different in size, scope, and aim. That which has MM. Vassart and Nouvion-Jacquet for its authors is a bulky volume, giving the whole history of the movement which has resulted in the law of April 9, quoting the text of that

law, explaining the meaning and effect of every clause, both from a lawyer's and from an industrial man's point of view, discussing general principles and indicating defects. Professor Pic's pamphlet is a short, but remarkably pithy, summary of the case presented. But the case is under both methods of treatment the same, as the criticisms are in substance identical. The law is shown to be lamentably insufficient, just because, in leaving the employer too free a hand, it does in one important respect very much less than justice to the labourer. The narrowness of its application, the faulty tariff of compensation in the case of death, which, as among ourselves, makes it the employer's interest to employ unmarried workmen or (in France) foreigners, and so tends to drive married workmen out of employment-and the state-socialist method of collection and making the community the ultimate surety for the employer, are additional, and very serious and weighty defects. The chief gravamen, however, in the opinion of all three writers, is this, that the law does not say to the employer "thou must," as well as "thou shalt." Even with the State behind the employer to answer for him, the workman has no sufficient guarantee that funds will be forthcoming to meet his claim; moreover, the burden is bound to press unequally upon different employers, and no effective inducement is held out for the prevention of accidents. The only method by which full justice can be done, so the authors show, is by grouping employers together so as to produce collective liability and mutual control, and to make insurance and the provision of funds, in some form or other compulsory. I have myself already, in these very pages, criticized the French Compensation Law in the same sense. It is satisfactory to

find one's own opinions shared by men of so high authority. The two books are certainly worth reading.

HENRY W. WOLFF.

THE CO-OPERATIVE CONGRESS, this year, was held at Liverpool for propagandist purposes. While co-operation has been especially successful in manufacturing centres, which possess a more settled industrial population, it has hitherto made little progress in the great commercial centres. In a paper entitled, "How to make Co-operation succeed in Large Centres of Population," Mr. E. O. Greening pointed out that, while in 50 manufacturing towns of moderate size in Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Cheshire there are 300,000 co-operators, or one in five of the population, in 15 great commercial centres of over 100,000 inhabitants there are only 183,000 co-operators, or one in nineteen, and in 23 leading seaports only one in thirty. In the Liverpool district

itself there were, in 1898, only 5777 members belonging to six different societies.

The exhibition of co-operative goods was held in the St. George's Hall, in the centre of the city, and was opened by the Lord Mayor of Liverpool. There were seventy productive and distributive societies with productive departments, besides the two great wholesale societies of England and Scotland, showing exhibits. The Lord Mayor, in a sympathetic address, emphasized "the high spirit of humanity, the very lofty purpose of improving character and enlisting one large class of the community in a broader and wiser support of all national undertakings," as the features that commended co-operation to the public at large.

The opening meeting of Congress took place on Whit Monday, in Hope Hall, when some eleven hundred delegates were present, the largest number that ever attended Congress. Mr. F. Hardern, J.P., delivered the presidential address, in which he gave some interesting figures as to the progress of the movement during the last decade. Societies had reached the number of 1640, with a membership of 1,646,078. The share capital amounted to £19,759,000, sales to £65,460,000, profits to £7,165,000, and investments to £11,681,000. The productive side of the movement had also made considerable progress. Societies had grown 93 per cent. in numbers, 36 per cent. in members, 49 per cent. in shares, 70 per cent. in sales, and 106 in profits; while the two wholesale productive departments had increased their sales from £298,040 to £2,739,655, or 819 per cent. These latter figures are rather terrible in their significance, and we may well ask whither this great centralized system of manufacture is tending. The Scottish Wholesale has introduced the system of sharing profits with its employees, and giving them a voice in management; but the English Wholesale still conducts its manufacturing enterprise on the usual capitalistic lines, and in many ways hinders rather than helps the independent productive societies. The President, in conclusion, noticed the lack of educational work in 55 per cent. of the distributive societies, insisted on the danger of the movement growing stagnant with prosperity, and appealed with great force to the necessity of getting hold of the vast poorer population still untouched. The most thrilling event of the first meeting was the address of Madame Treub, the wife of Professor Treub, who brought a message of love and

admiration from Dutch sisters."

At the afternoon meeting the otherwise calm waters of Congress were slightly ruffled by the protest made by Captain Bryan, on behalf of the Irish agricultural organization, against the action of the English Wholesale in establishing creameries in Ireland. English co-operators