the lock-out was shortly after, in the latter end of August, extended to several other trades, as, for instance, the tailors.

At last, after lengthy proceedings, and under a growing pressure of public opinion, a compromise was made in the first days of September, based chiefly on the proposal of the three gentlemen who have with great energy sacrificed many hours of patient work to prevail upon the fighting parties to make peace. Fortunately enough neither of the parties can boast of being the victor. The two great organizations acknowledge each other, and promise to take an equal part in securing the best conditions of labour, and by-and-by to educate the working men to a better order in the workshops and factories. Steps have been taken to avoid similar conflicts in the future, and both sides have mutually agreed, probably with the tacit assent of the Government, to recommend that an act should be passed as soon as possible to establish an arbitration board.

The economic influence of the lock-out will doubtless be very great. Several trades are partially dependent on export to foreign countries, and may now be defeated by the various industries abroad. But still greater will be the moral effect. The behaviour of the working men has been remarkable. On June 5th, the fiftieth anniversary of the Danish Constitution, great crowds of working men gathered on the Copenhagen commons, a mass meeting greater perhaps than any one before. Many had looked forward to this day with some anxiety, but on observing the discipline and order in the ranks of the working men marching along the streets, with their standards in front, and the silence of the crowds listening to the speakers, the fright changed into admiration. The Danes are a quiet, law-abiding people, not very apt to make riots. Still, at the bottom of their hearts there is a growing bitterness, especially in the trades which involuntarily were involved in the conflict; and this is probably one of the reasons of the lock-out lasting so long, the bitterness making the working men unwilling to give way.

On the other hand, bridges have been built where there used to be a deep cleft. Thus several clergymen in Copenhagen have lectured for the excluded working men, and arranged church concerts for them. The gratitude with which these efforts were received was simply touching. On the whole, the expressions of sympathy with the working men from the part of many persons of the better-off classes has broken down many a prejudice which had grown in the hearts of the working men during several years' conflict between capital and labour. It would no longer be looked upon as a strange idea that a clergyman should take a seat upon a board of conciliation. On the whole, the VOL. IX.-No. 4. 2 M

Christian social work in Denmark described in a previous number of this Review has been on a touch-stone during the lock-out. Of course many earnest Christians still look on this work with great anxiety, fearing that it may prove a failure, and, moreover, only result in a weakening instead of a deepening of spiritual life. It has often been maintained that we ought to have kept a strict neutrality, and from the side of the employers our criticism of the lock-out has often been watched with bitterness. A certain weekly paper even proposed that I ought to be dismissed from my position as a university professor on account of a public address in which I discussed the moral effects of the lock-out! But what has been lost in this respect has, I feel sure, been more than outweighed by the numerous expressions of sympathy which have been made, and by the growing understanding among the working classes of the value of Christian social work.

HARALD WESTERGAARD.

ILLICIT COMMISSIONS.-By its efforts in favour of the Merchandise Marks Act, and by its establishment of a system of commercial education, and of a successful conciliation board for the settlement of disputes between employers and employed, the London Chamber of Commerce has done work of national moment. But it may be doubted whether this body ever better served the higher interests of English commerce than when it appointed, as a committee on illicit commissions, the chairman or vice-chairman of no fewer than twenty trade sections of the Chamber. Lord Russell's bill is based on their report, and incorporates in its preamble the ipsissima verba of their terrible verdict on the evidence which their inquiries elicited. "Whereas secret commissions in various forms are prevalent to a great extent in almost all trades and professions, and in some trades the said practice has increased, and is increasing; and whereas the said practice is producing great evils, by corrupting the morals of the community, and by discouraging honest trade and enterprise, etc."

In the cautious speech in which the Lord Chancellor, while deprecating panic, welcomed the bill subject to alterations of detail, a doubt was expressed as to whether its preamble was not a little too sweeping in its allegations of corruption; but, on the whole, there has been scarcely any disposition either in or out of Parliament to question the serious and widespread character of the evil at which it is levelled. The mass of evidence accumulated by the London committee, the scandals which have emerged in the law courts, the specific practices which have been exposed in the press by such articles as that which

appeared in the number of this Review for April, 1896, the more general allegations of men like Sir Edward Fry, who know life, express, there can be little doubt, in detail, and with definiteness, the vague impressions and surmisings of the public at large.

At any rate, the indictment framed by the Committee of the London Chamber of Commerce cannot be easily set aside. It is based on the replies to communications which were sent to its members, to the various trade associations and chambers of commerce, and to the general public by the insertion of a letter which was published in the various trade journals, and in the press generally, asking for information. Forty-seven excerpts from the evidence thus elicited are printed as an appendix to the Report. It would appear that, while corruption varies as to its extent, being in some cases general, and in others exceptional, hardly any trade or profession is entirely exempt. Engineers, architects, lawyers, stockbrokers, chemists, textile producers, jewellers, land-agents, bailiffs, and many others appear in this list of evildoers. I will quote two instances at random. "The head of a large firm of printers writes that commissions are given, to a serious extent, in the manufacturing of printer's ink. Ink-makers have told me extraordinary stories of the intentional waste of ink in order to increase the use of it, and so increase the commission." "There are very few contracting firms," wrote a civil engineer to the Times, "who do not, as they term it, provide for the engineer in every contract they take." This latter charge, terrible as it is, passed unchallenged and undenied (p. 28). It is useless to multiply instances. In the words of the Times (Sept. 26, 1896)," there is no serious dispute about the facts." The evil is admitted. Can anything be done to eradicate, or, at least, to check its progress? The London Chamber of Commerce do not look upon, the matter as hopeless. They point out (Report, § 12) that at one time the House of Commons was in the pay of the Crown, that the bench was not above suspicion, and that commissions, and other secret forms of bribing, abounded in the Government departments. They hold that the discussion of the subject and the publicity of some cases in the law courts have already done some good, and they, further, make several suggestions to the same end :

1. That all professional and trade bodies should follow the example of the Institute of Architects, and pass a bye-law for the expulsion of members convicted of the practice of receiving commissions (§ 18).

2. That traders should make with all with whom they deal a definite agreement, similar to that used by the Calico Printers'

The chief feature of this article was its detailed explanation of the method by which institutions are sometimes robbed by those who contract for their supplies.

Association, that nothing in the form of a commission should be offered or given (§ 19).

3. That the same condition should be definitely expressed in all agreements for service or agency (§ 20).

4. That warning circulars should be sent to those concerned (§ 21). Instances are mentioned of such circulars being sent by a nurseryman to gardeners, and by householders to tradesmen.

5. Above all, they emphasize the good that may be accomplished by the enforcement of the civil rights of the principal (§ 16). They have printed a valuable and carefully constructed legal appendix which contains an introduction to the law of the matter, and an account of twenty-one cases. From this it appears that the civil law is exceedingly strong. The rights of the principal are summarized in the Report itself (§ 16). There is (i.) the right of recovery of any secret commission received by the agent. If one item of the accounts is shown to be fraudulent, the agent must restate and verify them on oath. (i.) The right of dismissal without notice. (iii.) The right to repudiate any contract entered into through a bribed agent. (iv.) The right to recover any sum in excess or defect of market price. (v.) A contracting party, whose agent has been bribed during the execution of the contract, may, in spite of its being in part performed, repudiate it, and has a right of recovery against both the briber and the bribed. It may be added (introduction, § 3, and case 11) that when an agent is shown to be interested, the burden of proof is on him to show that he made a full disclosure of material facts. It is encouraging to know that in one conspicuous case a firm which asserted its civil rights reaped considerable commercial advantage from so doing. After a successful action for recovery on the ground of bribery, Mr. Oetzman found his firm "benefited immensely by being able to buy cheaper. Immediately we had many manufacturers calling upon us . . . who said, now there is a chance of their doing business with us" (Report, $17).

If this be the case, how is it, it may be asked, that the civil law is inadequate to check the evil? The answer would seem to be that in most cases either the bribery is too difficult to prove, or the sum to be recovered too small to justify the risks which legal action in such a matter must always entail. The result is that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the prospect of an action is too remote to exercise a restraining effect. The difficulty of moving in the matter is well illustrated by a letter which I recently received from a member of a firm of exceptionally high repute for the personal character of the acting partners who are well known and much respected public men.

If they could not act without detriment to their interests, it is probable that very few could do so.

"In the cases which have annoyed me, a low type man on a smallish wage has been set to examine goods as they go in from the manufacturer. He has, by ingenious faultfinding, found a plausible reason for returning them, though one has known them to be up to the usual standard. He does not frankly ask for five shillings, but you are conscious that that will square him, and all will be settled. If you make inquiries among other sellers, you learn that your experience is theirs, and they tell you you cannot sell to that firm unless you pay toll. If you know the principal well, you may venture to name the matter-a risky thing to do, and probably he will laugh, and do nothing, apparently not averse to the seller being mulcted in this way. At the best you find that he has looked into the thing, and your goods are passed, but probably that is your last transaction with that firm. There are so many little ways in which a man with whom you are not persona grata can stop your chance of orders."

We are thus driven back upon the suggestion of the Committee (§ 13), that the Chamber should consider the question whether the Corrupt Acts, which are at present only illegal, should be made by fresh legislation criminal. In the interesting speech in which the Bishop of London supported Lord Russell's bill, he answered two objections which might be urged against such a course: "He had rather a high view of the functions and possibilities of legislation. It was true that a man could not be made virtuous by Act of Parliament, but evils could be removed from his path. . . . One function of the law, at all events, was that it should express the public conscience, and so it should break corrupt conventions. . . . These conventions could not be attacked by legislation until they had reached a point at which they were ready to fall, and on this question of corrupt practices he thought that the conventions of trade had reached the point when they were ready to fall if a sufficient impulse were given to them." "It was useless to say that the law had not succeeded in the past. The law had succeeded. There was one class of the community which was above suspicion in this matter, and an Act of Parliament had been passed to enforce upon public bodies the same standard which prevailed among those who bore her Majesty's commission." The Bishop

of Winchester, who followed, also urged the important point raised by the Bishop of London-that Lord Russell's bill did little more than extend the operation of a penal law which was already working successfully. He pointed out the difficulty which beset those who traded with such countries as Russia, Spain, China, and South America,