GREAT BRITAIN. LABOR DISPUTES, 1915.1 The number of labor disputes reported for the year 1915 was 674. involving 445.936 workers, with an aggregate duration of 2,969,700 days. The number of disputes is lower than in any of the four preceding years, while the number of employees affected and duration are each below those of the five preceding years. Each item is also below the yearly average for a nine-year period. The following summary table gives the data relative to labor disputes for the years 1914 and 1915: NUMBER OF DISPUTES, NUMBER OF PERSONS INVOLVED, AND AGGREGATE DURATION IN WORKING DAYS OF ALL DISPUTES IN PROGRESS, 1914 AND 1915, BY INDUS TRY GROUPS. The total includes the duration (200,000 working days) of the general strike in Dublin, but which is not distributed in the trade groups. Except in a few cases, no data are available.as to the causes or results of disputes. On January 1, 1916, there were 13 of these disputes still unsettled, among which is that of the 1,200 weavers who went out on August 25 for payment of standard list prices. LABOR DISPUTES IN THE FIRST SIX MONTHS OF 1915 AND 1916. On the opposite page are given comparative statistics of labor disputos for the first six months of 1915 and of 1916. 1 Board of Trade Labor Gazette, January, 1916, p. 6. NUMBER OF DISPUTES, NUMBER OF PERSONS INVOLVED, AND AGGREGATE DURA-* TION IN WORKING DAYS OF ALL DISPUTES IN PROGRESS, FIRST SIX MONTHS, I 1915 AND 1916, BY INDUSTRY GROUPS.1 1 The figures have been amended in accordance with the most recent information. NETHERLANDS.1 The Central Statistical Bureau reports 250 strikes in the Netherlands during 1914, involving 13,953 strikers and 844 establishments. Of the total number of strikes reported, 165 involved an increase in wages, 31 related to a decrease in wages, 60 related to other wage questions, 51 related to demands as to hours of labor, 21 involved demand for unionism, 31 related to reinstatement of discharged employees, 18 were in relation to shop rules, 36 involved questions of the contract of hire, and 60 related to miscellaneous demands. Strikes due to two or more causes are included under each cause. The strikers succeeded in 59 instances, were partially successful in 89, failed in 84, and concerning 18 disputes the result was unknown or doubtful. More than one-half, or 149 strikes, lasted less than one week. EMPLOYMENT OF DISCHARGED SOLDIERS AND SAILORS ON THE LAND IN GREAT BRITAIN. The problem of the employment of discharged soldiers after the war continues to be given attention by the British Government* The second report of the Departmental Committee on the Settlement and Employment of Sailors and Soldiers on the Land has recently appeared. The first report, which was briefly summarized in the 1 Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek. Werkstakingen en nitsluitingen in Nederland gedurende, 1914.` The Hague, 1915. (Bijdragen to de Statistiek van Nederland, new series, No. 224.) ? Great Britain. Departmental Committee on the Settlement and Employment of Sailors and Soldiers on the Land. Part II of the final report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the president of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to consider the settlement and employment on the land in England and Wales of discharged sailors and soldiers. London, 1916. 39 pp. April, 1916, issue of the MONTHLY REVIEW, pages 11 to 13, dealt with the settlement and colonization of discharged sailors and soldiers on the land, and the second part takes up the question of their employment as distinguished from their settlement upon the land. The matter of the settlement of discharged sailors and soldiers was dealt with first because immediate action was considered necessary in order to acquire and equip land for that purpose. But as a comparatively small proportion of the men in question who desire occupation on the land can be settled immediately as small holders and as the great majority will have to earn their living by means of wage work, the problem of their employment is in reality the larger one. "For both alike we have to keep on the land those who were on it before, and to draw to the land those who were not on it before." The policy of settlement, for the carrying out of which the committee recommended an appropriation of £2,000,000 ($9,733,000) to be placed at the disposal of the board of agriculture, should be regarded, the report declares, "as a permanent system for providing an agricultural 'ladder' by which the industrious and enterprising laborer can obtain a small holding as the result of his industry and intelligence." Three purposes underlie the investigations of the committee: (1) How to meet the probable shortage of agricultural labor at the end of the war; (2) how to defeat a serious amount of unemployment which may occur on demobilization; (3) how to extend and develop agricultural industry in the highest interests of the nation. Addressing itself to the first problem, the committee estimated that about 320,000 men had left agricultural employment since the beginning of the war, an estimate which it was considered would be exceeded before the end of the war. Some of this number will undoubtedly return to agricultural pursuits. But the wastage of war and the desire to settle in town or to emigrate to the oversea dominions will considerably lessen the number who will return to agriculture. A shortage of at least 25 per cent is therefore estimated by the committee; that is, about 80,000 men. To meet this shortage in agricultural labor, four courses are sug gested: (1) To continue the employment of women and children, as during the war; (2) to employ more labor-saving machinery; (3) to attract to agriculture men who were not so employed at the outbreak of the war; (4) To reduce agricultural employment by putting more land down to grass. The first two courses are dismissed as inadequate to meet the shortage, and, furthermore, "the use of child labor on the farm, whatever its justification during the war, ought not in the national interest to be continued permanently." Inasmuch as the putting down of more land for grass would curtail agricultural production, the final recourse in making up the shortage of agricultural labor after the war is to attract nonagricultural workers to the land. To do this, the committee considered it necessary to insure such workers a satisfactory wage, adequate housing accommodations, more of the amenities of community life, and reasonable prospects of improving their position in life. Absence of these conditions, the committee remarks, accounts for the decline in population in rural districts in recent years. The committee was unable to come to any agreement as to how to secure a satisfactory wage for those discharged soldiers and sailors. who might enter agriculture after the war. Although the question of a minimum wage was discussed, no definite recommendation was arrived at by the committee as a whole. Of the 9 members, 4 favored the establishment of a minimum wage, while 5 considered such legislation as uncalled for at the present time, "when the wages in the industry stand at a higher level than they have ever reached before." In order to provide housing accommodation, the committee urged the enforcement of the act of August, 1914, which authorized the board of agriculture to advance large loans to local authorities and public welfare societies in agricultural districts for the purpose of erecting cottages and to enforce which no attempt had yet been made. If more houses were provided by the local authorities under this act, the so-called system of "tied" cottages would be less onerous. (This is a system by which farmers purchase or rent with their farms a number of cottages in which their employees are housed.) The charging of an economic rent, the committee declares, would also tend to remove difficulties in the way of providing new cottages in the country district. The committee points out that the practice of letting good cottages at a nominal rent tends to keep the standard of wages low and to discourage building. To meet the unemployment which may occur at demobilization, the committee recommended provision of relief work in the shape, for instance, of reclamation of waste lands and afforestation by the State and local authorities. On the question of the extension and development of agricultural industry after war, the committee makes some striking recommendations. In order to bring more land under cultivation, it suggests the following measures as most worthy of consideration: (1) A guaranty by the State of a minimum price for home-grown wheat for a period sufficient to give confidence to the farmers; (2) an offer by the State of a bonus for each acre of permanent grassland brought under the plow and kept in a proper state of cultivation; (3) the imposition of import duties on agricultural produce sufficient to give the protection that is necessary to the farmer. Lastly, the committee suggests the possibility of the establishment of new agricultural industries as, for instance, the sugar-beet industry, the increased growing of potatoes for the manufacture of industrial alcohol and starch on a large scale, and the cultivation and manufacture of home-grown tobacco. In conclusion, the committee emphasizes the fact, in their opinionthat no large amount of new capital or labor can be attracted to the soil unless the armer has some security in the future for more stable prices for his chief products than have prevailed during the past 40 years. If agriculture were developed and put on a new and firm basis, it would employ many thousands of additional men. The resulting competition for labor would tend to maintain agricultural wages at least at their present enhanced level, and probably to raise them still further. If, however, during the period of development in the agricultural industry, there existed any serious unemployment in the country generally, owing to depression in town industries, agricultural wages might have to be maintained by legislation designed to insure that the agricultural laborer receives his due and proper share in the added prosperity of British agriculture. There is a separate minority report which emphasizes principally the necessity of immediate action in putting in the form of law whatever recommendations may be acceptable so as to be prepared for the rush of unemployed when the war ends. The minority also recommends most strongly the establishment of a minimum wage. The report closes with a memorandum on the reclamation of land. SICKNESS INSURANCE IN FRANCE. France affords a typical example of a system of voluntary State subsidized sickness insurance as distinguished from a compulsory State system such as prevails in Germany and Great Britain. The French system is an adaptation of the mutual benefit features of trade-unions and fraternal organizations to the needs of a nationwide system of sickness insurance. The mutual aid societies are the oldest and at the same time the most common institution in France for the collective assumption of the burden entailed by sickness, accident, or the infirmities of old age. They differ from the benefit societies in the United States in the fact that in France as in other European countries the Government has taken cognizance of their existence, has enacted special laws regulating their operation, has subsidized them, and has attempted to organize them in such a way as to provide a uniform system. Within the scope of these laws there is wide range for the operation of different ideas and objects, so that they retain their status as voluntary organizations, though granting of subsidies to societies conforming to certain standards naturally leads to the |