1797 and 1799" (The Trades-Unions of England, p. 119).

(2) By Louis Philippe, Albert d'Orleans, Comte de Paris (1830-1894). His Les Associations ouvries en Angleterre was translated and published in England in 1869 (Thomas Hughes, ed.).

(3) For work stoppages -- strikes or boycotts -- there are only fragmentary figures before 1850. Beginning with that date the United States Commissioner of Labor began a more systematic compilation. These statistics bore out Carnegie's contention. Following the depression of 1884-1885 there was a nationwide wave of strikes. In 1885, when Carnegie must have been maturing this essay, an index of strikes and workers involved increased by fifty per cent. The next year, 1886, was to be even more fruitful of labor turbulence. Its full impact came in May, after the publication of this essay, but the rapid growth of labor union membership, the multiplication of new unions, and "the great railroad strike" on the southwest lines of Jay Gould occurred in the early months of that year.

everywhere, there is unrest, showing that an equilibrium has not yet been reached between employers and employed.

and manufacturing concerns of recent growth, in which capital and labor often array themselves in alarming antagonism.

(4) Producer's co-operation was of immense interest to organized labor in the post-Civil War era. Aside from harmonizing appealingly with American ideals, it was during depression years a form of unemployment relief. The officers of the Knights of Labor gave the device much verbal, though inconstant, support; it also made a wide appeal to liberal preachers, professors, and editors. Even E. L. Godkin (1831-1902), editor of the Nation and generally a conservative spokesman, supported co-operation. In the mid-eighties, the "highest point of the cooperative movement," producers' cooperative ventures numbered 135, chiefly in mining, cooperage, and shoes. Most were very small scale enterprises.

owned by them, will not only have a happy and contented body of operatives, but he will inevitably attract from his rival the very best workmen in every department. His rival, having no profits to divide among his workmen, and paying them only a small assured minimum to enable them to live, finds himself despoiled of foremen and of workmen necessary to carry on his business successfully. His workmen are discontented and, in their own opinion, defrauded of the proper fruits of their skill, through incapacity or inattention of their employers. Thus, unequal business capacity in the management produces unequal results.

of foreboding. I can, of course, picture in my mind a state of civilization in which the most talented business men shall find their most cherished work in carrying on immense concerns, not primarily for their own personal aggrandizement, but for the good of the masses of workers engaged therein, and their families; but this is only a foreshadowing of a dim and distant future. When a class of such men has evolved, the problem of capital and labor will be permanently solved to the entire satisfaction of both. But as this manifestly belongs to a future generation, I cannot consider cooperation, or common ownership, as the next immediate step in advance which it is possible for labor to make in its upward path.

(5) John Jarrett, an immigrant from Wales, was a mill worker who became President of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, a consolidation of the various craft unions in the industry. When the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, a predecessor of the American Federation, was organized in 1881, Jarrett became the first president. William Weihe (the Carnegie misspelling reflects on his acquaintance with the union in his industry), a native American, succeeded Jarrett in the early eighties as President of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. Ironically, in view of Carnegie's admiration, Weihe was president of the Association in 1892, when at the Homestead Works, one of the Carnegie plants, occurred the classic test of strength between union and management, the latter represented by Henry Clay Frick (1849-1918). The Homestead Strike of 1892 was, of course, subsequent to this essay.

commend themselves to the manufacturers and to the men as possessed of the necessary technical knowledge, and educated to a point where commercial reasons would not be without their proper weight upon them. I consider that of all the agencies immediately available to prevent wasteful and embittering contests between capital and labor, arbitration is the most powerful and most beneficial.

employed; and the power of this ignorant demagogue arises chiefly from the lack of proper organization among the men through which their real voice can be expressed. This voice will always be found in favor of the judicious and intelligent representative. Of course, as men become intelligent more deference must be paid to them personally and to their rights, and even to their opinions and prejudices; and, upon the whole, a greater share of profits must be paid in the day of prosperity to the intelligent than to the ignorant workman. He cannot be imposed upon so readily. On the other hand, he will be found much readier to accept reduced compensation when business is depressed; and it is better in the long run for capital to be served by the highest intelligence, and to be made well aware of the fact that it is dealing with men who know what is due to them, both as to treatment and compensation.

his leading men has the least trouble with his workmen. Although it may be impracticable for the presidents of these large corporations to know the working-men personally, the manager at the mills, having a committee of his best men to present their suggestions and wishes from time to time, can do much to maintain and strengthen amicable relations, if not interfered with from headquarters. I, therefore, recognize in trades-unions, or, better still, in organizations of the men of each establishment, who select representatives to speak for them, a means, not of further embittering the relations between employer and employed, but of improving them.

conferences referred to, would have been unthought of by the employer and probably never asked for by the men. For these and other reasons I attribute the greatest importance to an organization of the men, through whose duly elected representatives the managers may be kept informed from time to time of their grievances and suggestions. No matter how able the manager, the clever workman can often show him how beneficial changes can be made in the special branch in which that workman labors. Unless the relations between manager and workmen are not only amicable but friendly, the owners miss much; nor is any man a first-class manager who has not the confidence and respect, and even the admiration, of his workmen. No man is a true gentleman who does not inspire the affection and devotion of his servants. The danger is that such committees may ask conferences too often; three or four meetings per year should be regarded as sufficient.

bulk of the year upon very small margins of profit. But the men, noticing in the papers the "great boom in steel rails," very naturally demand their share of the advance, and, under existing faulty arrangements between capital and labor, they have secured it. The employers, therefore, have grudgingly given what they know under proper arrangements they should not have been required to give, and there has been friction, and still is dissatisfaction upon the part of the employers. Reverse this picture. The steel-rail market falls again. The mills have still six months' work at prices above the prevailing market, and can afford to pay men higher wages than the then existing state of the market would apparently justify. But having just been amerced in extra payments for labor which they should not have paid, they naturally attempt to reduce wages as the market price of rails goes down, and there arises discontent among the men, and we have a repetition of the negotiations and strikes which have characterized the beginning of this year. In other words, when the employer is going down the employee insists on going up, and vice versa. What we must seek is a plan by which the men will receive high wages when their employers are receiving high prices for their product, and hence are making large profits; and, per contra, when the employers are receiving low prices for product, and therefore small if any profits, the men will receive low wages.

(6) Methods of paying labor, whereby wages had a fluctuating relation with changes in the market price of the product, were not uncommon at this time in American industry. Wages were lowered when prices fell and vice versa. Attempts to introduce maximum or minimum limits to wage changes were variants of the scheme. Workers of course preferred a fixed rate of wages. Sliding scales existed in coal mining, shipping on the Great Lakes, and in the iron and steel industry. A dispute over this feature of payment was one facet of the Homestead outbreak.

there will be a feeling of partnership between employers and employed.

which could not be postponed till the end of the year, and then considered with the scale, should be referred to arbitration, and that, in case of failure of the owners and workmen to agree at the yearly conference, arbitration should also be resorted to, strikes and lockouts would be entirely eliminated from the iron business; and if the award of the arbitrators took effect from the date of reference the works could run without a day's interruption.

the cases would, indeed, be few which would not be amicably adjusted by the original parties without calling in others to judge between them.