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N the earlier days in this country, with the great abundance of cheap land, and the variety of resources, the "profit of the earth was for all." In New England land was assigned to every householder and certain lands were held in common.

The men who owned the tools performed the labor.

Weaving and shoemaking were carried on at home at times when one could not work outdoors.

There was a local supply for a local need. Grain was raised on the farm and ground into flour at a nearby mill; logs were hauled to the mill to be sawed and the lumber hauled back; clothing and nearly everything else was home-made.

This order of things that has passed away within the memory of men still living, was not abolished by popular vote.

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Rapid transportation made possible the feeding of large multitudes of people in one place. No city of any size in country could depend for a single week upon the local supply. Nearly everything that one wears or eats comes from a distance.

The invention of machines made possible the building of great mills and factories that called for a combination of capital to build and equip them and a combination of laborers to operate them.

Under these conditions the laborer could no longer be, as in a simpler state of society, both capitalist and laborer.

Rapid transportation makes possible the bringing of the raw material, iron or copper, cotton or wool, from great distances and shipping the finished product to a market wherever found.

The development of water, steam and electric power has made it possible to extend the size of mills and factories almost indefinitely.

The result is the massing of people in cities that are ever increasing in size.

The thing to be borne in mind is that the modern industrial system was not brought about by a popular vote or an edict of government. It came as the result of great forces of invention and discovery over which neither people or government seemed to have any control.

The result of all this is that we have a modern feudalism that has many of the worst features of the old feudalism without its compensations.

In 1869 John Ruskin wrote, "A struggle is approaching between the newly risen power of democracy and the apparently departing power of feudalism and another struggle no less imminent and far more dangerous between wealth and pauperism."

Forty years have shown that Ruskin was a true prophet.

The struggle that is now being waged in England is a struggle between democracy and old feudalism. A contest between the lord or baron and the people. It is a struggle to determine whether a lord inay have five square miles of land for a deer park free of taxation while the masses who toil in Manchester and Birmingham bear heavy burdens of taxation. Banalties and corvee in another form are levied upon those who, in passing from one industrial order to another, have profited little by the change.

In this country it is the struggle be tween wealth and pauperism, for while it is true that the laborers have more comforts than ever before, it is equally true that the vast majority of them live on the verge of pauperism.

Loss of work or a few months' sickness moves them from the ranks of selfrespecting labor to the ranks of those who become public charges.

Our present system constitutes a new feudalism.

The laborers are now massed about the shop or factory as formerly they were massed around the castle or manor house.

They work in the company's mill, live in the company's house, trade at the company store, walk on the company's streets, send their children to the company school and worship, if they will, in the company's church.

This has rendered independence well nigh impossible. To be sure, if they can find work elsewhere, and money enough to transport themselves and families to it, they may move, but if not, they must stay. As the serf worked that the baron might enjoy the rude luxury of his time, so these men labor that the capitalist may

enjoy the more refined luxuries of our times.

City and suburban residences, palaces in the mountains or at the seashore, expensive autos and palatial yachts all rest upon the shoulders of labor.

The millions toil that the hundreds may play.

We have not yet reached the time when "the profit of the earth is for all." But we should bear in mind that there is nothing divine nor permanent about the present industrial order any more than there was about ancient slavery or medieval serfdom. The present industrial system was not brought about by a popular vote, nor will it be terminated by popular vote. It is the result of a hundred causes all working to one great end.

Some one has said: "There are three great truths that we as a nation must learn: to produce abundantly, to distribute justly and to consume rationally."

We have learned to do the first and the products of this nation are stupendous. With the immense production of the country there is no reason that any one should go homeless, ragged or hungry.

We have hardly taken the first steps in the matter of a just distribution of the wealth of farms and forests, mills and mines. Coal and steel barons, copper and cattle kings, railroad and steamship magnates have no divine right to a monopoly of all the good things of earth, and yet they seem to have them quite completely under their control.

Politically the doctrine of the divine right of kings had to give way to the inalienable rights of the people; the same will ultimately happen to this industrial and commercial lordship.

Not always will thousands of boys from 9 to 14 toil in coal mines under conditions that would sap the strength and vigor of grown men; not always will little children toil amid the noise and dust of our great factories; not always will underfed and underpaid women labor in sweatshops, stitching life and soul into garments that are to be sold over bargain counters. And all this to enable a few men to amass millions for which they have no real use and for which they can derive no adequate enjoyment.

When it comes to the rational enjoyment of the blessings and bounties of nature we have made even less progress than in their just distribution.

The amusements and pleasures of the poor are usually debasing and sordid rather than elevating and ennobling. As a rule

they are confined to eating and drinking and the gratification of the lower senses.

But the social life and pleasures of the ultra idle rich are often on a lower moral plane than those of the laboring poor. Both rich and poor have yet to learn the rational and helpful enjoyment of the riches and bounty of the earth.

In our country and in all countries there is a great social unrest. It may be called "conservation," "insurgency," the "New Democracy," "New Nationalism," but in any case it is the awakening of the people to secure their rights as against special and powerful interests.

It is not a question of political parties; it is a rising of the people in their own behalf. They do not yet know what they want or how it is to be attained, but some day they will know.

Just now modern feudalism is taking the form of paternalism. "Be good children," it says, "and we will give you libraries and laboratories, schools and colleges. We will even go as far as old feudalism and give you old age pensions." This all sounds well, and I would utter no word of condemnation against the men who gen

erously provide these things. My condemnation is of the system that makes it necessary or possible.

The issue has been fairly joined and can never be downed till it finds adequate solution.

Antidotes and panaceas may be applied by feudal interests; the cause may be injured by the intemperate zeal of some of its adherents, but the clock of God always moves forward, and some day it will strike the people's hour.

We have now, nominally, government "by the people," but no one would be rash enough to assert that we have government "for the people." The people have certain political rights and a certain formal equality before the law; what they want are real rights and a substantial equality.

When labor has its share in the "pro of the earth," the free, self-respecting c izens will build their own schools, librari and hospitals; will build and endow the own churches and joyfully enter in to wo ship Him who is the Giver of all good. They will then themselves be able make provision for sickness and old age.

As the old social and industrial orde passed away by the operation of gre causes that lay beyond the votes of parti or the edicts of governments, so this orc will pass.

What the new social order will be one knows, and no one is wise enough predict; but of one thing we may be sured the laborer will be "first partal of the fruits" and the "profit of the ea: will be for all."

T is "up to labor" to decide whether or not there shall be a Federal Commis. sion on Industrial Relations. The President of the United States in a message to Congress on February 2, recommended the appointment of such a Commission.

Following President Taft's recommendation, Representative William Hughes, of New Jersey and Senator William E. Borah, of Idaho introduced in the house and the senate identical bills providing for the creation of a federal commission of nine members to make inquiry into industrial relations. One hearing upon the Hughes-Borah bill has already been held and the proposal is now being considered very carefully by the members of Congress. Although very many of the members agree with the President upon this matter, they are waiting to learn what are the wishes of organized labor.

Let us see what are the advantages and possible dangers of an official study of the complex problem of industrial relations in these United States.

The idea of a Federal Commission on Industrial Relations first took definite shape after the startling close of the Mc

Namara case. Labor will not soon for that the press of the country at once vo ing and shaping public opinion, was fi with expression of hostility; that in m than one quarter exultation at having last downed labor was followed by a termination to keep it down.

Yet many men and women saw in revelation of the desperate means m use of in the fight against the open sl more than the breaking of the law an resort to violence.

A small group in New York who great provocation in the attitudes of s employers, wished to call public atten to the underlying causes for the despe remedy applied in one series of indus conflicts, leaving to others who were 1 ing neither in number or vehemence of pression, the congenial task of denoun labor methods, labor leaders and labor ions. On December 30, this group of £ ents of industrial matters presented to President a petition asking for the app ment of a Federal Commission on In trial Relations.

So much for the origin of the prop And now for the matter to be investig and the merits of the case.