the question is no longer the simple one of capital and labor, but of organized capital and organized labor. At least this is true in respect to capital in its larger uses, and of labor in its higher grades. And this being the fact, there must be an increasing formality in the relation between the two. Both capitalist and laborer act more and more in a representative capacity. The workman certainly has acquired a new dignity and power through his closer relations to his fellow-workmen, and must be treated accordingly.

The railroad system naturally offers the best field for the carrying on of this new and more formal intercourse between employer and employee. The railroad service requires a high grade of intelligence, it must be comparatively permanent, and it is constantly under the public eye. The public is, in fact, a partner in the railroad business, and the sympathy which it contributes is the final and decisive factor in all disputes—more decisive than money or organization. But we are convinced that there should be no third party, not even the public, to the intercourse between capital and labor. Arbitration seems to be the most available way at present for settling differences, but there ought to be a better way—by conference.

Arbitration in the industrial world is better than a strike or a lockout, as it is better for nations than war, but in either case it implies antagonism between parties which cannot be settled by the parties themselves. It is the appeal to the third party, who, in many cases, may have nothing in common with the disputants. We believe that this appeal to the State, through Boards of Arbitration, ought to grow less and less frequent on the part of employer and employee, and we believe that it will, not simply as it is seen that they have common interests and a common end, but more surely when the intercourse between the two is without assumption on the part of the one or the loss of self-respect on the part of the other. And this can come about, we repeat, only by the recognition of labor organizations in their proper functions and within their legitimate sphere. If the employee thinks it worth his time and money to identify himself with a given association or brotherhood, he will never be satisfied to be ignored in that capacity, nor to have those who represent him ignored. The most significant fact in the present condition of labor is organization, just as the present fact of most significance in the Irish question is the sentiment of nationality. And no advances or concessions can succeed in the one case more than in the other which fail to satisfy these conditions.

We have ventured the hope that the duty of the State as an arbitrator may be in time superseded by the more direct intercourse between organized capital and organized labor, between the agents of the stockholders of railroads and others of the more public corporations and the representatives of workingmen's organizations. But, meanwhile, in the midst of the bad feelings which are being engendered, and the bad methods which are being used, the State has a much more serious duty imposed upon it than that of arbitration.

One part of its present duty is to afford such protection to corporations when their business is threatened or violently interrupted that they will not resort to dangerous means of self-protection. The State ought to make the employment of agencies like Pinkerton's detectives entirely Nothing but harm can come from such use of police power by corporations. The State cannot afford to allow such an assumption of its own functions.

unnecessary.

Another part of its present duty is to prevent conspiracies against legitimate public business. Such an official suggestion as that of Mr. Powderly to Mr. Lee, under date of August 6th, to the effect that preparations should be made for a strike in 1892, the presidential year, or in 1893, the year of the World's Fair, "so that they will be as one man when these years come," ought to be made an indictable offense. Nothing can be so dangerous to the body politic as the reckless plottings of secret organizations. If labor organizations are to be recognized, as we believe that they ought to be, this element of danger must be eliminated, if not by the good sense of their members, by the resolute purpose of the State.

And still another part of the present duty of the State is the protection of unorganized labor. Non-union men have rights which not only corporations, but the State, is bound to respect. And whenever labor organizations make it a condition of return to peaceful work that nonunion men shall be discharged or refused employment, these men ought to find that the State is able to guarantee to them that first of all rights the right to work.

SOCIAL ECONOMICS.

I.

THE OUTLINE OF AN ELECTIVE COURSE OF STUDY IN THREE

PARTS.

PART II. THE TREATMENT OF CRIME AND OF THE CRIMINAL

CLASSES.

THE order of the advance of society in the treatment of crime and of the criminal classes is indicated in the topics which follow in alternate numbers of the "Review." See February number.

TOPIC 4. THE REFORMATION OF THE CRIMINAL.

"It is of little use to restrain criminals by punishment, unless you reform them by education." Pope Clement XI. (1704).

REFERENCES.

For the discussion of the subject in its principles see writers like Montesquieu (Spirit of the Laws); Beccaria (Crimes and Punishments); Bentham (Principles of Penal Law. Vol. i. of Works); Livingston (Criminal Jurisprudence); Carpenter (Our Convicts).

For the investigation of the subject in its working details compare Howard's Report on "The State of the Prisons in England and Wales (1777), together with his later Reports on the Prisons of the Continent, with Wine's "State of Prisons and of Child Saving Institutions" (1880); and also Second Annual Report of the (U. S.) Commissioner of Labor (1886), Part. II. Historical Notes, and Convict Labor Laws in the United States. See also the Annual Reports of State Institutions of Charities and Correction, the Reports of the National Prison Association of the United States, the Reports of the local associations of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, and the Reports of Associations of Foreign Countries.

NOTE.

We have assumed that no advance in the treatment of crime and of the criminal classes remains to be accomplished, which can be compared with the progress already made through the organization of public justice and the creation of a humane sentiment in the administration of criminal

laws. The greatest safeguard of the rights of the criminal as well as of society is a just statute. The laws which define crime and grade punishment, though apparently negative in their action, are the most effective agencies for diminishing crime in a community. Nothing defeats the end of justice so quickly or so surely as unjust, indiscriminate, or even excessive criminal legislation.

The natural outcome of the wiser and more humane criminal legislation of the present century is the science of Penology. This science is being wrought out chiefly by those at work within prison walls, but the careful study of those without into the principles of heredity and social environment is exceedingly helpful. Nothing is more assuring than the harmony which characterizes the meetings of the National Prison Associations and Congresses composed of practical administrators of the laws, judges, wardens, chaplains, and the like, and also of general philanthropists and students of social science.

SUB-TOPICS.

1. The terms employed to represent the growth of the prison-system: Dungeon, Prison, Penitentiarg, Reformatory.

The Dungeon, the inheritance from tyrants, represents the arbitrary, capricious, and cruel use of personal power. It belongs to the age of Feudalism.

The Prison, a general term which needs definition, represents in its indefinite use a place of confinement or detention, rather than of punishment. The prison may serve for the detention of persons for other reasons than their crimes, making them the prey of the jailor. It was this feature of the use of English prisons which awakened the attention of Howard and led to his efforts for prison reform.

"The distress of prisoners came more immediately under my notice when I was Sheriff of the County of Bradford; and the circumstance which excited me to activity in their behalf was the seeing some, who by the verdict of juries were declared not guilty; some, in whom the grand jury did not find such an appearance of guilt as subjected them to trial; and some whose prosecutors did not appear against them; after having been confined for months, dragged back to jail, and locked up again till they should pay sundry fees to the jailor, the clerk of assizes, etc." Howard's Memoirs (Baldwin Brown), page 123.

The term Penitentiary indicates an entirely disciplinary end, and is

always associated with some well-ordered system of discipline and punishment.

The term Reformatory declares the end of prison discipline to be the reformation of the criminal. Originally applied to institutions for reclaiming juvenile offenders, it is now used to designate the work of the higher prisons, as at Elmira, New York, and Concord, Mass.

2. The experimental stage in prison discipline.

In England the development of the penitentiary system was long delayed by the system of the transportation of criminals. Various attempts were made to introduce reforms into the convict colonies, but the difficulties were too great to be overcome. It was not till the method of transportation had been practically abandoned that experiments at home were of avail. Of these experiments the Crofton or Irish system was the most successful, and is now the basis of the English system of prison discipline.

In the United States the method of discipline was divided between the Philadelphia or solitary system and the Auburn or silent system. In the latter, which is now almost universally adopted, the work is carried on as associated labor, but in silence.

For successful personal experiments in the management of prisoners, see instances quoted by Miss Carpenter in "Our Convicts," vol. i., chap. 3.

For an abstract of the history of prison discipline in the various countries of the Continent, see Encyclopædia Britannica, ninth ed., vol. xix., pp. 757-764. The history of the prison system of Belgium is worthy of special study.

3. Established principles of prison discipline.

(1.) The separation of the sexes.

(2.) The classification of criminals, not altogether by age or crime, but by some system of personal merit. See address of Superintendent Tufts, National Prison Congress, 1886.

(3.) Employment. The method still divided between solitary labor, as in Belgium for long periods, and in England for nine months, and associated labor as carried on in the prisons of the United States, with the exception of the State Prison in Philadelphia.

(4.) Mental and moral training aimed at the will of the criminal. The per cent. of intelligent criminals is largely increased with the growth of popular education, but the deficiency in moral will power is as marked as at primary stages of prison discipline.

This may take one

(5.) The principle of the indeterminate sentence. of two forms. The sentence may be lessened by the systematic effort of the prisoner himself, his time being reduced by his conduct; or the sentence may be at the discretion of the warden, or of some responsible official, the prisoner to be discharged when apparently reformed.

The present English system is a system of remission of time through marks. A sentence of five years allows a possible reduction of one year and twenty-three days; of fourteen years a reduction of three years and one hundred and eighty-one days. Those who are sentenced for life may have their cases brought forward at the end of twenty years and reconsidered on their merits.

The system of remission has been incorporated into the American method of prison discipline, when the principle of the indeterminate sea

tence at the discretion of the court or the warden does not take its place. Not all prisons are conducted in such way as to make the indeterminate sentence practicable. If the prison life is not a reforming agency the convict is no better prepared for release at the end of ten than of five years.

The advantages of the indeterminate sentence have been enumerated as follows by Superintendent Brockway of the Elmira Reformatory :(a) The indeterminate sentence substitutes in the mind of the prisoner the idea of correction for that of punishment.

(b) It contributes to the deterrent principle the idea of certainty as opposed to that of severity.

(c) It centralizes the duty and responsibility of determining the date of the prisoner's release.

(d) It centres upon the warden the cure of the criminal instinct in the prisoner and his restoration to society.

(e) It facilitates the release of the prisoner at the best point of time and under the best circumstances.

(f) It surrounds the strength of legal liability after his release.

Condensed from address of Superintendent Brockway before the National Prison Association, Toronto, 1887.

4. Unsettled questions affecting prison management.

1. The method of convict labor. Three methods are in use in the prisons of the United States.

(1.) The lease system, by which the convicts, all or in part, are leased to a contractor at a stipulated sum, the contractor to meet all expenses connected with the management and employment of the prisoner. This system obtains chiefly in the Southern States, where out-of-door work can be carried on, is the most remunerative of all, and is the most detrimental to the prisoner.

(2.) The contract system, by which the contractor engages to employ a certain number of convicts, the State furnishing power and machinery, the work to be carried on within the prison walls. This system is generally employed in the Northern and Western States, but is opposed by many advocates of prison reform, and also by labor organizations, on account of its interference with the labor market. The system is modified by what is known as the piece-price plan, which keeps the work of the convicts under the immediate management of the prison, the contractor simply furnishing the material and receiving back the product at a given price per piece. The reformatory effects of this modified form of the contract system are good, but the modification is no more satisfactory to the labor organizations than the original system.

(3.) The public-account system, by which the State carries on the work of the prison as if it were an industrial concern. This method is satisfactory to all parties in its ideal workings, but is considered by many impracticable through the difficulty of finding wardens who are also good manufacturers.

See Second Annual Report of the (U. S.) Commissioner of Labor, 1886, Convict Labor; Report of National Prison Association, 1884; Report of National Prison Association, 1886.

2. The treatment of the habitual or incorrigible criminal.

See address by Professor Simeon Baldwin, American Social Science Association, 1885. Also address of Professor Francis Wayland, National Prison Association, 1886. Continued in remarks at Association, 1887. The Ohio law quoted with modification and approved in address of 1886.