They say rather that it is due to the prosperous condition of the business, to the facts that, owing to the heavy demand, prices have been high, and that the employees have demanded higher wages. It seems to them wiser to make arrangements with their employees for an increase of wages than to have trouble with them, especially in so prosperous times. In consequence terms were made, though, in some instances at least, the demands of the working men were not fully granted, the increase being rather a compromise than a surrender. Some of the employers said distinctly that these increases in wages had not been given excepting as the result of demands on the part of the working men themselves; that the combinations made no pretences toward generosity.

It is probably true that in most cases the relations between the combinations and their employees have been and will remain substantially the same as those between the officers of any large corporation and their working men. individual instances wages may be increased without special demands being made, but that will probably rarely be the case.

In

As the combination has secured additional

power in many instances over the producers of raw material, it is fair to ask whether this power will not extend also over the working men, so that in the event of a disinclination to meet their demands for higher wages or an inclination to lower their actual wages, the combination would not have more power in carrying out its wishes than would competing corporations. There seems to be little doubt that, speaking generally, other things being equal, this would be the case. If the combination is substantially the only employer of labor in its special line of industry, men trained in that line of work and untrained in others would find practically only the one employer to work for. This would to a considerable extent put them in the power of that employer in the same way that the consumer is to a considerable extent within the power of the combination which controls 90 per cent. or upwards of the output of any industry of which he must buy the product.

A better means of judging the situation will be found if we consider the actual and possible attitude of the combinations toward trade unions. So far as can be gathered from information as yet accessible, while there are exceptions, nearly

all of the combinations have assumed no hostile attitude toward trade unions, but have rather Idealt with them in accordance with the wishes of their managers. Chairman Gates of the American Steel and Wire Company insists positively that his organization has not recognized trade unions and will not recognize them. It will deal with its employees as individuals and not with representatives of the union. On the other hand, nearly all of the other iron and steel combinations treat willingly and readily with the representatives of organized labor. This has been true of the American Tin Plate Company, of the National Steel Company, of the American Steel Hoop Company, of the Federal Steel Company, and perhaps of others, there being apparently on the part of the managers of all of these companies no hostility whatever to labor organizations, but a perfect readiness to meet them and to deal with them as do most smaller corporations or individual employers.

In case of a contest arising between the trade unions and one of the greater combinations, it seems evident that, unless the unions have greater power than is usual, the combination, having under its management a number of different

manufacturing plants, perhaps from twenty to forty, will have a decided advantage over the individual corporation with only one or two plants. If a strike were threatened in one of the plants of the combination, it could, with comparatively little difficulty, transfer its orders to its other establishments and close the one involved without a loss which would in any degree approximate the proportionate loss of a single corporation closing its one plant in case of a strike. During the last year, this threat is Isaid to have been made in the case of the smelters' strike in Colorado. The strikers were told that if they persisted in their demands the organization would close the establishment in which the strike was threatened and transfer the orders to other plants.

When trade is dull, too, the combination in like manner is likely, rather ruthlessly it seems at times, to close part of its plants with practically no warning. Individual employers with only one plant are likely to hesitate somewhat longer. The effect on the laboring class as a whole of a checking of production in many independent plants is probably as great as in the effect of closing entirely one or two plants by a

Trust. It does not attract so much attention.

If the trade unions were to extend their membership until the one union or federation of unions had in its membership practically all of the workers in the country in one line of industry, the situation would be entirely changed. Under those circumstances a strike in one establishment would be immediately followed, if need arose, by a strike in all of the establishments of the combination, so that not merely would the work stop in the one place, but in all, and the effect upon the employer would be as great, or even to a considerable extent greater, than in the case of a strike against a single corporation which possesses but one manufacturing plant.

Many of the leaders of the trade unions, such as Samuel Gompers, the president of the American Federation of Labor, seem to think that it will be by no means impossible for the trade unions to perfect their organization as satisfactorily as can the organizers of capital improve theirs, so that they will be able to resist the encroachments of capital without difficulty. And again, if the organization of capital by means of its savings