But

The bill submitted by the Taft Administration to Congress allowed such agreements, but only if approved by the Inter-State Commerce Commission. it did not provide for the Commission's approval of the agreements in advance of their filing. An amendment making such approval a prerequisite was rejected by the Regulars, whereupon the Insurgents and Democrats, with possibly the secret aid of certain Regulars, brought about the rejection of the entire section. Then they did the same thing with the merger section. It prohibits the acquirement of competing lines, except where a railway company already owns half of the capital stock of the line to be acquired. Apparently its only effect would be to continue or strengthen an already existing control. But the Insurgents, aroused by reports that certain companies were seeking to purchase more than half of the stock of competing companies before the bill should pass, defeated this section. It would be a simple matter to confer on the InterState Commerce Commission powers analogous to those now successfully exercised by the New York State Public Service Commission. We suspect, however, that certain Senators, both Insurgents and Regulars, who professedly favor the bill, have given to it but half-hearted support. While the Railway Bill has been thus shorn of two sections, other sections have been added. In the House the measure now includes a long-and-short-haul section (that is, the prohibition of higher proportionate rates for a short than for a long haul), a section bringing telegraph and telephone companies under the term

common carrier," and a section providing for the physical valuation of railways. The latter two amendments are of doubtful value, but the long-and-short-haul we believe to be absolutely just, as we do the clauses providing for the establishment of an Inter-State Commerce Court, and ordering carriers to quote rates correctly to shippers, and empowering the Commission to hold investigations on its own initiative as well as on complaint. The Outlook has called this bill "a great step in advance." Even if the measure, as it may emerge from conference between the two houses, does not contain all the reforms proposed by the Administration or

by the Insurgents, something will have been gained, even if it carry the Nation. only one step forward in a general railway regulation, desired not more by governmental reformers than by the most responsible carriers and shippers themselves. It is reported that President Taft is more interested in the success of this measure than in that of any other Administration bill. Yet, at a time when the measure is in jeopardy, the President has spent a week away from Washington. For the next week, sure to be even more critical, he announced two absences from Washington but later canceled one. A President should not think that his duty to his legislative programme is ended when he submits that programme to Congress. We regret this as adherence to the old-time doctrine of a sharp division between the executive and the legislative functions. To secure practical political success in getting things done, the desirability of two things becomes daily more apparent-an astute political adviser in the President's immediate circle and a proper Administration political organization.

THE INCOME TAX AMENDMENT

Two Legislatures, those of New York and Massachusetts, have just declined to ratify the amendment to the Federal Constitution providing for an income tax. The Virginia Legislature has also declined to adopt a ratifying resolution, while seven States-Alabama, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and South Carolina-have ratified the amendment. It should, of course, be remembered that negative action by a Legislature is not necessarily final. A proposed amendment may be ratified at any time by any State, no matter what action it may have taken in the past; so that in a new Legislature in New York, Massachusetts, or Virginia the amendment may have better fortune. The Outlook, however, hopes that it will not; for The Outlook is opposed to an income tax, for several reasons, which may be briefly stated. First, taxation should be laid upon property, and not upon industry. An income tax levied on income derived from investments would be legitimate; an income tax levied on income derived from industry would, in our opin

ion, be illegitimate. The primary object of government is to protect persons and property. The cost of production is not in proportion to the industry of the individual, but in proportion to the value of the property of the individual which is protected. Second, an income tax bears unjustly on those who are in receipt of incomes in the form of salaries or wages. Such persons know exactly what their income is. Those whose income is derived from trade, commerce, or the professions are uncertain as to their income, and are therefore almost certain to pay less proportionately than salaried workers. Third, Mr. Gladstone is reported to have said that an income tax makes a nation of liars. This is, of course, too strong a statement. But the experience of this country during the Civil War demonstrated that an income tax does promote the making of false returns, and often encourages false swearing. Fourth, the only way to avoid this evil is by minute inquisitorial examination, such as is conducted by the officials in Germany. Such an inquisitorial examination is foreign to the American practice and repugnant to the feelings of Americans. It never would be endured patiently in this country if it were conducted with impartial thoroughFifth, a tax on real estate and a tax on corporations would be a tax upon the largest proportion of the invested property in the country, and it is on invested property that taxes should be levied. In addition to such taxation, a stamp tax on notes, checks, bills of exchange, and the like is simple, easily collected, and not obnoxious or irksome to the taxpayer. This taxation, with an adequate inheritance tax and a customs tax, ought to be sufficient for all the necessities of a government economically administered.

ness.

The Supreme Court of Illinois has upheld the validity of the recent law of that State limiting to ten a day the hours which a woman may be employed to work in specified occupations. The decision of the Illinois Court, while it merely reiterates the doctrine of the Supreme Courts of Oregon and the Supreme Court of the United States in

THE ILLINOIS TEN-HOUR
LAW HELD VALID

upholding the Oregon ten-hour law for women, is interesting because it is on its face antagonistic to the ruling of the same Court fifteen years ago. The Legislature of Illinois in 1893 passed a law limiting the hours which women might be permitted to labor in certain occupations to eight a day. This act the Supreme Court of that State unceremoniously set aside in a decision rendered in 1895, on the ground that it was an arbitrary and unreasonable interference with the right of women to contract for the sale of their labor. The act in question was ahead of the times in which it was passed. The Court doubtless reflected the effective public sentiment of that day in setting the act aside. The fear was expressed, however, that the decision of the Court, once given, would stand for all time as a barrier against similar legislation in Illinois. But meantime other States moved forward in the enactment of legislation designed to protect women workers in industry, though none of the statutes passed was as radical as the Illinois measure of 1893. Oregon passed a law limiting the hours of women workers to ten a day, and secured favorable rulings as to the constitutionality thereof by the Supreme Courts of the State and of the Nation. Emboldened by this success, Illinois recently passed another statute modeled after the Oregon law, limiting to ten the hours which women might work. The case to test the validity of the law was brought in the name of W. C. Ritchie, of the Ritchie Box Company, the same person who secured the ruling against the constitutionality of the eight-hour law of 1893. Judge Tuthill, of the lower Court, followed the reasoning of the first Ritchie case and held against the law. But the Supreme Court of the State, in a decision rendered April 21, ignored its ruling of fifteen years ago, reversed the antiquated opinion of Judge Tuthill, and sustained the act as a proper exercise of the police power of the State to protect the child-bearers of the Nation. Following are the conclusions of the Court:

It is known to all men, and of what we know as men we cannot profess to be ignorant as judges:

That woman's physical structure and the performance of maternal functions place her at a great disadvantage in the battle of life.

That while a man can work for more than ten hours a day without injury to himself, a woman, especially when the burdens of motherhood are upon her, cannot.

That while a man can work standing upon his feet for more than ten hours a day, day after day, without injury to himself, a woman

That to require a woman to stand upon her feet for more than ten hours in any one day and to perform severe manual labor while thus standing has the effect of impairing her health.

And as weakly and sickly women cannot be the mothers of vigorous children, it is of the greatest importance to the public that the State take such measures as may be necessary to protect its women from the consequences produced by long-continued manual labor in those occupations which tend to break them down physically.

It would seem obvious, therefore, that legislation which limits the number of hours which women shall be permitted to work to ten hours in a single day in such employments as are carried on in mechanical establishments, factories, and laundries would tend to preserve the health of women and assure the production of vigorous offspring by them and would conduce directly to the health, morals, and general welfare of the public, and that such legislation would fall clearly within the police powers of the State. In this case Mr. Louis D. Brandeis, of the Massachusetts bar, who prepared the brief on the Oregon case for the United States Supreme Court, assisted in presenting the facts regarding the effect of excessive labor on women, and Mr. Samuel A. Harper, formerly Attorney and Secretary of the Illinois Industrial Commission, prepared the brief on the Constitutional law concerning the subject. The aid rendered by the Russell Sage Foundation and Miss Josephine Goldmark, Publication Secretary of the National Consumers' League, has been invaluable. This decision is another indication that our courts are beginning to recognize the facts of modern

social and industrial life.

Following the mine exploA BUREAU OF sion two weeks ago at Hulga, Alabama, when forty-one men lost their lives, the United States Senate last week passed a bill providing for the establishment of a Bureau of Mines. The bill now goes to conference between delegates from the Senate and the House of Representatives, the House having already passed a similar measure. The decision of the conference may be

hastened by the news of a still more terrible disaster, this time at Palos, Alabama, where about a hundred and fifty miners were entombed. A Government expert from the Geological Survey, who had been investigating the other accident, with many local aids, was quickly on the spot, bringing his trained knowledge to bear on relief measures. The admirable expansion of the Geological Survey's endeavors to prevent disaster and to afford relief from disaster has already been described in The Outlook. But that work long since outgrew the men and money at the Survey's disposal. That there is real necessity for the work is seen if we compare the far greater loss in this country from mining disasters with that abroad, despite the facts that our mines are not as deep and that the timber used in mining is both more available and less costly. To put America on a par with the rest of the world in respect to the protection of human life, observers long since recommended an enlargement of the Geological Survey's special endeavor, not by burdening the Survey with something hardly pertaining to its original functions, but by creating an entirely new bureau, a Bureau of

Mines. This Bureau's function should be not only the analyzing and testing of coals, lignites, and other fuel substances, but also and especially the study of the causes of mine explosions, thus making our mining as little wasteful as possible of life and resources. The bills now in conference declare the duty of the new Commissioner of Mines to be to make

diligent investigation of mining methods, particularly in relation to the safety of miners and the appliances best adapted to prevent accidents. The first improvement should be its development of a uniform code of signals for use in mine operation. Both bills appropriately provide that the Bureau shall be located in the Department of the Interior. We say "appropriately," for some of the bureaus in that Department are not appropriately in it. The Bureau of Pensions, for instance, belongs in the War Department, and the Bureau of Patents in the Department of Commerce. On the other hand, the Bureau of Mines is a logical outgrowth of the Geological Survey, already appropriately in the De

partment of the Interior. The bills reflect credit on their sponsors from our mining States, and on Presidents Roosevelt and Taft, who have long urged the passage of such a measure. But only the thin edge of the wedge has been inserted. While the Bureau of Mines should have, and, we believe, will have, a marked future in ameliorating industrial conditions, it should also afford the Federal Government its proper and beneficent control by overseeing the enforcement of existing laws, and by advising as to additional legislation.

MR. ROOSEVELT'S NOBEL PRIZE ADDRESS

The address on "International Peace," which appeared in full and with editorial comment in The Outlook of last week, was delivered on Thursday by Mr. Roosevelt at Christiama in the National Theater before the Nobel Prize Committee, the members of which are chosen by the Norwegian Storthing for the purpose of awarding the Peace Prize. This, it will be remembered, was bestowed in 1906 upon Mr. Roosevelt in recognition of his services in bringing about peace between Russia and Japan. The King and Queen of Norway were present, as well as the Cabinet officers and the Parliament in a body; and the press despatches note as a particularly interesting fact that among the members of Parliament was the first woman to be elected to that body, Miss Rogstad. We need not here comment further upon the suggestions of the address bearing upon the future possible course of nations towards bringing about peace through the keeping down of armaments by mutual agreement, and through the enforcing of peace, if necessary, by a league of the nations acting in concert. But it is to be added that Mr. Roosevelt prefaced his address by a tribute to the late Björnstjerne Björnson, whose death, he said, leaves a gap in the literature of the whole world because he was a man who had always stood for the right as he conceived the right to be." A newspaper correspondent who was present remarks on a certain similarity in the style of public speaking and gesture between Björnson himself and Mr. Roosevelt. The address was received with evidences of interest and abundant applause,

and was followed by a short speech from the Vice-President of the Nobel Prize Committee, Mr. John Lund, who not only complimented Mr. Roosevelt on his work for peace and for American advance in national progress, but paid an eloquent tribute to the New World as the place where many ideals, as yet impossible in Europe, had been attained, and where millions of poor but capable men and women from Europe had obtained that happiness and prosperity which the Old World was unable to afford them. At the close of this address the King and Queen stood and joined the audience in a Norwegian "three times three" for the speaker. The day was observed as a holiday in Christiania, and the reception of the people at large to Mr. Roosevelt was not less generous and hearty than that! officially bestowed upon him. Among the many visitors who called was the famous Norwegian explorer, Fridtjof Nansen. King Haakon entertained Mr. Roosevelt at the palace, and gave a formal dinner and reception in his honor; while Mr. Roosevelt was also the guest of honor at a municipal dinner at which three hundred and fifty guests were present. On Friday the University of Norway conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy on Mr. Roosevelt; this is the first time in its hundred years' history that the University has conferred this degree causa honoris. The week preceding the delivery of the Nobel address was a busy and notable one, even when considered in comparison with the weeks which had immediately preceded it. In Belgium, in Holland, and in Denmark the sovereigns of the country displayed a cordiality and a recognition of the interest and unusual character of their guest which were unmistakably something more than the expression of formal and ceremonial respect; and in the chief cities of those countries it is equally true that the common people were not less hearty in their reception of the visitors. At Brussels Mr. Roosevelt made a brief address at the Exposition now in progress there, attended a reception by the American Colony, and was entertained by the new King at Laaken Palace. At Amsterdam Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt were the guests of honor of Queen Wilhelmina at

luncheon; and Mr. Roosevelt spoke in the Free Church, making reference to his own Dutch descent, and praising the sturdiness of character of the people of Holland. A picturesque incident of the brief visit to Holland was the magnificent display of tulips, not only at the great national tulip show, but along the road from The Hague to Haarlem, where thousands of acres of tulips in bloom in great masses of color were seen as the party passed in a motor. At Copenhagen one of the newspapers hailed the visitor as "a champion of peace, a spokesman of justice, and a faithful servant of freedom; while Mr. Roosevelt in turn referred to the Danish emigrants to America as having only one fault, namely, that there were not enough of them. Here, too, the party was entertained royally in both senses of the word; in the absence of the King, the Crown Prince and Princess were the hosts.

PRINCE TSAI-TAO'S

BULL'S-EYE

с

The chief of the general staff of the Chinese army has been visiting America. He is Prince Tsai-Tao, brother of the Prince Regent and uncle of the baby Emperor of China. Last week, at the Seventy-first Regiment Armory, New York City, he asked to be permitted to try his hand at rifle practice. His Occidental hosts, confident as to their own sureness of aim, were prepared to be indulgent at the attempts of an Oriental. What was their surprise when, at the very first trial, the Prince put a bullet into the target, and, at the second, one into the bull's-eye! As Admiral Dewey's first cannon shot at Manila may be said to have changed the world's opinion regard ing America, so Prince Tsai-Tao's shot in New York may possibly change the world's opinion regarding China. Hitherto we have regarded the four hundred million Chinese as singularly unaggressive. But they are not all unaggressive. Some have been quite the contrary, and in recent times particularly Yuan-Shi-Kai, now exViceroy of the Province of Chili. His idea has been to rehabilitate China as a military nation. To this end he sought the advice of English, German, and Japanese authorities. He reorganized the ridiculous

and disjointed old Chinese army on a modern basis. His notion was ultimately to get an army of a million and a half men scientifically trained, well officered, and thoroughly equipped. No longer were undisciplined provincial officers, with clashing provincial prejudices, to militate against the success of a centralized force. The new soldiers swear allegiance to the Throne, and not, as before, to any provincial authority. The Viceroy then set to work to create the usual army divisions: first, the men in active service, and, second, those belonging to the first and second reserves. The fighting line consists of infantry, cavalry, artillery, and engineers, with the usual complement of signal corps, ordnance, experts, medical staff, and service corps. The period of service is fixed at ten years-three with the colors, three in the first reserves, and four in the second. The annual army requirements of recruits will be about a hundred and fifty thousand men. But YuanShi-Kai's hardest task was to secure proper officers. The docile Chinaman is easily led if he has a proper leader. How could Yuan make leaders out of Chinese when for centuries military service has been regarded as the lowest in the social scale? He recommended, and the Throne ordered, that army officers should be assimilated to the class of Mandarins, and that every prince, noble, and official of the Empire should send at least one son to the newly established Military School for Nobles at Peking. The training of officers at that school, now that Prince Tsai-Tao has visited West Point, will, he says, follow American methods. This, of course, must also involve the adoption of similar methods for training the soldiers to be commanded by these officers. The supposedly sluggish Chinese may be found, under proper training, to be serious fighters.