and operate them, or to make such a concerted labor action unlawful, or to adopt some other measure for self-defense. Labor unionists themselves claim that the boycott is used only as an exceptional and not an ordinary means of defense against unfair competition. The report of the Boycott Committee of the Federation of Labor in 1909 says:

"

'If in instances where the boycott is now necessary, the right kind of publicity could be had, the boycott would be unnecessary, for an aroused public conscience would speedily compel the manufacturing and the selling malefactor to put his establishment in industrial order or to go out of business. We say that when your cause is just and every other remedy has been employed without result, boycott."

It is to be hoped that as the organizations of labor become strong and able to treat on equal terms with employers they will find it possible to make fair bargains and secure fair conditions without resorting to this device.

Regulated Does competition when fair always make for effimonopoly ciency, or is coöperation in certain kinds of industry a better method? We have already seen that there are certain cases where competition is intolerable. Street' railways, gas companies, electric light companies, cannot be allowed to compete in a single city. The only method here is to allow one company the right of operating and then to regulate its prices by lawunless the city itself operates the railway or lighting plant. With railways and telephone companies, the case is similar. It may seem plausible that if a railway between two cities is charging too high a price the

best method to reduce prices is to build a competing
road. But if there is really business enough for but
one road, it is evident that some one will lose if a
second is built. Experience has shown over and over
that the public in the long run has to pay higher, on
account of the second road. Sometimes one road has
bought out the other, sometimes there is a kind of truce
reached between the two by which both keep going.
But in some form or other the public pays a higher
price for the service or else the railway owners undergo
serious loss. To try competition as a remedy for too
high prices in such cases is as stupid as to sink ships
in the sea, in order to promote shipbuilding, or to burn
buildings in order to provide work for carpenters. It
does provide work for some undoubtedly, but it is a
wasteful method. Coöperation is undoubtedly better
than competition in certain cases, for it may eliminate
many wastes.
The war has shown the need of co-
ordinating our railways. Competition has proved
inefficient.

tion and

Coöpera

tion

Fruit growers in the western part of the United CompetiStates have practiced coöperation to great advantage. By packing their fruit and marketing it under a cooperative plan they save expense and protect the reputation of their brand. In England, as already stated, the trade-unions manage great coöperative stores and secure their goods much cheaper. In the matter of wages, trade-unions are coöperative. An individual workman might often gain better wages by competing against other workmen. But experience shows that this is often only a temporary advantage. There is no doubt that, in improvement of hours of labor, conditions of work, protection from dangerous machinery, workingmen have gained more by coöperating with each

other, than they could have gained by competing against each other.

In conclusion, then, it appears that fair competition which seeks to devise better methods, which aims at cheaper production not through cutting wages but through invention and improvement, is a social gain. Unfair competition which seeks to win by fouling the competitor is a social loss as well as a mean practice. Finally even fair competition in certain kinds of business is a wasteful method in comparison with coöperation.