portion, the bounty war will be one of extermination. The evil of the industrial crisis that will result from such a war can hardly be estimated. Even if the burden fall equally on the different countries, the European farmer will pay dearly for enjoying for a season the stolen fruits of war. The loss of capital, the derangement of industry, and the hard times which necessarily must follow will be a heavy cost for the temporary increase in production.

The liberation of Cuba means more than regaining her former condition. It guarantees a steady progress toward a larger industrial and commercial success. The effect of driving beet sugar from our market will be an intensification of the European crisis. It will do more than any other factor to force the bounty countries to a common sense settlement of their sugar problem. The immediate sacrifice of the agricultural and refining class, who have been living far beyond the limits of natural production, would be more than outweighed by the benefits derived by the country at large. The consumption of sugar would immediately increase. immediately increase. Agriculture would be established on a more enduring basis. International trade would be stimulated. Such a condition would relieve the West Indies from their depression. The indirect results are by no means the least important. How far they would extend does not lie within the scope of this article to predict.

The political side of the liberation of Cuba is too closely connected with her economic future to be disregarded. Serious men have doubted whether the Cubans were fitted to govern themselves. They have intimated that an independent government would be a severe check to her progress. One can only surmise as to the ability of her leaders, as they are still untried. Almost any form of government would be more advantageous for the sugar industry than a return to the régime of oppression. The release from the severity of taxation and the opportunity for freedom of trade would more than offset the political objections. The Cuban could hardly be more politically corrupt than the Spanish official has been. Capital at least would remain in the island. The benefit of this can hardly be overestimated. The great check to improvement and to the adoption of new

methods and machinery on the plantations has been the yearly outflow of capital. The Spanish colonial system was one of extraction, leaving almost nothing for the planter to build on for the future. No matter how petty a form of government may be instituted, the chance to use capital freely means steady progress for the sugar planter.

It would be unfortunate if Cuba were left alone to recover from the effects of her devastation. Her best interests demand a protectorate. Good government should be enforced until she is politically and economically established. A protectorate would give a guarantee that would encourage the immediate investment of capital. Intervention has imposed this trust on the United States. The depopulation of the island by war has left still larger opportunities for investment. Under Cuban or American government Spanish capital would largely be withdrawn. The opportunity of buying valuable estates at a low figure presents itself. That a large proportion of the sugar plantations would be under the control of British and American capital, in a few years, is a safe prediction. This is the great surety of Cuba's prosperity.

The jealousy of the Powers at the possibility of our annexing such a valuable sugar island has been evinced in their attitude toward the United States during the present war with Spain. France has been Spain's banker for so long, that the loss of Cuba means the cutting off of her most valuable security. It is perfectly natural that she should have supplied Spain with war funds to preserve her kingdom intact. It is altogether probable that she looked forward to Cuba being ceded to her, in case of Spain's bankruptcy. Germany has had the colonial fever for some time. The possession of Cuba by the United States would be a serious check to her aspirations in the Western world. Her sugar interests will suffer severely from Cuban liberation. All the European Powers view with disfavor any increase in our commerce that means a diminution in their export trade. The liberation of Cuba would close our market to their sugar and precipitate a crisis.

Cuba presents both an economic and political problem. What stage of progress freedom will lead her to remains for the

future to disclose. Reasoning from past conditions to coming opportunities gives a substantial hope of steady growth. Her liberation will strongly influence the great channels of trade. Our industries will soon feel the effects of her regeneration. If independent, her export and import trade will become a political issue. Beet sugar will demand protection against her, while manufacturers and capitalists will insist on free trade. If annexed, complications would arise between the different cane interests. The European sugar industry is the most interested party, as the United States market is essential to its present rate of production. Cuba, to-day, assumes the leading role on the world stage.

G. KINGSLEY OLMSTED.

NOTE. The author desires to acknowledge his obligation to the British and American Consular Reports, for the facts made use of in preparing this article.

LABOR CRISES AND THEIR PERIODS IN THE UNITED STATES.

TH

HE quantitative study of labor questions is a comparatively new department of economic science. Most of the literature with regard to the subject has either confined itself to generalities, or it has been of the anecdotal or biographical character. We have had interesting accounts of the various movements of the century in which the feelings and aims of the chief actors have played a prominent part, but little effort has thus far been made to reduce these movements to any law or to get really scientific generalizations which shall be as distinct from the personality of the persons concerned as the scientific generalizations of medical men are distinct from the sufferings, the hopes, the bereavements of their patients. This article is an attempt to frame some generalizations with regard to one particular phase of the labor movement. It is based upon material covering but a limited field and a limited period. Its conclusions do not, therefore, claim to be more than tentative. Later investigations are quite likely to modify them in many particulars. The author believes, however, that the method which he follows is sufficiently promising to be worth trying, even with scanty statistical material.

It would be desirable to extend this investigation to other countries besides the United States, but a brief survey of what has been done abroad will show at once the insufficiency of our data.

In 1880 Mr. Bevan read an excellent paper before the Royal Statistical Society on the strikes of the previous ten years, but it is significant that he felt called upon to apologize for taking up the time of the Society with such an uninteresting subject. That his apology was not superfluous may be inferred from the fact that from that time to the present he has found no imitators in the Society, and that strike statistics are barely alluded to in its publications. It is to be regretted that Mr. Bevan did not continue his investigations so as to connect with

those of the English Department of Labor, which did not begin until 1888, for then we might have a series of figures for England extending over a quarter of a century. The French Department of Statistics has published figures running back to 1856, but for all of the earlier years these statistics are obviously ex post facto and cannot be relied upon. The Prussian government undertook such an investigation in 1864, when the question of repealing the law against combinations arose, and it published figures covering nineteen years.1 But how valuable these figures are may be judged from the fact that only fortyfour labor disturbances were enumerated in nineteen years. It was not until 1890 that the Imperial Department of Labor undertook to keep contemporaneous and careful records of strikes.

The result is that the figures published by our Federal Department of Labor in its Reports of 1887 and 1896, which together cover the years 1881-1894, are the most complete figures that we have dealing with this subject in any country.

And yet these disturbances are of sufficient magnitude to warrant us in giving them as close and painstaking a study as has been given to commercial crises.

During the thirteen and one-half years for which our Federal Department of Labor furnishes exact statistics, the loss of wages alone to wage-earners through strikes and lockouts was $190,000,000, or an average of $14,000,000 a year. The loss to employers was estimated at $94,000,000, or an average of about $7,000,000 a year, and these figures do not include the incidental losses due to violence, destruction of property, additional police expense, cost of militia, legal expenses, etc. That these are considerable may be seen from the fact that the Chicago strike of 1894 cost the railroad companies in destruction of property $685,308, and in loss of earnings $4,672,916. In addition to this, the community was put to the expense of arresting over five hundred persons, and imprisoning many of them, and of supporting the State militia and extra police in order to maintain the peace, to say nothing of the loss of twelve human lives during the disturbance. The net loss caused by

1

Oldenburg, in Schmoller's Jahrbücher for 1886, No. 1.