great empirical law of cost, operates as the determinant or regulator of price. To identify this either directly or indirectly with the personal sacrifice, laboriousness, pain or disutility that is imposed upon us by labor or abstinence, is an actual misunderstanding.

The "cost" of the law of cost is not the name of an elementary factor. It is a designation applied indifferently, according to the special circumstances of the case, either to sacrifice utilities embodied in goods, or to personal discomfort or pains, i. e., either to utilities or to disutilities. The law of cost is always in the first instance a simple leveling principle. In order to determine what elementary forces are included under this title, we must inquire what it is, that under the name of cost, brings about this leveling. We then find that at first the marginal utility of one product is leveled to the marginal utility of other products, that are produced from the same cost good (raw material, machines, etc.), or it is a leveling of utility with utility. In most cases this leveling process not only begins but ends here. Only occasionally, under quite definite casuistic assumptions, is the leveling process carried a step further, and the utility of the good itself brought into equilibrium with the disutility endured by the producers. In this limited number

of cases the general law of cost becomes a special law of disutility. The independent character of this law is shown by the fact, that while its domain is very limited, yet in one direction it extends beyond that of the classical law of cost.*

What then is the "ultimate standard" for the determination of the value of goods, in the search for which, men have been as indefatigable during the last one hundred years, as they formerly were in their endeavors to square the circle. If we wish to answer this question in a single phrase, then we cannot choose any less general expression than "human well-being." The ultimate standard for the value of all goods is the degree of well-being which is dependent

*See above page 29.

upon goods in general. If, however, we desire a more concrete standard, one that will give us a more definite idea, just how goods are connected with well-being, then we must take not one but two standards, which though co-ordinate in theory are yet of very unequal practical importance, because of the greater prevalence of the phenomena in which one of them is operative; one is the utility of the good, and the other is the personal sacrifice or disutility involved in the acquisition of the good. The domain of the latter is much more limited than we usually think. In the great majority of cases, even in those in which the so-called law of cost undoubtedly plays a part, the final determination of the value of goods is dependent upon utility.

Vienna.

E. VON BÖHM-BAWERK.

[Translated by C. W. Macfarlane.]

RELATION OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS TO THE

AMERICAN BOY AND TO TRADE

INSTRUCTION.

In the Century Magazine for May, 1893, occurred these words, inspired by the late Colonel Auchmuty, the head of a large New York trade school: "The American boy has no rights which organized labor is bound to respect. He is denied instruction as an apprentice, and, if he be taught his trade in a trade school, he is refused admission to nearly all trade-unions, and is boycotted if he attempts to work as a non-union man. The questions of his character and skill enter into the matter only to discriminate against him. All the trade-unions of the country are controlled by foreigners, who comprise a great majority of their members. While they refuse admission to the born American boy, they admit all foreign applicants with little or no regard to their training or skill."

These words express a widespread belief that our labor organizations strenuously object to trade instruction, and that the reason for it is that these organizations are controlled and mostly composed of foreign born, who are hostile to the American boy. Before determining the amount of truth in the first charge, with which this paper is especially concerned, it is worth while to devote a few words to the second charge as to the composition of our trade-unions and their attitude toward the American born and those of American parentage.

The two historians of our early labor movement, Mr. George E. McNeil, of Boston, and Professor R. T. Ely, hold that the founders of most of our earliest labor organizations before 1860 were of native stock. Since then, our immigrants have entered the hard-handed industries more largely than have the native Americans. Still more largely

have they entered the labor organizations of their trades in many, but not all, occupations. In Illinois, in 1886, according to the report that year of the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics, only thirty-two per cent of the 89,221 then in labor organizations were of American birth, while seventeen per cent were of Irish, twenty-seven per cent of German, nine per cent of British, and nine per cent of Scandinavian birth, while the percentages in 1880 of the various nationalities among the 333,942 in Illinois engaged in the manufacturing, mechanical and mining industries, trade and transportation, were: Americans, sixty per cent; Irish, seven per cent; Germans, sixteen per cent; British, six per cent, and Scandinavians, four per cent. The proportion of Americans had doubtless somewhat decreased by 1886 If all employers and their clerks could be excluded, the proportion of wage-earners of American birth in 1886, would doubtless still have somewhat, but not very much, exceeded the proportion of foreigners in the unions. Four-fifths of all those in the railroad organizations and one-half of those in the unions of cigar makers, iron moulders, gas and steam fitters, printers and pressmen were of American birth.

Most of our trade-unions have so little prejudice against any nationality, native or foreign, that they keep no records of the number of each in their membership. A number of unions, however, have given me estimates. Mr. Fruaseth, secretary of the Sailors' Union of the Pacific, writes that the percentage of foreign born in his union is ninety-five, and on the Atlantic coast less, perhaps fifty, while among the seamen in foreign-going vessels, who are entirely unorganized, the percentage is fully ninety-five. Of the lake seamen outside and in the union, fully seventy-five per cent are foreign born.

In the Bakers' Union, the foreign born predominate, and in the Confectioners' Union, the native. Ninety per cent of the Spring Knife Makers' Protective Union are native American. About two-thirds of the International Furniture

Workers and of the International Trade Association of Hat Finishers; thirty-five per cent of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, and forty per cent of the carriage and wagon workers are of foreign birth.

President G. P. Monroe, of the Stationary Engineers, says, only fifteen per cent of his union are foreign born, which, he thinks, "smaller than in the trade outside." About onehalf of the brass workers in the union and in the trade outside are reported as foreign born. About eighty per cent of the silk ribbon weavers in the trade and apparently in the union are of foreign birth. About one-sixth in the Barbers' Union are of foreign birth, and a larger proportion of these outside. Of the Boiler Makers' and Iron Ship Builders' Union, about one-half are reported as of foreign birth, but the president writes: "Nationality cuts no figure. The most intelligent are most in favor of organization."

Mr. F. P. Sargent writes of the Firemen's Brotherhood, what is equally true of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers: "Our organization is almost entirely composed of American born persons."

President Martin Fox, of the Iron Moulders' Union, writes: "The question of ascertaining the percentage of native and foreign in the organization has never been entered into, as the union knows no politics, creed or nationality. The qualifications for membership are based on the ability and workmanship of the applicant to perform the work and command the wages paid average workmen, but, as a matter of fact, the native born predominate. Many of them, no doubt, are of parents born in foreign countries.'

That such restriction of apprentices as exists in some unions is disconnected with any race prejudices, may be indicated by the case of the Tackmakers' Protective Union with only about 300 members in six locals, ninety-five per cent being of American birth. This union, dating from 1854, and one of its locals, perhaps the oldest of existing local unions, from 1820, voted in 1890 to take no apprentices