of losses. Any arrangement that gave them percentages of business gains without participating in possible losses seemed to him bad business and poor charity. The savings bank seemed to him best, and safest. The very unusual proportion of laborers that has been taught to economize is owing wholly to this policy of beginning with the child and creating the habit of thrift. There is a bank for the school children. "Nous cherchons," said M. Harmel, “ainsi à donner dès le jeune âge l'habitude de l'epargne." There is also a special " Caisse de Prévoyance," the purpose of which is to furnish a pension to all who have worked thirty years and are no longer able to do full service. Another fund is devoted to loans to work men.

3. The object of the "Society of Preservation" is moral and educational. Fêtes, excursions, reunions, lectures, and especially the spread of carefully selected papers and books, are under its control. It aims to give such variety of lively fun as shall compete with the morally dangerous amusements outside, and also to preserve the men and women from reading the literature of the "Gil Blas" and Zola type. For two papers it has nearly five hundred subscribers. There is a system of loaning these papers after they are read. It is perhaps unnecessary to describe other associations like choral societies, gymnastic and shooting clubs, dramatic and instrumental unions. Their purpose is, like the others, to give a full, rich, and happy life to the members, and thus to secure the harmony of the entire group. There also remain seven societies of a distinctly religious character, to some of which practically all belong. It must be said that a supreme significance is given the distinctively religious element in this entire economy. With every possible facility which perfect courtesy could offer me, and with an intercourse of several hours with one of the firm, the most vivid impression that was left upon my mind was that of a solid business ability behind all.

Such secret as there is in these rare successes is an open one. It is found first in the business ability of the Harmels and in their moral and religious consecration to that high aim of making not only a perfect business, but a perfect society. They are rich, but they live among their fellow-workers. Young Harmel, fresh from college studies in England, met me clothed like any of the workmen, and he did not make the mistake of apologizing for his appearance. He was serving, as all the firm must do, the entire apprenticeship from the humblest to the highest duties of the business. Neither the men nor women of the family spend time in Paris or summer resorts for their amusements. "Our scheme," it was said to me, "simply will not

work unless we live our lives and find our pleasures here." I asked if the socialists had made any propaganda among them. "Yes, they have three times sent lecturers, but the two last were finally put out of the hall so roughly by the workmen that they have given it up." Private property in so many forms is spread among the workers, their instruction in industrial functions and in the nature of rent and interest has been so thorough, that the socialist dialect is wholly unintelligible to them and excites only their indignation.

Whatever may be thought of this influence upon the laborers, it is clear that the employers' gain is great. There has been no sign of unrest or dissatisfaction nor any hint of strikes. The very beginnings of trouble are met in joint committees, where any grievance is discussed. "Industrial peace" is one of their mottoes, and thus far it has controlled large and complicated relations without bitterness or serious complaint. The fierce struggle between employer and employed goes on hard by in Belgium and in scores of busy centres throughout France, while quiet and the kindliest feeling reign in this pleasant Val-des-Bois. The result is, under the conditions, as necessary as it is natural. Almost from childhood the workmen are taught certain ideas about private property. By theoretic precept, by wide practice and much example, they are fairly drilled into sympathy with that order of economic ideas which assumes a practical identity of interest between employer and employed. When the first socialist lecturer told them that interest on money was a form of theft and their employers spongers upon labor, he was met only by laughter. When he insisted more earnestly upon proving this, his speech was stopped by contemptuous shouts. It is safe to say that any set of men who had learned through self-sacrifice to save a modest sum upon which they drew interest, who owned a house a part of which they rented, or owned a patch of land, would in every instance have the same answer for the socialist. Any set of men the great majority of whom were linked through a dozen forms of self-interest to their business would in the same manner meet the strike-agitator.

I am not claiming that this is the most desirable of industrial relation nor that it could be copied or made to work under other conditions. It is, however, a matter of some wonder that those who control great businesses have been so careless of this powerfully conservative influence which comes from teaching and practising these property functions. Laborers that were early taught thrift and given easy and various opportunities of small investments would do more

to make the employer's life worth living than all other means combined. If we except the cities and towns where labor is too fluctuating to make such disciplinary institutions possible, much of what is best in this success of the Harmels is wholly practicable. The chief employer here, M. Léon Harmel, is indeed now devoting his entire time to travelling about France for the express purpose of spreading these forms of organization. Two textile industries, one at Watten, the other in Tourcoing, are fairly at work on these lines. The largest owner in coal mines near Lyons, where eight thousand men are employed, has been for two years introducing these institutions among his men, with results that has called out a letter of personal gratitude to M. Harmel. The chief Catholic employers in the north of France have formed an association through M. Harmel's influence. A special trade book is published, also a periodical, "Le Bulletin de l'Union.” At the monthly meetings, not only the business issues are discussed, but regularly and systematically the new methods which make for industrial peace. This union is the means of spreading the abler literature upon the social question. There are several magazines and weeklies, like "Le XXme. Siècle," "Revue des Hommes d'Euvre," "Revue Catholique," etc., devoted to the discussion of social questions.

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For the practical man the saying is a hard but at least a noble one, and in this case also crowned by the success which the business. man respects. M. Harmel says: "The blunder of so many business. leaders is in having two moralities, one for the private life and family, another for commerce and affairs. A perfect business will have the morality of the perfect family." However we may wag our heads at this, it remains probably strictly true that, given high-class business ability and the kind of entire consecration of a whole family to the end of making the lives of their workers strong in body and happy in mind, the results would not greatly differ from those of which we now speak. Nor would any one who saw the family doubt for an instant that its reward in gay, vigorous, and healthful life was real and secure. The words from a daughter of the house had, perhaps, more meaning in them than she knew. I asked her if she liked to stay in Paris. "No; even my best fun I find here among our own people." Her own people" were not only her family, but also the working men and women, for whose weal she spent a portion of every day.

JOHN GRAHAM BROOKS.

THE CHURCHES AND LABOR UNIONS.

THE Committee on the Work of the Churches of the Massachusetts Congregational Association lately undertook to inquire whether industrial discontent had produced any effect upon the attitude of the workingmen in Massachusetts toward the churches. Inquiries were sent to clergymen and to representatives of labor societies. The inquiry made of the representatives of the labor societies was conducted under difficulties. Some organizations kept secret their existence and others. kept secret certain local branches. Others permitted no list of local officials to be given out, because, as they explained, of the dread of the black list, or of the efforts to bribe or otherwise to compromise or demoralize these officials if they should become known. Of the two leading organizations, one withheld names, but the State officer was interested and himself circulated the inquiries; the other, after investigation, decided to trust the committee, and gave not only the names of local officers, but permission to use the name of the superior officer as an introduction. Circulars were therefore sent to some two hundred State and local labor leaders. In view of the fact that it was a printed circular, carrying no authority and offering no inducement to answer, addressed by a body of clergymen to men with small liking for the cloth, the proportion of answers is not disappointing. Moreover, that distrust was not overcome, even by the indorsement of State officers, is clear from the tone of some of the curt refusals to answer; and doubtless this explains the failure of many even to return the circular. Other brief responses manifested too much contempt for the authors of the circular to permit of specific replies.

The burden of the testimony from the churches is that while about 38 per cent of the population, chiefly native Americans, are habitual non-church-goers, industrial discontent, in their opinion, has had little to do with their failure to attend church. Seven or eight do think that the effect has been considerable and unfavorable, while fifteen make statements tending less strongly in the same direction, and seven or eight believe the effect to have been salutary. Some of these opinions are evidently the results of inference rather than of observation,

and hence have less value, though some of them have an interest of their own. One, for instance, thinks the effect of industrial discontent has been unfavorable, because "discontent from any cause will usually have a bad effect upon the churches "; while another, who prefers to fish in troubled waters, declares that industrial discontent has had a good effect, because "discontented people are better to preach the Gospel to than those who have not life enough to quarrel with their lot." Against the twenty-two who report unfavorable effects and eight who report favorable, twenty-nine report little effect of any kind and two hundred and seventeen say that no effect whatever is discernible. Some deny the existence of other discontent than such as "is manufactured by unprincipled, loud-mouthed agitators "; and a few show either a real or an affected ignorance of the existence of such a thing as industrial discontent at all. Some of the two hundred and sey. enteen replies which give report of no effect of industrial discontent on church work come from non-industrial communities. But after making due allowance for these, it is still clear that a large majority of the representatives of the churches believe that industrial discontent has had little or no influence upon the attitude of the workingmen. toward the churches.

With this testimony the testimony of the labor societies conflicts. The failure of many to return the circulars and the return of blank circulars by others might receive a partial interpretation in hostility. Some of the representatives of labor societies are non-committal or unintelligible. One reports that his society has instructed him not to reply. Some explain that they answer only as individuals. Others seem to report the result of discussions by their unions. Of classifiable replies, twelve see no effect, three believe that discontent has attracted men to the churches by increasing their intelligence and thoughtfulness, and thirty express a more or less pronounced opinion that laboringmen have been alienated from the churches. So far, these correspond with the report from the churches that most non-church-goers in industrial communities belong to the working class. The estimates as to the proportion of workingmen who are alienated from the churches average 48 per cent.

The suggestive declaration of certain recent investigators that the German Social Democrats, though hostile to official Christianity, are ready to avow themselves followers of Jesus, led to the question whether those who disbelieve in the churches also disbelieve in Jesus. With few exceptions the answers are that belief in Jesus is common;