gradually
be fitted into a nationalized economic system."

The conditions to which a "good" labor union ought to conform are more
easily definable than the conditions to which a "good" trust ought to
conform. In the first place the union should have the right to demand a
minimum wage and a minimum working day. This minimum would vary, of
course, in different trades, in different branches of the same trade,
and in different parts of the country; and it might vary, also, at
different industrial seasons. It would be reached by collective
bargaining between the organizations of the employer and those of the
employee. The unions would be expected to make the best terms that they
could; and under the circumstances they ought to be able to make terms
as good as trade conditions would allow. These agreements would be
absolute within the limits contained in the bond. The employer should
not have to keep on his pay-roll any man who in his opinion was not
worth the money; but if any man was employed, he could not be obliged to
work for less than for a certain sum. On the other hand, in return for
such a privileged position the unions would have to abandon a number of
rules upon which they now insist. Collective bargaining should establish
the minimum amount of work and pay; but the maximum of work and pay
should be left to individual arrangement. An employer should be able to
give a peculiarly able or energetic laborer as much more than the
minimum wage as in his opinion the man was worth; and men might be
permitted to work over-time, provided they were paid for the over-time
one and one half or two times as much as they were paid for an ordinary
working hour. The agreement between the employers and the union should
also provide for the terms upon which men would be admitted into the
union. The employer, if he employed only union men, should have a right
to demand that the supply of labor should not be artificially
restricted, and that he could depend upon procuring as much labor as the
growth of his business might require. Finally in all skilled trades
there should obviously be some connection between the unions and the
trade schools; and it might be in this respect that the union would
enter into closest relations with the state. The state would have a
manifest interest in making the instruction in these schools of the very
best, and in furnishing it free to as many apprentices as the trade
agreement permitted.

In all probab