ing the social order in danger. All are, however, so obviously
criminal, if they are judged by the spirit of the law,--not to say by
the letter of it,--that it is better to leave the discussion of the
mode of suppressing them to legal and political science.

_A Practical Mode of Insuring an Approach to Normal Rates for
Transportation._--When competition rules, it enlarges the supply of a
dear article till the price of it is normal, and it increases the
capital in a profitable business till its earnings become so. In the
case of railroads this does not automatically take place, but the
result of it all--adequate service and normal charges for it--can be
directly secured by the state. Charges that have been made reasonable
by competition may be left as they are, and those that are
disproportionately high may be gradually lowered. The growth of
traffic may be trusted to keep the total earnings of the companies'
present plants at the amount at which they now stand, in spite of
these reductions of rates; and enlargements of the plants may be
permitted to earn further sums which will attract capital and keep the
service abreast of the public need. All this will require expert skill
of a very high order. For the purpose of the present work it is enough
to say that such a course as this is the only one which will insure in
transportation the results which competition elsewhere yields. It will
secure both rates and service which the civil law calls "reasonable"
and economic law calls "natural."

CHAPTER XXV

ORGANIZATION OF LABOR

What an economist wishes first to know concerning the organization of
labor is whether it is a natural phenomenon which should be welcomed
and left to itself. Does it help to establish wages on the basis of
the productivity of labor, and does it do it without much reducing
that productivity? We shall find that it works both well and ill in
these particulars and needs close study and careful regulation.

What laborers themselves ask concerning the organization of men of
their class is simply what power it has to raise their own wages; and
we shall shortly find that it has a certain power when it does not
invoke the principle of monopoly and a much larger power when it does
so. We shall find that the benefit from mere organization may be
extended to the great majority of laborers, while that which depends
on monopoly is confined to relatively few and involves an injury to
the remainder.