ferences in a business spirit, there are few sounder
positions for the employer, for agreements honorably carried out
dismiss the constant harassments of possible strikes. Such unions
exist in dozens of trades in this country, and they are entitled to
greater recognition. The time when the employer could ride roughshod
over his labor is disappearing with the doctrine of "_laissez faire_,"
on which it was founded. The sooner the fact is recognized, the
better for the employer. The sooner some miners' unions develop
from the first into the second stage, the more speedily will their
organizations secure general respect and influence.[*]

[Footnote *: Some years of experience with compulsory arbitration
in Australia and New Zealand are convincing that although the law
there has many defects, still it is a step in the right direction,
and the result has been of almost unmixed good to both sides. One
of its minor, yet really great, benefits has been a considerable
extinction of the parasite who lives by creating violence.]

The crying need of labor unions, and of some employers as well,
is education on a fundamental of economics too long disregarded
by all classes and especially by the academic economist. When the
latter abandon the theory that wages are the result of supply and
demand, and recognize that in these days of international flow of
labor, commodities and capital, the real controlling factor in
wages is efficiency, then such an educational campaign may become
possible. Then will the employer and employee find a common ground
on which each can benefit. There lives no engineer who has not
seen insensate dispute as to wages where the real difficulty was
inefficiency. No administrator begrudges a division with his men
of the increased profit arising from increased efficiency. But
every administrator begrudges the wage level demanded by labor
unions whose policy is decreased efficiency in the false belief
that they are providing for more labor.

CHAPTER XVII.

Administration (_Continued_).

ACCOUNTS AND TECHNICAL DATA AND REPORTS; WORKING COSTS; DIVISION
OF EXPENDITURE; INHERENT LIMITATIONS IN ACCURACY OF WORKING COSTS;
WORKING COST SHEETS. GENERAL TECHNICAL DATA; LABOR, SUPPLIES, POWER,
SURVEYS, SAMPLING, AND ASSAYING.

First and foremost, mine accounts are for guidance in the distribution
of expenditure and in the collection of revenue; secondly, they
are to determine the financial progress of the enterp