of their members, and so far as this is true they help toward
greater efficiency. At the same time they help to maintain stability of
employment and stability of other conditions surrounding labor.

A brief enumeration of ends they may serve directly will help to
appreciate their importance. First, they can as truly estimate the market
value of wages by gathering statistics from all parts of the country and
from other countries as can any organization in commerce estimate the
market value of produce. Second, they can serve as an employment bureau in
furnishing information of places where work is wanted, thus equalizing the
advantages as well as the burdens of their associates. Third, they can
make more uniform and more satisfactory the customs in regard to the
length of a day's work or privileges of any kind associated with the work
as perquisites. Fourth, they can, if they will, find the true gradation of
skill and of wages among workmen, so as to establish a natural line of
advancement. Fifth, they rightly do, and can still further, serve for
mutual support in cases of illness, and for protection of a community
against fraud in pleas of poverty. Sixth, they may easily and properly, if
they will, provide for insurance of character, both as men and as workmen,
by issuing certificates, and under proper provision giving bonds, such as
are required in many positions of trust. Seventh, they may extend their
operations even to the taking of jobs that require a variety of work
continuing through a period of time. Eighth, they can, under most
favorable circumstances, undertake various stock enterprises, especially
cooeperative stores, thus securing an incentive to saving, and diminishing
the spirit of antagonism against the profit-makers. Finally, though they
have the best possible organization for a successful strike, if necessary,
they can subordinate this disposition toward warfare to a broader
machinery for fair consideration of all interests and for individual
arbitration of rights.

Such organizations, under good management, win the respect of all, and
find a recognition of their methods satisfactory. Farmers' clubs and
granges, though far from reaching ideal efficiency, furnish suggestions of
the general utility. Unfortunately, these organizations, having little if
any basis of capital, have seldom been incorporated under the laws of the
state. Could the powers and purposes of such organizations be established
upon a b