on this earth. The Western Union management looks upon the operators as being mere slaves who deserve no consideration whatever. The wages paid and hours worked by the telegraphers are nothing short of scandalous. The Postal Co. is a despicable ingrate. It came into the field as a competitor of the W. U. and was largely built up on its representations as a friend of labor and an enemy of the old corporation. The Associated Press, perhaps the most dangerous bunch of this hydra-headed monopoly, is too well known as an agency that deliberately garbles or suppresses news to require any description. In most national contests a good percentage of the union membership is employed by fair concerns, and thus are enabled to assist their fellow-workers on strike by paying liberal dues and assessments. But with the telegraphers only an insignificant fraction of the membership was employed on private wires and the strikers were forced to depend upon other trades and sympathizers from the beginning of the fight. This deplorable situation once more demonstrates the necessity of the American Federation of Labor accumulating a defense fund or inaugurating a plan to levy assessments indefinitely if required.

Anticipating the general strike of the bookbinders on Oct. 1, for an eight-hour work-day, employers in a number of cities locked out the unionists, secured injunctions and pursued the usual methods to discourage and weaken the organization, just as was done with the printers two years ago. The pressmen, who are closely allied to the bookbinders made their demands, through their international officers, for the eight-hour and the closed shop at the recent convention of the organized employers, known as the United Typothetae of America, at Niagara Falls. The journeymen were coldly turned down, the employers refusing to treat with them, and it is quite probable that the pressmen will now make common cause with the bookbinders. The Typographical Union, also allied with the binders and pressmen, hit the United Typothetae a blow from which the latter body will hardlly recover. In a two-years' fight, during which the T. U. spent over $3,500,000, the union enforced the eight-hour day practically all over the continent and nearly disrupted the United Typothetae. The binders and pressmen ought to be able to put the finishing touches to the Typothetae-unless the American Federation of Capitalism can inject new life into one of its constituent parts by tapping its $1,500,000.

A feature of the machinists' strike on the Erie railway is the charge of the corporation management that they had paid $10,000 a year to a "representative" of the union (or a total of $22,000) to be immune from strikes. The capitalistic press quickly spread the news broadcast that the union had levied the blackmail. The fact is that neither the international or any local union received a penny of the money. It went into the capacious pockets of one George Warner, formerly a New York business agent, who was secretly employed by the Erie railway as a "labor commissioner," just as the Fuller Construction Co. once employed Sam Parks and as the Roebling Co. to-day has a number of skates on its pay roll. Warner, on his part, claimed that he had been paid the money to work against the passage of the Erie canal bill by the New York Legislature, that he had "double-crossed" the corporation by using the funds to boom the canal project, and that the whole scandal was raked up by the Socialists to destroy his usefulness because he had "consistently fought the reds" for a dozen years. Howsoever that may be, the fact is that the machinists' convention in St. Louis the past month did not like Warner's style of pitching and he was ousted as a delegate,

whereupon he began to yell louder than ever that the Socialists were after his scalp. This is a favorite trick of all crooks when their perfidy is discovered. They believe that when they whine for sympathy and holler “stop thief” at the Socialists attention is diverted from heir villainous conduct. But that scheme is played out, although the Socialists may welcome the enmity of such people. The scheme is ausgespielt for the reason that the Socialists and their sympathizers are becoming altogether too numerous, and the body of workers has confidence in them whether or not they agree with or understand Socialist principles.

The struggle on the Minnesota ore range threatens to become as extended as the contest in Colorado. The Western Federation of Miners recently organized the iron ore diggers, and the United States Steel Corporation, which controls the range almost wholly, was determined to crush the movement. The miners, feeling the increased cost of necessities most severely, demanded a small increase in wages-the total amount any day would hardly equal the value of a dog collar for Mabel Gilman's husband. The men struck and soon the brutal methods of the Colorado labor-crushers were introduced. After taking his $4,000,000 bride to their Parisian home, President W. E. Corey, of the U. S. Steel Corporation, returned and issued orders. Miners were evicted and credit refused them. The Western Federation established a commissary department and then the meat trust was influenced to withhold provisions. The farmers agreed to help the miners, and now it is reported that the trust intends to establish stores throughout the range and sell foodstuffs at cost in order to kill off the miners' co-operative stores and at the same time encourage the men to return to work and accept the lower cost of necessities in lieu of a raise in wages. This latest move if it is carried out, will be a terrible blow to the small-fry capitalists who have done the corporation's bidding throughout the struggle. They will be ruined and nobody will shed any tears at their unenviable plight. A press censorship also exists and it is almost impossible to obtain any news of what is occuring on the range.

SOCIALISM ABROAD

ENGLAND.

The fortieth annual Congress of British trade unions has just finished its session in London. This congress was contrasted in the opening speech with the one held forty years ago where there were only 34 delegates representing one hundred eighteen thousand members while at the present congress the delegates represented more than a million and a half.

The sharpest debate took place over the question of the labor members in Parliament. The first movement in the matter was taken by those who belong in the Liberal party, called "Lib-Labs," who brought forth a resolution that none but genuine labor union members shall receive the support of a union. They hoped by doing this to exclude some of the socialists.

The labor reperesentative committee responded by offering to co operate with the "Lib-Labs" on condition that they agree not to contest a seat where the labor party had a candidate in the field. There upon Gould from Hull declared that the time had come for the congress to get into closer touch with the Socialists and to chase the hyenas from the Liberal Party. He was here interrupted by the president who objected to his language. He continued that he could find no other expression for men who call themselves labor leaders and who then ran against such men as Hyndman and Grayson.

Other speakers joined in this denunciation of the "Lib-Labs" and the congress finally declared in favor of some sort of arrangement between the labor party and the Liberal labor representative.

There is little hope of such an understanding being reached, however, but if present conditions continue there will be no need for it as the number of labor members are decreasing as they are being replaced by new members of the labor party. One of the resolutions entered was for the abolition of the House of Lords and denouncing the government for its action in the Belfast riots and a resolution indorsing the New Zealand system of compulsory arbitration was defeated by one million and three thousand votes to three hundred three thousand votes. Finally a resolution was adopted ordering the secretary of the congress to become a member of the labor party. This means that from now on the person occupying this place must have the double qualification of a trade unionist and a member of a working class political organization.

FINLAND.

The new parliament of Finland meets on the second of September Finland and will present a remarkable contrast to the previous one.

is still subject to the Russian autocracy. The socialists are bringing in an extensive relier program They are demanding that the vacant land shall be taken by the state and put in the control of the landless agricultural workers whose numbers are between eight and nine hundred thousand. They also demand the abolition of the old laws which greatly restrict the movements of the working class.

A somewhat peculiar feature of the Finnish situation is the strong Prohibition sentiment. Nearly all the parties are agreed on Prohibition. 170 out of 200 members of the Reichstag are pledged to prohibition. The Senate and the St. Petersburg government are in opposition of this since the income from alcohol is one of the great sources of revenue.

Another demand is that the standing army in Finland shall de made up of Finns with officers of the same nationality. It is also demanded that the age for voting shall be reduced from twenty-four to twenty-one years. Complete freedom of speech, press and organization is also demanded.

NORWAY.

The congress of the Scandinavian Socialists met at Christiania during the past month. There were 167 Norwegian delegates, 127 from Sweden, and 86 from Denmark. Finland was represented for the first time with 6 delegates. These represented the Socialist Parties of the various countries with a paid up membership of 120,000 in Sweden, 20,000 in Norway, 65,000 in Denmark, and 11,000 in Finland. In addition there were representatives of the trades unions, including 160,000 Swedish members, 100,000 Danes, and 40,000 Norwegians. Besides these regular participating delegates, there were also representatives from the central unions of Germany, Belgium and Hungary. H. Branting, the Socialist delegate from Stockholm, reviewed the progress of the Scandinavian Socialist Movement. Twenty years ago the first effort was made at Gothenburg to hold a meeting of all the Scandinavian countries. At that time, Denmark alone had an organization. Today more than 400,000 workingmen are organized in these three countries, and corresponding progress has been made in all other fields of working class effort. During the past year great progress has been made in the co-operative movement which is an integral part of the Socialist movement in most of the Scandinavian countries.

HUNGARY.

A great general strike took place on October 10. This strike was for the purpose of obtaining universal suffrage. The demonstra tion obtained immense proportions and has drawn within its ranks hundreds of thousands of workers whom even the trades union never touched. The demand is for universal, secret, adult, suffrage, regardless of sex. At present, Hungary is governed by what is known as the four class system of voting. According to this plan, the poplation is divided into four classes, each of which elects the same number of representatives regardless of the number of votes that may be cast. The first class is composed of the landed nobility; the second includes the great capitalists who pay over two hundred and fifty dollars per year for direct taxes; the third class embraces the small capitalists, merchants, farmers, and others who pay a tax of between one hundred and fifty and two hundred and fifty dollars;

the fourth class embraces the semi-feudal holders of small plots of land, who pay their taxes in all kinds of ways. The industrial laborer has no vote whatever.

GERMANY.

Coming as it did immediately after Stuttgart, even the Annual Conference of the German Party was bound to lose in interest, and that that was felt to be the case is proved by the fact that this year, in contrast to previous years, only two representatives of the parties abroad were present, and those both from Austria, while the foreign bourgeois press, equally in contrast to other years, was also conspicnous by its absence. I mention these facts because one or two bourgeois papers have seized on them as showing a feeling that in consequence of the so-called defeat of the Party at the last General Elections the party itself has lost in importance for the Socialist parties abroad as well as for the bourgeois press. As a matter of fact it is obvious enough that parties who have just been conferring with the German Party at a common conference have no need to send a representative to a national conference of that party three weeks later. The influence and importance of the German Party rests on the recognised superiority of their party organs and the fact that, both in the sphere of theory and practice, the German Party has, in many respects at least, been the model for other European countries. While it has its weaknesses, and no doubt these are sometimes serious, no party has been so thorough in its work, or has, for many years before that word was known in England, acted on the ideal of "efficiency," the highest efficiency in all departments. The importance and interest of this year's Congress was much increased by the fact that it was held in a place where for years the wealth and terrorism employed by the firm of Krupp was able to prevent either the trade unions or the party from obtaining a footing. However, that has ceased, and at this Congress nothing was more remarkable than the number of working men who sacrificed a day's work or more to crowd the galleries and to hear what was being done at their own party's Congress. I may add that the hotel-keepers deliberately charged in many cases extra prices for rooms when they knew they were for delegates, and these had to pay exorbitant prices for bad rooms. That was the relic apparently of the old feeling which had been so sedulously nourished by the firm of Krupp against the party.

One of the most important questions with which the Congress had to deal was that of the relations of the members of the so-called local organisations of trade unions to the party. These organisations represent a relic from the days of the old Socialist law, when it was almost impossible to form centralised trade organisations for the whole Empire, and the idea has continued to exist that it would be better to organise the workers according to locality and not according to trade. However, with the foundation of the national trade unions, and with the tremendous development which these have made in point of numbers, the local trade unions have become ridiculously small, and consequently have lost all right to exist as trade unions. Till recently, however, they claimed to represent the true Socialist Ispirit in the trade unions in contrast to the central organisations, who auvocated the neutrality of the unions. Now, however, that they have become infected by Anarchist elements, and their organ, the "Einigheit," shows leanings towards Anarchism, adopting many of their at