is believed that improvements in the conditions of corporate businesses have been and are steadily being brought about by the Bureau's work. CORPORATE REGULATION. The decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Standard Oil and American Tobacco Co. cases have brought forcibly to public attention a fact that has been repeatedly presented in the reports of the Department. That fact is the imperative need for the positive administrative regulation of great industrial corpora tions. The Sherman antitrust act has been demonstrated to be a thoroughly effective measure. But the mere breaking up of large combinations into a number of separate parts by no means meets the whole question. A certain degree of combination of capital is admittedly essential for the carrying on of our great business enterprises. To control properly such necessary combinations, we must have some administrative Federal office or commission which shall make this work its business. We must have a permanent authority which shall by steady and continuous supervision and publicity safeguard the public interests, and at the same time allow full scope for necessary and proper business efficiency and development. The recent decisions and the reorganizations which followed have made it clear that another imperative step remains to be taken, and that this step is the establishment by appropriate legislation of a broad system of supervision and publicity for all those industrial and commercial organizations that are engaged in interstate and international business. Whether this shall be done by means of Federal incorporation, or by a Federal office or commission exercising powers of supervision and regulation, may be a secondary question. The first consideration appears to be the establishment of permanent administrative publicity, supervision, and regulation. The time is peculiarly ripe for such action. Public opinion and the views of many corporate managers are at one. The experience and information acquired by the Bureau of Corporations through eight years of work investigating such problems will necessarily be of great importance in the development of any system which would, in a sense, be the logical expansion of the Bureau's operations and policy. The Bureau's past work, relying solely on publicity, has demonstrated beyond question what such a system of permanent supervision can do, and presents one of the strongest arguments for the broadening of that system into some such form as is here suggested. BUREAU OF LABOR. REPORTS PUBLISHED. During the fiscal year ended June 30, 1911, the Bureau published its Twenty-fourth Annual Report, relating to Workmen's Insurance and Compensation Systems in Europe, in two volumes, and its Fourth Report on Hawaii, a report on industrial and commercial conditions in the Territory which is made regularly at intervals of five years. In addition, eight volumes of the Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage-Earners in the United States (S. Doc. No. 645, 61st Cong., 2d sess.) were issued. These volumes embody a portion of the results of an investigation of this subject made in compliance with an act of Congress and their titles are as follows: Volume I. Cotton Textile Industry. Volume II. Men's Ready-Made Clothing. Volume III. Glass Industry. Volume IV. Silk Industry. Volume V. Wage-Earning Women in Stores and Factories. Volume VI. The Beginnings of Child-Labor Legislation in Certain States: A Comparative Study. Volume VII. Conditions under which Children Leave School to go to Work. Since the close of the fiscal year additional volumes have been issued as follows: Volume X. History of Women in Trade Unions. Volume XI. Employment of Women in the Metal Trades. Volume XII. Employment of Women in Laundries. The Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, which relates to industrial education in the United States, and which was transmitted early in June, 1911, has also been printed and distributed. This report is limited to trade, vocational, and other industrial education of a strictly practical character. BIMONTHLY BULLETINS. The bulletins of the Bureau issued during the year have contained, in addition to one or more special articles in each number, digests of recent reports of State bureaus of labor, digests of recent foreign official labor publications, decisions of courts affecting labor, and laws of various States and of the United States relating to labor, The special articles included in the bulletins for the past fiscal year are as follows: Bulletin 89. Child-labor legislation in Europe. Bulletin 90. Fatal accidents in coal mines; Recent action concerning accident compensation; Foreign workmen's compensation acts; Cost of industrial accident insurance. Bulletin 91. Working hours of wage-earning women in Chicago; Labor laws declared unconstitutional; Review of labor legislation of 1910; Laws of various States relating to labor enacted since January 1, 1910. Bulletin 92. Industrial accidents and loss of earning power: German experience; Workmen's compensation insurance: Laws and bills, 1911. Bulletin 93. Wholesale prices, 1890 to 1910; Report of British Board of Trade on cost of living in the principal industrial towns in the United States; Reports of British Board of Trade on cost of living in England and Wales, Germany, France, Belgium, and the United States; Hours of labor of men, women, and children in factories in Austria. Bulletin 94. Fourth report of the Commissioner of Labor on Hawaii. REPORTS TRANSMITTED AND IN COURSE OF PREPARATION. In addition to the eleven volumes of the Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage-Earners in the United States which have been issued, the following four volumes are in the hands of the printer, and will appear at short intervals: Volume IX. History of Women in Industry in the United States. Four other volumes of this report, relating to various special aspects of the employment of women and children, will soon be ready for the printer. A large part of the force of the Bureau has been engaged throughout almost the entire year upon an investigation of the iron and steel industry, in compliance with a resolution of the Senate. The first volume of the report of the investigation, which is devoted to wages, hours of labor, and days worked, was transmitted to the Senate during July, 1911, and is now in press. The volume covers conditions in practically every important plant in the industry in the United States. Other volumes which are in preparation will relate to conditions of work and to accidents and accident prevention. An investigation is in progress in regard to retail prices of food and wages in the principal industries in the United States, the results to be presented as the Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Bureau. The information will cover the period 1890 to the end of 1911, in continuation of the previous studies of the Bureau on wages and prices. Work is also going on in preparation of a comprehensive study of the labor laws of all the principal industrial countries. Other lines of special investigation now being carried on will be continued through the coming year, and the results will be published from time to time in the Bulletin. One involves a series of special studies relating to the employment of women and girls, while another is a study of industrial diseases as related to various employments and industries, and still another will cover in a comprehensive way the subject of collective agreements and conciliation and arbitration in this and other countries. GOVERNMENT WORKINGMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT. Under the act of May 30, 1908, providing for compensation for injuries to certain employees of the United States, 2,895 claims for compensation were received during the year ended June 30, 1911, besides 16 cases pending July 1, 1910. Of these (2,911), 136 were claims for compensation on account of deaths of employees, of which 106 were found to be established, 28 were not allowed, and 2 were pending at the close of the year. The cases in which death did not result were 2,775 in number, of which 2,611 were found to be entitled to compensation, while in 152 cases the claim for compensation was not supported, and 12 cases were pending at the end of the year. In connection with the administration of the compensation act, provision is also made for reporting of injuries to all classes of employees of the Government not covered by the compensation act which occur in the course of employment when the injury causes disability for one day or longer or results in immediate death. The total number of accidents thus reported was 5,201. The above totals do not include cases of injury to employees of the Isthmian Canal Commission where the resultant disability was of less than 15 days' duration; neither do they include injuries or claims arising since March 3, 1911, on account of accidents to employees of the Isthmian Canal Commission, the administration of the law in respect to such employees having been transferred to the Commission on that date. Various amendments to the law have been proposed in Congress within the past year, of which but one was adopted. This amendment had the effect of transferring the entire administration of the law, in so far as it affects employees of the Isthmian Canal Commission, to that body. Reports of the operations of the law will, however, be made by the Commission, as well as of the number of accidents occurring, regardless of the application of the law thereto. This act also fixed the period for filing claims for compensation on account of death at one year instead of 90 days, as heretofore, and makes the law applicable to all employees under the Isthmian Canal Commission when injured in the course of their employment. BUREAU OF MANUFACTURES. The Bureau of Manufactures has carried forward its allotted work for the promotion and development of the manufacturing interests of the United States, and a considerable growth in this service during the fiscal year is to be noted. The fiscal year was marked by the increase of the export trade of the country to a total of over $2,000,000,000 in value, manufactured exports comprising approximately half of this amount. This expansion of our foreign commerce emphasizes the importance of the work of the Bureau of Manufactures through its investigations and reports respecting its various phases. Manufacturers are relying on the Bureau more and more for information in regard to general trade conditions in foreign countries as reported by consular officers and commercial agents, and increasing interest is shown in the bulletins of the Bureau respecting foreign tariffs, special manufacturing industries, and other subjects. The outgoing correspondence of the Bureau has grown from 23,410 letters in 1910 to 40,140 letters during the year 1911-an increase of 70 per centand the distribution of its publications has been correspondingly increased. Letters received in June, 1910, numbered 3,132; in June, 1911, 4,338-an increase of nearly 40 per cent. In 1910, 12,987 letters regarding trade opportunities were sent out, and in 1911, 20,043 were mailed. With the increase in the edition of the Daily Consular and Trade Reports to a maximum of 20,000 copies, which was authorized by Congress in June, 1910, it has been possible to distribute the valuable trade information in that journal much more generally than heretofore; and the work of consular officers and commercial agents in behalf of export trade has been made more effective. It is now necessary to recommend a further increase in the edition of the Daily, as the present mailing list already contains nearly 18,000 names of manufacturers and exporters. It is estimated that at least 30,000 firms in the United States are directly interested in export trade, although no definite figures are available to this office for this estimate. The Bureau is now endeavoring to complete its knowledge of such firms, and is developing its list of manufacturers classified by product, with a view to the prompt and efficient distribution of the useful trade facts received or collected by the Bureau. |