For enginemen and trainmen paid on mileage basis there is to be reported the number of hours on duty, the number of miles actually run, and the total compensation. In this classification of employees naturally those occupations which are particularly peculiar to the transportation service are clearly delimited, as are also some of the more skilled occupations such as those of machinists, boiler makers, blacksmiths, masons and bricklayers, structural-iron workers, carpenters, painters and upholsterers, and electricians, which may be found among other industry groups and which are not specially peculiar to transportation. In class 24, "other skilled laborers," are included journeymen mechanics and other skilled employees in the maintenance of way and structures, maintenance of equipment, and construction departments such as steel-car builders, truck builders, molders, coremakers, tinners, tank builders, tender repairmen, flue welders and caulkers, plasterers, scalers, coppersmiths, machine hands (wood and metal), staybolt inspectors, sheet-iron workers, crane engineers, derrick engineers, plumbers, pipe fitters, casting inspectors, millwrights, tool inspectors, wreck masters, and inspectors of work; also stationary engineers, engine inspectors, and other skilled employees not provided for elsewhere. In group 27, "other unskilled laborers," are included (if not elsewhere reported) unskilled employees in the maintenance of way and structures and the maintenance of equipment departments, such as laborers at shops, storehouse attendants, elevator and crane operators, hammer men, teamsters and drivers, cupola men, melters, wheel breakers, pumpers, car cleaners, oilers, car washers and scrubbers, car spongers, grinders, supply-car conductors, laborers, firemen, stokers, etc., of steam shovels, dredge ditchers, and hoisting or other stationary engines. Under group 41, "station-service employees," are included weighmasters and weighmen, warehousemen, freight truckers, freight checkers, freight callers, freight tallymen, carders, sealers, station helpers, freight handlers, freight-house foremen, coopers, mail carriers, mechanicians, operators of coal and ore docks, telpherage or crane operators, stevedores, longshoremen, station porters, janitors, matrons and ushers, train callers and gatemen, baggage-room attendants, parcel-room attendants, station lamp men, and all other stationservice employees, except those provided for in other classes. In the miscellaneous catch-all group, "all other employees," are included dining-car employees, sleeping-car employees, restaurant employees, cab-service employees, etc. As it would make this article too extended it is not possible to indicate completely the nature of the duties of the employees included in the different groups of the schedule, and therefore only a list of the occupations adopted under the new schedule of the commission is here given: 1. General officers, $3,000 per annum and upward. 2. General officers, below $3,000 per annum. 3. Division officers, $3,000 per annum and upward. 33. Train dispatchers and directors. 34. Telegraphers, telephoners, and block operators. 35. Telegraphers and telephoners handling interlockers. 36. Levermen (nontelegraphers). 4. Division officers, below $3,000 per 37. Telegrapher clerks. annum. 5. Clerks, $900 per annum (except No. 37). 38. Agent telegraphers. 39. Station agents (nontelegraphers). 40. Station masters and assistants. 6. Clerks, below $900 per annum (except 41. Station service (except Nos. 5, 6, 37, 25. Mechanics' helpers and apprentices. 60. Road passenger brakemen and flag 26. Section men. 27. Other unskilled labor. 28. Foremen of construction gangs and work trains. 29. Other men in construction gangs and work trains. 30. Traveling agents and solicitors.. 31. Employees in outside agencies. 32. Other traffic employees. men. 61. Other road trainmen. 62. Crossing flagmen and gatemen. 64. Floating-equipment employees. 67. All other transportation employees. INDUSTRIAL ARBITRATION IN NORWAY. There is to be noted as of special interest the recent enactment, August 6, 1915, of an arbitration law in Norway, which recognizes the principal of compulsory investigation and enforced delay in striking, which forms the essential feature of the Canadian industrial disputes act of 1907. As originally drafted the Norwegian law was a pure compulsory arbitration law, but opposition against it from the time of its proposal in 1910 compelled the omission of that particular feature of the act. The summary of the law which here follows has been taken from the Sociala Meddelanden (1915, No. 8) of the Swedish labor office, as no copy of the act is as yet available in this country. For its purposes the law provides for the registration of tradeunions and employers' associations and the legal recognition of the collective agreement; conciliation is a prominent feature of the act. In order to incorporate, a trade-union must have at least 25 members. Collective agreements are required to be in writing and remain effective for three years unless otherwise provided; and three months' notice is required before their lawful termination. It is specifically provided that an individual contract of hire can not waive the provisions of the collective agreement. Resort may not be had to a strike for determining the application or intent of a collective agreement, nor may it be resorted to under any circumstances unless conciliation proceedings be first attempted; and as long as the right to strike is in abeyance, it is not lawful to make changes in the conditions of work or wages of the employees, a provision inserted to prevent a so-called masked lockout. The labor court established under the act is the only tribunal before which the questions rising from an unlawful strike may be tried; but the parties themselves are left free to settle their disputes out of court by voluntary arbitration. The organization as such, and not an individual representative of it, is alone recognized before the court. The court has its seat at Christiania and consists of a chairman and four associates, appointed by the Crown, for a period of three years. For the associates two alternates, or substitutes, are appointed. The chairman is appointed for each special case requiring the services of the court. The members of the court must be at least 30 years of age and be citizens of the country; the chairman must in addition have the qualifications of a judge of the supreme court. Associates are nominated two from the members of the trade-union and two by the employers' associations; but the right to nominate such candidates belongs only to an organization consisting of at least 10,000 workmen, or to one to which belong at least 100 employers who employ altogether at least 10,000 workmen. The members of 11408°-15-6 the directing board, or similar body of the labor organization or of the employers' association, may not be nominated as associates on the bench. Appeals from the court lie to the supreme court generally only on questions of law and of the jurisdiction of the court; on other matters no appeal may be taken. As conciliation is provided for in the law, the country is divided into so-called conciliation districts, at the head of each of which is appointed a conciliation board consisting of a resident district chairman and of a number of associates, two of whom are appointed on the occasion of any dispute. The principal of recognizing the two parties to a dispute in the membership of the board is observed. At the head of the mediation service of the state is a national conciliator who is the representative head of the district boards and may act on the occasion of disputes which involve the entire country, or in such disputes as may be referred to him. Any district conciliator may likewise act in disputes outside of his district, if invited to do so by either of the parties to a dispute. This feature of the law would seem to lend some degree of adaptability to it and to recognize the very large personal element which enters into the settlement of disputes by mediation. The mediation proceedings may be had either before the whole board, or the individual conciliator, and are held in Professional advocates or solicitors are not permitted to appear in the proceedings without the consent of the conciliators. The result of the proceedings are to be cast in the form of a collective agreement, signed by the parties thereto, and enforced as any other agreement. It is obligatory to report every actual or threatened cessation of work to the conciliators. Neither a strike nor a lockout may be engaged in before at least four days have passed after notice of its threatened occurrence has been made to a conciliator; and if the conciliator is of the opinion that the cessation of work will be a detriment to the public interest, he may forbid its occurrence pending conciliation. Ten days are allowed for mediation proceedings, after which it may become lawful to strike under certain conditions if no agreement is reached. The conciliator may ask for new mediation proceedings within at least a month after the termination of the preceding ones, provided the dispute in question has not been settled before that time. Fines ranging from 5 crowns ($1.34) up to as high as 25,000 crowns ($6,700) may be assessed against an employer or workman who take part in or assists in an unlawful labor dispute; these penalties apply also to a member of the directing board or officer of the employers' association, or of the trade-union who lends support to any such unlawful dispute, or who may collect and pay out contribution for the support of such act. Breaches of the act of this character are tried before the ordinary tribunals of the land, and the organization responsible for the breach becomes liable for the penalty, unless it may be shown that the organization itself was opposed to the act constituting the breach of the law. The use of the process of the court and that of the conciliation board is as a rule free of cost, although the court may in certain special instances levy equally on both parties the cost of the procedure. COMPULSORY CARTEL OR MONOPOLY IN THE GERMAN COAL MINING INDUSTRY. It has been the policy of the German Government to sanction, or at least to permit, the free development of combinations among manufacturers and industrial owners. The development of selling organizations among German coal miners took place as early as 1877, and more particularly in the Rhenish-Westphalian coal industry, such a cartel, or combination, was organized in 1893. These cartels, it may be noted, are incorporated companies and act as the selling agents of the producing mine owners. Besides acting as selling agents, the syndicates have the power of regulating output and fixing prices. The amount of stock of such a syndicate is usually nominal and the expenses of its operation are not taken out of its business, but are usually supplied by assessments upon the mine owners who constitute its membership. The present agreement in the coal industry, based on the voluntary consent of the mine owners, will expire December 31, 1915, although under it they may sell competitively after October 1. If no disagreements had occurred between the mine owners forming the syndicate, it is very probable that a new one would have been organized in the course of the early part of this year. But as a disagreement had arisen between the mine owners constituting the syndicate with no probability for the formation of a new one, the German Government determined on July 12 of this year to compel by legal enactment the formation, or rather the renewal of the existing syndicate in the coal industry. The Government, in determining to take this step, is said to have had regard to the effect which a disorganization of prices of coal would have had upon the industry as a whole in the matter of securing continuity of output and in maintaining a uniform level of wages and continuity of employment, as well as regard to the effect upon the consumer. The action of the Government in compelling the mine owners to organize a new syndicate was taken upon the authorization of the law of August 4, 1915, which gave the Federal council of the Empire power to enact such economic measures as it might deem necessary to meet the crisis of the war. The action of the Government, how |