Our Western industrial progress is attended by considerable evils. It redistributes popula tions, compacting masses in the city, creating the tenement-house with its long list of evils, complicating the problems of sanitation and raising the death rate. It assumes the role of Herod and slaughters the innocents, while the children who escape from the factory with their lives are commonly pinched and deformed in body and mind. It creates the popular discon tent which inevitably springs from the multipli cation and popularization of knowledge together with the multiplication and concentration of wealth. It is attended by the organization of capital and labor which are arrayed against each other in hostile camps. Now many of these evils are entirely preventable, though certain to be developed if neglected. They were per mitted to fasten themselves on western Europe and the United States because they were not foreseen. That excuse does not exist for the remainder of the world. With the close of the World War and release of shipping, northern capital, population and energy will flow into South America and inaugurate there an in dustrial revolution. It is already well under way in Russia and Japan and is now beginning. in China and India. Unless prevented by in telligent foresight, the evils which have thus far attended the industrial revolution will ac company it round the world and involve the hundreds of millions of these countries in suf ferings as measureless as they will be needless. These peoples are credited with less power of self-restraint than the peoples of Europe and North America and yet we are in a World War, based on a desire for industrial suprem acy. We are, therefore, bound by every obli gation of humanity and religion to safeguard them with our experience and thus forestall preventable evils, which if not thus prevented will be far more disastrous in the Orient than they have been in the Occident.
Many organizations exist for improving con ditions in large cities. These organizations need to know each others' methods and to work to gether. To that end, a National Community Centre Conference is now held annually in the United States, the 1917 gathering in April being attended by delegates from 26 cities.
The Muse* The section of Social Economy in the Paris Exposition of 1889 was peculiarly rich in documents relating to the conditions of labor and to workingmen's institutions. This exhibit made permanent was the origin of the Musee Social. Endowed with adequate funds, it is devoted solely to the pro motion of the study of labor problems and the advancement of concrete measures of labor reform. As regards its organization and pur pose it exemplifies in the field of economic research very much what the Smithsonian In stitution in Washington does in the domain of scientific investigation. Both were founded by
private individuals °for the diffusion of knowl edge among mankind." Both are non-scholastic in the sense of having no regular classes of students and both maintain a corps of experts devoted to original research and to the aid of those making similar inquiries. The Musee constitutes a veritable laboratory for economic research in all fields as far as they relate to concrete labor problems. In the language of its constitution, its object is "to place gratui tously at the disposition of the public docu ments with collateral information, constitutions and models of institutions and undertakings having for their aim the improvement of the moral and material situation of the laboring classes." To carry out this aim the Music has spared neither pains nor expense in the or ganization of every possible means of obtain ing information concerning labor and labor con ditions in all lands and in facilitating its use by all those interested in matters of social re form. It is well installed in a building owned by it at 5 Rue Las Cases, where it has lecture rooms, meeting-rooms for the economic and reform societies of Paris, exhibition-rooms for the display of plans, models and accident-pre venting appliances and its carefully selected library. This includes over 15,000 volumes ex clusively devoted to labor and consisting largely of original sources of information, reports and proceedings of societies and social undertakings which are not to be found in ordinary libraries. Its files include records and copies of labor legislation in all countries and of important labor events, catalogued and under the direc tion of skilled librarians, whose duty it is to help investigators desiring to make use of such material. The Musee, however, is not content with bringing together the results of others' efforts. Each year it sends one or more com missions to investigate particular features of the labor problem in foreign countries. It has thus made detailed investigations of trade unions in Great Britain, labor organizations in the United States, co-operative and credit in stitutions in Italy and the agrarian question in Germany by special delegates sent to those countries. In addition to making these special inquiries, it maintains in foreign countries special correspondents whose duties are to sup ply the Musee with copies of all bills, reports or laws concerning labor matters presented in their respective countries or of privately pub lished works concerning labor, to furnish in formation as called for and to transmit annual reports giving a résumi,• with documents, of the labor events, legislation and judicial de cisions relating to labor during the year. See SOCIAL AND UNIVERSITY SETTLEMENTS.