THE REGULATION OF APPRENTWEsifir AND BOY LABOR. The regulation of apprenticeship was not in origin a trade union policy; it was introduced, adopted, and sanctioned by statute law at a time when the trade union did not exist. Consequently, although the trade unions indorse the regulation of apprenticeship with striking unanimity, and still regard it as an regulation is at present enforced only in an insignificant number of trades and seems to be disappearing. The apprentice system is much less prevalent in the United States than in Great Britain; and in the latter country in 1897 Mr. and Mrs. Webb esti mated that out of the 1,490.000 mem/ters of the trade unions only 90.000 belonged to unions which were actually able to enforce apprentice regulations. The desirability and expediency of the regulation of apprenticeship by trade unions is extremely questionable. An examination of the apprenticeship regulations of the few Ameri can labor unions which are able to enforce them plainly shows that the educational motive is de cidedly a minor one, while these regulations ex ercise no perceptible effect in checking child labor under any given set of eonditions. On the other
hand, the unions which have acquired sufficient power to regulate apprenticeship have evinced a strong disposition to restrict unduly the number of apprentices. A wide examination of the ap prenticeship regulations of American unions shows that the average period of apprenticeship is more than three years and the average number of apprentices to journeymen somewhat less than one to ten. Finally—and this fact seems con elusive—the restriction of membership to 'men who have been apprenticed is not necessary to the successful operation of the union. The United Aline Workers, the Locomotive Engineers. the Carpenters and Joiners, and in fact most of the large unions, in practice if not in theory, are completely 'open?