Thinking too much of established institutions and guarding them too zealously may at times be a disadvantage, but as a general thing that community is most law-abiding and most conservative in maintaining the rights and privileges of all where due reverence is cherished for old established institutions; and yet the wisest conservatism is that which steadily, no matter how slowly, prepares itself for changes that are inevitable. Labor conditions in the South cannot endure as they now exist, unless the South is to lose all that she has gained since the overthrow of slavery, and is to stand and view the triumphal march of the country without participating in it. The South should not seek to rest under present conditions for they cannot continue. If the present labor of the South becomes educated and then improves, it will organize. And if it does not improve, new labor will come in either already organized or to organize immediately on its arrival. I know this view will be contested by many able employers, but, believing it to be true, I deem it best to say it. It is a great deal better to make yourself strong so that you may trust in your strength when the certain change comes than to rely upon the fairness of the other side—and this is equally true of the employer and the employe. Experience has taught the South much on the question of labor, but so far as a thorough understanding of the matter goes, the South is barely at the threshold. The first and greatest thing that the South has to realize, which as yet is not realized there at all, is this: In the South as elsewhere, it will be found that cheap labor is the most expensive. To secure good results is the desired end of all industry and the experience of older industrial communities has taught that the best results are, have been, and will ever be obtained by the employment of the best labor. The best labor is and will always be that labor which receives the highest wages and which is most nearly satisfied with surrounding conditions. We can therefore set ourselves no more important task, no more sacred duty, than that of finding the most nearly perfect system under which the highest wages can be paid in return for the most efficient service. And, aside from the justice of this course, aside from the material benefit to the employer, there is no investment that brings its returns so quickly to the community at large, as money paid for good labor. Money so paid is at once spent for the necessities of life, for all the comforts that can be afforded by the family receiving it, and so is circulated almost automatically.