Surely our attempt, then, must be to retain "big business," and cure its evils, rather than to turn the hands of the clock backward by reverting to the wasteful competitive system. If this proves possible, we should work for the organizing of the as yet unorganized industries. Half of human effort is still wasted, through lack of such organization. If the innumerable butcher shops, grocery stores, apothecary shops, dry goods stores, etc, throughout the country, were consolidated locally, and then for some considerable section of the country, we could have greatly reduced prices and greatly improved shops. Mr. Woolworth's chain of five- and ten-cent stores offers a familiar contemporary example of the efficiency and saving to the consumer of such consolidation. What are the ethics of the following schemes: I. TRADE UNIONS AND STRIKES? We must, then, consider what methods of regulating, without destroying, monopoly are efficient and morally defensible; and, first, the method into which the working classes have put most of their effort and enthusiasm. The labor-unions have, as a matter of fact, actually effected certain results, which we may rapidly review:- (1) Their chief accomplishment, and indeed effort, has been the raising of wages and shortening of hours for labor. Their success, however, has fallen far short of their hopes; and it is impossible to say how much more they have accomplished in this direction than would have been effected by other causes without their efforts. As a whole, the employing class disbelieves in the unions and is strenuously disinclined to yield to their desires. And at present the employers are usually stronger than their employees, unless public opinion or legislation forces them to surrender their position. (2) To some slight extent, but only to a slight extent, they have effected amelioration in other matters have freed labor from the tyranny of company stores, decreased child labor, secured the installation of safety appliances, sanitary conditions, and other needed improvements. (3) Their social effect has been greatest. They have amalgamated our stream of heterogeneous immigrants and fired them with common understanding and purpose; they have taught the ignorant to cooperate, made them think, frowned to some degree upon vice, insured their members to. some extent against illness and death, and promoted general friendliness among the laboring classes. On the other hand, their methods have been productive of much harm: (1) The economic loss due to strikes has been enormous; the employers have suffered heavily, the public has suffered heavily; the laborers have suffered most of all. Social amelioration certainly ought not to have to come about through such wasteful methods and such bitter privation.