There are few simple remedies for social or political ills. It is a familiar truth that no law was ever passed that did not have unforeseen results; but of these results, by far the greater number are never recognized as of its creation. The best that can be said of any “measure” is that the sum of its perceptible benefits seems so to exceed the sum of its perceptible evils as to constitute a balance of advantage. Yet the statesman or philosopher to whose understanding “the whole matter lies in a nutshell”—who thinks he can formulate a practical political or social policy within the four corners of an epigram is constantly to the fore with a simple specific for ills whose causes are complex, constant and obscure. Nevertheless, it would be wise to make a breach of labor contract by either party to it a criminal offense punishable by imprisonment. “Fine or imprisonment” will not do—the employee, unable to pay the fine, would commonly go to jail, the employer seldom. That would not be fair. The need of such a law is apparent: labor contracts would then be drawn for a certain time, securing both employer and employee and (which is more important) helpless persons in related and dependent industries—the whole public, in fact—against sudden and disastrous action by either “capital” or “labor” for accomplishment of a purely selfish and frankly impudent end. A strike or lockout compelled to announce itself thirty days in advance would be comparatively innocuous to the public, whilst securing to the party of initiation all the advantages that anybody professes to want—all but the advantage of ruining others and successfully defying the laws. Under the present _régime_ labor contracts are useless; either party can violate them with impunity. They offer redress only through a civil suit for damages, and the employee commonly has nothing with which to conduct an action or satisfy a judgment. The consequence is seen in the incessant and increasing industrial disturbances, with their ever-attendant crimes against property, life and liberty—disturbances which, by driving capital to investments in which it needs employ no labor, do more than all the other causes so glibly enumerated by every newspaper and politician, though by no two alike, to bring about the “hard times”—which in their turn cause further and worse disturbances. THE GIFT O’ GAB