714 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



tion of parties in that body. In the House 

 Henry M. Long, Republican, was elected Speak- 

 er by a vote of 111 to 76. The National vote 

 was 3 in the Senate and 10 in the House, in 

 each for a third candidate. 



In discussing the affairs of the State in his 

 message, the Governor alluded to the most im- 

 portant subject of difficulties between work- 

 men and their employers, and brought forward 

 the English system of arbitration, of which he 

 said: 



In England, the system of arbitration and concilia- 

 tion originated with the manufacturers and operators, 

 and has changed, wherever fairly tried, the old feeling 

 of bitter hostility between the employer and the em- 

 ployed into one of mutual respect and confidence, 

 with the same class in Pennsylvania lies the respon- 

 sibility of the initiative ; with the Legislature the re- 

 sponsibility of education. Deeply impressed with the 

 importance of bringing about, if possible, a mutual 

 understanding of the two classes, and creating an ar- 

 rangement for the amicable and rational settlement of 

 all disputes and controversies, I gladly availed myself 

 in the early part of the year of the services of a gentle- 

 man, a student of industrial questions, who visited 

 England to investigate the form, practical workings, 

 and results of the various systems of arbitration in 

 operation there, and commissioned him a special agent, 

 under the seal of the State, to examine and report the 

 same on behalf of the Commonwealth. His report I 

 have the honor to transmit. I have refrained from any 

 discussion of the system, which is elaborately present- 

 ed in the report, and shall close simply by summing 

 its results. Wherever established, an intelligent co- 

 operation between employers and employed has been 

 effected, and steady employment secured at those rates 

 of wages which the industrial conditions of a compet- 

 itive market enabled capital to pay and maintain a 

 steady production. Strikes, riots, outrages, and trades- 

 union murders have become tilings of the past. In 

 prosperous times labor has shared in the increased 

 profits of capital, and in periods of depression each 

 has mutually supported the other with the minimum 

 of loss and suffering. 



On January 21st, J. Donald Cameron was 

 elected Senator in Congress by a vote of 28 in 

 the Senate to 16 for Ileister Clymer; in the 

 House, Cameron had 107 votes, Clymer 76, 

 and 16 scattering. 



An act to encourage the planting of trees 

 along roadsides was passed. It provides that 

 any person liable to road-tax who shall trans- 

 plant to the side of the public highway on his 

 own premises any fruit, shade, or forest trees 

 of suitable size, shall be allowed by the super- 

 visor of roads where roads run through or ad- 

 join cultivated fields, in abatement of his road- 

 tax, one dollar for every four trees set out ; 

 but no row of elms shall be placed nearer than 

 seventy feet, no row of maples or other forest 

 trees nearer than fifty feet, except locust, 

 which may be set thirty feet apart ; and no al- 

 lowance as before mentioned shall be made, 

 unless such trees shall have been set out the 

 /year previous to the demand for such abate- 

 ment of the tax, and are living and well pro- 

 tected from animals at the time of such de- 

 mand. Trees transplanted in the place of dead 

 trees are to be paid for in the same manner. 



A uniform system of municipal government 

 for the various cities of the State was contem- 



plated in a bill placed on the House calendar 

 by a vote of 115 to 38, although it failed to 

 become a law. It proposed to forbid cities to 

 borrow money ; the councils should raise and 

 appropriate all moneys; poor-boards, school- 

 boards, highway and street commissioners, etc., 

 were abolished ; contracts should be made only 

 to the extent of yearly appropriations; select 

 councils should be composed of tax-payers who 

 had held real estate for at least three years be- 

 fore their election, and should have paid taxes 

 thereon ; they were to be elected by the cities 

 at large, in order to obviate a centralization 

 of any single interest. The bill assimilated 

 the office of mayor to that of president or gov- 

 ernor; created a permanent and non-political 

 police force; consolidated the various depart- 

 ments, and provided that the expenses for local 

 improvements should be borne by the property 

 immediately benefited and not by the city at 

 large. The preparation of the bill had cost the 

 State $20,000. 



An act limiting a day's work to eight hours 

 was 'indefinitely postponed in the House by a 

 vote of 102 to 57. 



A new temperance movement appeared in the 

 Senate under the form of a bill to prevent the 

 sale of any spirituous, vinous, malt, or brewed 

 liquors, which are in any manner adulterated, 

 mixed, drugged, diluted, or compounded with 

 drugs or other deleterious or poisonous matter. 

 It was reported favorably by the Committee on 

 Vice and Immorality. It provided, among other 

 things, for the appointment of inspectors by the 

 courts, the confiscation of liquors, fine and im- 

 prisonment of offenders against the law upon 

 conviction after trial by jury, etc. A bill to 

 secure a reformation in the same direction was 

 introduced in the House. It provided for the 

 appointment of a State chemist, who should 

 have a laboratory in connection with the Agri- 

 cultural Department ; that people should send 

 specimens of spirituous liquors, canned fruits, 

 ground spices, pepper, etc., to be analyzed ; 

 and that they should not sell anything without 

 being tested, under severe penalties, a fine of 

 $1,000 and imprisonment for from one to five 

 years. Neither of these bills became a law. 



An act was passed authorizing councils of 

 cities of the second class of the Commonwealth 

 to make an amicable settlement of municipal 

 liens for grading, paving, and curbing, or other- 

 wise improving streets or avenues in said cities, 

 either under general or special laws. 



As the future sessions of the Legislature will 

 be biennial, a bill was passed to provide for the 

 receiving, opening, and publishing of the re- 

 turns for the election of State Treasurer and 

 Auditor - General, when elected at the same 

 election. It provides for the appointment of a 

 committee from the Senate and House to act 

 in conjunction with the Speaker pro tern, of 

 the Senate and Speaker of the House. As the 

 Constitution says, " No senator or representa- 

 tive shall, during the time for which he shall 

 have been elected, be appointed to any civil of- 



