90 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Nor do we rightly measure the influence of industrial con- 

 ditions until we take into account their great magnitude, 

 the amount of capital employed, the number of people 

 concerned and the value and importance of the products. 

 While no one does or can fully grasp these facts, every in- 

 telligent person understands that they wield a tremendous 

 influence over all other interests in the country. Asso- 

 ciated with, and a part of, these industries, are our greatest 

 social and commercial problems : wages, hours, labor unions, 

 rights of employees and employers, regulation of transpor- 

 tation, trusts, monopolies, etc. Indeed, there is scarcely 

 a great question before the public to-day which has not in- 

 dustrial relations ; and certainly those problems which are 

 most important and most difiicult of solution are of indus- 

 trial origin. 



In this enormous aggregation of interests, capital and 

 men, wielding such influence, in need of guidance and bur- 

 dened with problems, powerful and yet weak, lies a tre- 

 mendous force for the good or evil destiny of the nation. 

 Whatever, therefore, can add to industrial efficiency b}^ ever 

 so little, will in the aggregate bestow immense benefit upon 

 the race. To make two blades of grass grow in the place 

 of one, would pay the national debt. To raise ever so 

 slightly the standard of intelligence of millions of indus- 

 trial workers, would be a tremendous contribution to the 

 solution of the most serious social problems. 



True industrial progress consists in utilizing with ever- 

 increasing economy and accuracy natural forces and materi- 

 als, in more scientific methods of operation and management, 

 in securing better conditions of life for industrial workers, 

 in furnishing products of better quality at lower cost, and in 

 narrowing the gap between the employer and the employee. 



None of these problems can be solved b}^ legislation or by 

 coercion. They obey laws which are beyond human power 

 to change. Their solution consists in finding out the truth, 

 and, knowing it, to follow it. True industrial progress, 

 therefore, is dependent upon one thing, viz., education. 

 That prosperity which comes from a profligate harvesting 

 of nature's stores is not industrial progress, nor can it long 



