in reclamation work, agriculture and other ways more beneficial to the prisoners and profitable for the Commonwealth than any available in the present location. That both the State and the prisoners may reap the full advantage of such applications of their labor it is essential that diligence and efficiency should be recognized by a carefully guarded provision for a small wage, to be applied in part to the support of dependent relatives, in part for temporary aid at discharge, and in small part to provide such minor prison comforts as may properly be allowed in reward of exemplary behavior. INTERSTATE INDUSTRIAL COMPETITION. In recent years Massachusetts has been constantly raising the level of conditions under which our working people have been obliged to perform their labor. So far, despite the misgivings of many employers, the steady improvement in the condition of the working people, compelled by law, has not resulted in any serious loss of business to the Commonwealth. The resulting increased efficiency of the workers has offset the loss in the hours of their labor. But there must come a time when the cost of improved conditions of health and safety and short hours of labor will exceed the increased efficiency which is produced thereby. We have not yet reached that point, but we shall always be approaching it so long as we continue to improve the condition of labor in Massachusetts. We do not wish to halt our splendid progress in this direction, which is tending to give us a better and healthier citizenship; but we must guard against the danger of raising our level so high that industry will flow off into other States where the standard of labor conditions is much lower. The way to avoid this danger is not by pausing in our legislation to improve the employees' condition, but by making strenuous efforts to induce the other States to raise their standard to the Massachusetts level. We can arouse public opinion in those backward States whose low conditions of labor endanger the interests of the working people of more progressive Commonwealths. We can show the workers of these backward communities that they gain nothing by tolerating such conditions; that if a manufacturing establishment cannot come under proper conditions it ought not to come at all. By the combined effort and agitation of the more progressive States we can without doubt stir the pride and self-interest of those more backward, and by bettering their conditions make it possible to continue our own beneficent labor legislation. If, however, it is true, as some contend, that the adoption of legislation by Massachusetts to lessen the hours of labor in order to prevent the debilitating effects of fatigue, to prevent accidents by strict insistence upon safety appliances and effective inspection, to prevent poverty, monotony and despair by workmen's compensation and mother's aid, and other advanced social and industrial legislation, — if it is true that all these attempts to ameliorate the condition of our Massachusetts working people may jeopardize their opportunities to work at all in this Commonwealth, by making the cost of doing business here so much higher than in other States where the government is not so careful of its citizens that our Massachusetts industries will be obliged to leave us, we should all the more be impelled to strive with enlightened selfishness to obtain better conditions for the workingmen in other States, that the competition between industries in the different States may be upon more equal conditions. Thus we shall be at once protecting our own workingmen and aiding our fellow citizens in other States of the Union. It may be that Congress has power, through its control of interstate commerce, to compel the manufacturers of the more backward States, whose products enter into interstate trade, to improve the conditions of their working people. I recommend that provision be made for an investigation with authority First, to find out the exact facts as to whether or not our industries are at a disadvantage because of our humanitarian laws. Second, to inquire into the power of Congress in this regard, and if it is found to exist, to urge Congress to exercise that authority for the benefit of the people of all the States. SAVINGS BANK LIFE INSURANCE. The savings bank insurance law of 1907 has now passed the experimental stage in operation, and has amply demonstrated the wisdom of its enactment. There are now more than 9,500 policies in force, representing more than $3,600,000 of insurance. The average yearly net cost of a monthly premium policy which has been in force in the Whitman Savings Bank since the inauguration of the system is 35 per cent less than similar insurance taken from a private company on the weekly premium plan. In other words, it has been made possible for a wage earner beginning at age twentyone to purchase $200 of insurance from our savings banks at an average net cost of 6 cents a week, whereas the same amount of insurance in the industrial companies would have cost 912 cents net. This is a matter of great and far-reaching significance to our wage-earning population, and I urge upon every employer of labor the importance of bringing to his employees a knowledge of the opportunities offered under this Massachusetts plan. Therefore, I recommend an increase in the amount of the appropriation for the savings bank insurance department in order that a thorough and systematic campaign of education may be entered upon, under the supervision of the trustees of the general insurance guaranty fund, to the end that the benefits of the system shall be extended to every man, woman and child in the Commonwealth. Hundreds of thousands of our people do not know of the existence of this splendid institution. We ought to advertise its existence and its advantages, that none may be denied the privilege of enjoying it through ignorance of its existence. A government does not do its full duty by merely enacting beneficial laws, it must see that the knowledge of these laws is brought home to its people. I further recommend the enactment of legislation permitting each savings and insurance bank to issue policies of insurance in any amount up to but not exceeding $1,000 on any one life. METROPOLITAN PARK WORK FOR THE UNEMPLOYED. I have already referred to one method by which relief may properly be afforded to the unemployed. There are also certain metropolitan park projects upon which the stamp of approval has already been set by the Commonwealth. Work on them may be begun at once, with the certainty that it will be merely an anticipation of work which the Commonwealth expects to do at all events at a later date. Upon one of these projects I can most confidently recommend immediate action, and the appropriation of the sum of $100,000, to be used for beginning the construc tion of that portion of the Old Colony Parkway between Columbia Road and the Neponset River which will give the largest proportion of employment to laborers. The parkway will provide an approach to commercial and water-front lands now delayed in their development by lack of such approach, and will thereby bring an early financial return to the city of Boston, which bears so large a part of the metropolitan park expenditures. The work will be near, also, to the heart of the great city, where the problem of the unemployed is most serious. V. TABLE SHOWING DISPOSITION OF STATUTES CITED IN THIS BULLETIN. NOTE. References to chapters and sections refer to the statutes. Paragraph numbers refer to the paragraphs in this bulletin. In a few instances the numbers appearing in the column headed "paragraph" refer to pages, no paragraph having been assigned to the portion of the text referred to. In the column headed "chapter" the chapter numbers have not been repeated. Where a dash appears in the column headed "section" it indicates that reference is made to the entire act. 1 Chapter 463 is divided into three parts, numbered successively I, II, and III. 2 Refers to page. |