Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/253

217 A NEW PROVINCE FOR LAW AND ORDER 217 adopt in expenditure tend to the waste and degradation of human life — the most valuable thing in the world; therefore so long as the wage system continues there is need of some impartial regulat- ing authority. Even if the wages system were to be abolished to- morrow, as some thinkers desire, if in some way the producers had an equal influence on the mode of producing and equal opportunity for self-expression in the product, there would be need still for regulation. In proposition 30 of the previous article it is stated that "The Court refuses to dictate to employers what work they shall carry on, and how, etc." For "employers" substitute "elected directors of industry," and the proposition would remain soimd. Even elected persons are sometimes found indifferent to the legitimate claims of a minority. Even imions have been found to disregard the just interests of craftsmen in their ranks, if the craftsmen are few in numbers. Those who favour new systems as the result of some cataclysm or catastrophe or revolution, and treat with scorn industrial tribimals as mere alleviations, or as mere devices to bolster up the existing system, had surely better reconsider their opposition. Let not the better be always the enemy of the good. Benry Bournes Higgins. Melbourne, Austbalia. August 2, 1918.