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 A IVord More as to the Coal Mines. so effectively used in the Debs case, and, so far as he was hampered by any illegal features of the miners' union, would have had at his hand the machinery of the courts with which to enjoin and punish such features; so that in a short time he would have been able to supply all the mines with competent workmen at fair wages, as determined by supply and demand, whatever such wages may be. If the demands of the miners were unreasonable, he, if any o'ne, would have been able to run the mines without acced ing to those demands; and in a longer or shorter time the original employees of the coal companies — assuming always that their demands proved to have been unreasonable — would have been ready to make terms. That the mines might have suffered finan cially from such a sudden change of manage ment, with all its incidental expenses, is doubtless true, but so they would have suf fered from the continuation of the strike; and one experience, in such a case as that supposed, would doubtless have amply satis fied the miners. In other words, the remedy which the writer proposed, if once known to be applicable and likely to be applied, would soon come to exercise the most powerful in fluence on both employers and employees, strengthening the hands of either in a just fight, and disheartening either in all cases of unreasonable pretensions. It is a fact which the history of every country has emphasized, and which is strik ingly illustrated by present conditions in the United States, that social and economic changes constantly require an adjustment of the prevailing legal system to meet new dangers and new problems. From the earli

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est times, the system of law prevailing in England and in this country has been under going such readjustments, sometimes by legislative enactment, as in the case of the Statute of Quia Emptores, or the Statute of Uses, but oftener by the development of the common law, as when the commercial law of England was practically created by Lord Mansfield. In Mr. Wyman's opinion, the greatest danger in a crisis like that of the re cent coal strike, is that the courts, under the stress of a temporary emergency, will depart from what he regards as a conservative ap plication of established legal principles. But experienced lawyers will undoubtedly agree that such changes and adaptations as are made by the growth of the common law, are likely to be at once more effective, more nicely adjusted, and less dangerous, than changes which are brought about by legisla tion. Especially is this true in a country like ours, where there is always the danger that a public clamor, arising at a moment of peculiar hardship, and encouraged by politi cians for their own purposes, will result in hasty and ill-considered legislation. In no way can such legislation be more facilitated, than by hesitation or timidity, on the part of lawyers or judges, in applying to a recognized evil the remedies afforded by familiar princi ples of existing law. The writer believes that before an attempt is made by statute to meet the dangers which are discerned in our present economic conditions, the extent to which those dangers arc within the reach of the general principles of established law should be clearly brought out, and those principles should be applied without fear or hesitation.