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Rh under the police powers of the states, is proper for the protection of the public. In some states there are laws excluding men from work as miners in collieries unless they have a license as such, the obtaining of which requires considerable time. These laws are put upon the statute books with the pretence of promoting safety in mining, but mining engineers know that they are ineffective for that purpose, which is best attained in quite a different way. In fact these laws are but pretexts for excluding competitive labor in times of strikes, and as such they are economic restrictions.

Some of the greatest economic restrictions are not legislative but are what have grown out of customs and practices, especially of labor unions. I shall not here discuss the effect of labor unions upon wages, except in a general way. Wages spring from production and represent the division thereof among capital, management and labor. The aggregate of their shares of the three parties can exceed 100 per cent by no possibility. The conditions of modern civilization are too complex to permit a division of produce in kind. Therefore it is sold at market in terms of money, which consequently becomes the medium of exchange and the division is made in dollars, pounds sterling, or whatever be the monetary unit. The exchange value of each commodity is determined by the conditions of supply and demand, which thus makes the division among the