Organized labour

This volume on organized labor is the concluding one of a series of three dealing with the economics of labor. Like the two preceding vol umes, it probably does not constitute a "textbook" in the ordinary meaning of that word. The treatment-again as in the first two volumes -is more exhaustive than would have been possible within ordinary textbook limitations; more of detailed analysis, more descriptive mate rial, and perhaps here and there-freer expression of opinion have entered into the chapters than would have been the case in textbook writing: and the emphasis upon, and space devoted to, matters that we have regarded as constituting the core of the subject of organized labor are different from what they would have been in another type of treatise. We hope, nevertheless, that the volume will not be without value as an instructional aid.

Considerable time has elapsed since the publication of the first two volumes of this series. The fact that duties of public service, teaching. and other character have made this lapse of time unavoidable does not lessen the regret of the authors that the publication of Organized Labor could not more shortly have followed that of Labor's Progress and Prob lems and Labor's Risks and Social Insurance. Most of those parts of the book that were drafted some time ago have been rewritten or revised to bring the factual material and the account of developments to compara tively recent date, although-partly for the obvious reasons inherent in the fact that one of the authors is occupying a public position which bears an intimate relation to some of the matters discussed-this has not been done throughout.

As was observed in the preface to Volume I, the writing of, and primary responsibility for, different segments of a treatise of the length of these three volumes necessarily had to be assumed by one or the other of the authors; and inclusion there and in the preface to Volume II of a word about the division of labor seemed not to be inappropriate. In the present volume the first five chapters, on the history of the trade-union movement, were drafted by Mr. Montgomery, and the remaining ten by Mr. Millis. However, in the final outcome all chapters are the result of numerous consultations between us, each author contributed see tions to some of the chapters the preparation of which was the primary responsibility of the other, and the book is a joint product for which joint responsibility is assumed.