ITEMS OF INTEREST January 29, 1910 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

The National Civic Federation was in session last week in Washington. Present at the opening session were a number of state Governors, who were later to attend a conference of their own, and delegates from all parts of the United States, representing various commercial, labor, and social associations, among them the American Federation of Labor, the National Grange, the Farmers' National Congress, the National Association of Life Insurance Presidents, and the National Association of State Boards of Arbitration. At its final session it adopted several resolutions recommending to the Governors uniform laws for the protection of children employed in industries; a uniform insurance code among the several states; uniform legislation on gathering and preserving vital statistics, and the conservation of American forests, which were all referred to the committee on uniform state laws. Other resolutions recommended that workmen's compensation acts, fair to the employer and to the employee and just to the state, be uniformly substituted for the present system of employers' liability for injuries received in and arising out of the course of employment; also consideration of the development of water-power and the regulation of non-navigable streams, with a view to bringing about uniformity of state regulation, looking to uniform cooperation between each state and the Federal Government in the development and control of water-powers.

The Government's brief, in its suit brought in April, 1907, to break up the alleged anthracite coal trust, has been filed in the United States circuit court. The Government contends that all the defendants have long been parties to a general combination and conspiracy which stifles competition and obstructs trade and commerce among the states in anthracite coal, and that they have monopolized the trade. It asks the court to restrain and enjoin the alleged monopoly and further to enjoin the defendants from carrying out the contract with the so-called independent companies by which the latter turn over their product to the larger companies for sixty-five per cent of the tidewater selling price.

According to a report to be filed at Albany by the state inspector of weights and measures, milk consumers of New York city have been paying annually for more than fourteen million quarts of milk which they did not receive. "Half of the two million milk bottles in daily use in New York are short by an average amount of 3.9 per cent," the inspector is quoted as saying. "That means that New York city has not been receiving, although paying for, sufficient milk to fill thirty-nine thousand bottles daily, or more than fourteen million quart bottles in a year."

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