204 HARVARD LAW REVIEW the shearing of sheep of exceptional value it is usual for the em- ployer to prefer payment by time wages. In piecework slaughter- ing the inducement of greater pay was not sufficient to prevent the union from asking for shorter hours. The employers opposed, but they have a quaint device called "the clock." The foreman tells the leading hand, the "clock-man" at what rate per hour he wants the slaughtering done; and the employers say that this course is taken to prevent the men from absenting themselves as a consequence of over-exertion, as well as to ensure that the flesh, pelt, etc. are not injured by too furious a use of the knife. Speed for the day is not the only thing to be considered. t Stoppages The disputes brought under the attention of the President or Deputy President, or under the cognisance of the Court, since it was started in 1905 are very numerous. There must be several hundreds apart from incidental applications, and the points in dispute might almost be called inj&nite. The operations of the Court now occupy most of the time of two High Court Justices, but the expenditure of the time and labour will probably be thought a good investment. For, though the disputes dealt with are many, the stoppages of work are very few; and it is the prevention of stoppages in operations required by the pubhc that is the object of the power given by the Constitution. The work of the country must be carried on. The community requires that what it needs shall be continuously supplied, and to that end it provides for the redress of alleged grievances a tribunal which should render stop- pages unnecessary. In a free country people may tliink they see the way to a better industrial economic system, and they may work towards that system, but in the meantime food, clothing, and shelter must be provided, and other commodities. The need for the day's food and supplies "subtends a greater angle" for the time being (the expression belongs to O. W. Holmes, I think), than all our theories, and above all the needs of those who are dearest to us, as the most helpless, — the children. Their constitutions and the future of the race must not suffer by privation. Men have ever to "Keep the young generation in hail And bequeath them no tumbled house."
