good workmanship in goods, to see to it that all competition is carried on fairly, and to forbid excessive salaries to managers.  Equal standards would be exacted throughout an industry, and any increased cost of production would result in the raising of prices (except where profits had previously been exorbitant); thus there would be no real hardship upon employers.  The minimum wage should not, of course, be set above the actual productive power of labor; and the inefficient laborers who would be thrown out of employment as not worth the standard wage must be looked after by the provision of free vocational education and state employment.  Apprentices, cripples, defectives, and persons giving only part time, would be permitted to receive partial wages; and above the minimum wage, differences in stipend would still exist, as now, to stimulate industry and skill.  With such provision for safe-guarding the rights of labor, of competitors, and of the public, profits would not be directly regulated; if they became excessive, they would be clipped by the requirement of a lower price for the product, or of more sanitary or safer conditions of production.  But the initiative and energy of the owners would be retained by permitting a sliding scale of profits; the higher the wages paid, or the lower the price set upon products, the greater the profits they could be allowed.  Thus a premium would still be set upon efficiency.  Under this plan monopoly could be carried to any extent; strikes could be absolutely forbidden, and all dissatisfaction settled by the arbitration of the impartial government commission.  Monopoly might even be legally maintained by a refusal of charters to would-be competitors, thus insuring to the public the advantages of a completely organized business without leaving the public at its mercy.  The natural monopolies, such as railways, telephones, lighting-service, from which private fortunes have often been made at public expense, can easily be regulated by carefully considered and short-term franchises.

Up to date, the partial and tentative trials of this plan have been encouragingly successful.  But there are obvious defects in it, which we must notice: 

(1) The danger of failures in business would still exist.  Some factors would tend to lessen this danger as, the prevention of stock-watering, misappropriation of funds, excessive salaries, and the unfair competition of rivals.  But failures could no longer be averted by squeezing wages, neglecting conditions of production, or lowering the quality of goods.  The employers may well ask, in bitterness, what right the Government has to close their chances of high profits when it leaves the chance of total loss.  Private ownership of business, still retained on the plan we are considering, must involve risk of bankruptcy, with its economic waste and its suffering.