of the "prime cost" of the house. The Cooperative Wholesale Society is to supply the materials, and the Cooperative Insurance Society is guaranteeing the ability of the Manchester Guild to complete its contracts. A guild similar to the Manchester Guild is being formed in the London building trades.

Mandatory Injunction. As occasionally issued in labor disputes, this is a form of INJUNCTION which seeks to compel the performance of certain acts or services. In several cases the Federal courts have issued injunctions commanding employees of railways to perform their customary duties as long as they remained in employment. Such injunctions have usually been issued in cases where the RAILWAY BOYCOTT was resorted to.

Manual Labor. A rough designation for any form of work which is wholly or chiefly of a physical character. Also a collective designation for those whose daily work is of this nature. According to the recent report of a British social research society, "the male manual workers are that race of beings who soil their hands and their clothing by handling tools, manufacturing machinery, fetching and carrying materials; they use the muscles of the hands, the arms, the legs, and the body; their work, as a rule, is routine drudgery making little demand upon mind or heart. With these male manual workers we include their womenfolk in the homes, and also those women who are doing work similar to that of the men.' Other collective designations for the workers of this class are "toilers," "masses," "common people," "poor," "lower classes," "PROLETARIAT," "labor," etc.

Manual Training. See INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION.

Margin of Idleness. See FRINGE OF UNEMPLOYED.

Market Boards. In the American clothing trade, these are bodies representative of the organized employers and the organized workers which meet in each of the great clothing-making centresChicago, New York, Rochester, and Baltimore-to discuss and settle problems concerning joint interests which affect the entire local market.

Marque Syndicale. The French equivalent for UNION LABEL. The marque syndicale is extensively used in some industries, notably the printing trades; and denotes that the work upon which it is placed was performed either by trade unionists or under trade union conditions.

Marriage Benefits. A unique form of trade union BENEFIT paid by the NATIONAL FEDERATION OF WOMAN WORKERS, a British organization. The provision in the constitution of the Federation reads thus: "In the event of the marriage of a member, if she has been a full member for two years, and has not received out-ofemployment or sick benefit during the period of her membership, the central council shall refund 50 per cent of the amount of her contributions, providing she is leaving her trade and terminating her membership."

Marshalmen. See STEWARD.

Marxian Industrial Unionism. This phrase is used in the British labor movement in designation of what is more commonly known in the United States as REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM. The Marxian industrial unionist "starts from the standpoint of ECONOMIC DETERMINISM. He would accomplish the overthrow of the present capitalistic system by organization of the workers into a strong coherent body. His revolution is economic, his instrument the DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT. His thoughts are upon industry only as industry is the instrument of this revolution."

Marxian Socialism or Marxianism. See SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM.
Mass Strike. See GENERAL STRIKE.

Mass Unionism. A term sometimes applied to the plan of organizing all the workers of a community, without regard to craft, industrial, or any other distinctions. Some elements within the INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD favor this form of organization, as against the plan of INDUSTRIAL UNIONISM, and at least one of the early I. W. W. locals was organized on this basis-the local at Goldfield, Nevada, which was the scene of bitter labor troubles during 1906-7.

Massachusetts Savings Banks Insurance and Pension System. This plan, characterized by one authority as "the first significant step towards SOCIAL INSURANCE in the United States," was originated by Louis D. Brandeis (now associate justice of the Supreme Court) and embodied in a state legislative act passed in June, 1907. The purposes of the act are to furnish secure life insurance and old-age annuities to the wage-workers of Massachusetts at the lowest possible cost, as a substitute for the expensive so-called "industrial life insurance," through the medium of duly authorized savings banks, acting under somewhat elaborate state supervision.

Master. In England, any employer of labor is generally so called. (See Little Master.)

Master's Man. See COMPANY MAN.

Master and Servant Acts. Various British Parliamentary enactments defining and regulating the relations between employers and employees. Under the early Master and Servant Acts, passed during the middle years of the 19th century, an employer who broke a contract of service was merely liable to pay damages. The workman's penalty for breach of contract (i.e., for a simple refusal to work) was three months' imprisonment, without the option of a fine. Even his trial was often a farce; he could be arrested summarily and sentenced by a single justice of the peace, from whose judgment there was no appeal. This scandalous situation was only ended, after a long struggle, by the passing of a reformed Master and Servant Act in 1867. (See EMPLOYERS AND WORKMEN ACT.)

Material Trade Union. The name sometimes given to a structural type of trade union organization which (according to G. D. H. Cole) "follows the line not of the precise craft followed by the worker concerned, but of the material on which he or she may happen to be working. Thus, there are many who advocate that the various unions of skilled wood-workers (carpenters, cabinet-makers, and joiners, furnishing trades, wood-cutting machinists, packingcase makers, etc.) should amalgamate into a single union, not on industrial lines, but on the lines of the material on which all these crafts in common work; and it is interesting to note that this is actually the form of organization adopted by the largest Trade Union in Germany-the German Metal-workers' Union. This Union, however, goes further, and includes skilled and unskilled workers alike. . . . Material Unionism is not necessarily allied with CRAFT UNIONISM. Indeed, in Germany, the Metal-workers' Union is far more nearly akin to an Industrial than to a Craft Union." (See GERMAN TRADE UNION ORGANIZATION.)

Material Unionism. See MATERIAL TRADE UNION.

Materialistic Conception of History. See ECONOMIC DE

TERMINISM.

Maternity Insurance. A form of SOCIAL INSURANCE which partially indemnifies wage-earning women for loss of wages due to absence from work immediately before and after child-birth. Such indemnification usually takes the form of weekly payments, commonly

known as "lying-in benefits"; but it often includes medical care as well. In twelve European countries maternity insurance is provided as part of the compulsory health insurance systems; five countries provide State aid for this purpose to voluntary insurance funds; and three others make direct grants to mothers upon the birth of living children. (See SOCIAL INSURANCE IN Russia.)

Meantime Workers. A phrase sometimes used in designation of young women who take up industrial work merely to fill the interval until marriage.

Mechanics' Lien. In law, the prior claim of a workman upon buildings or land to the amount of his wages for labor performed upon such buildings or land or for material furnished, regardless of whether he was engaged by the owner or by another person. Laws fixing such prior claim exist in all the states of this country. Their provisions are lengthy and elaborate, but in general they undertake to give all classes of mechanics, or material men, liens either on the building and land covered by the lien, or upon the building and a certain amount of land surrounding it; and in some states such liens even take precedence of the prior mortgage.

Mechanics' Union of Trade Associations. The first labor organization involving more than a single trade to be formed in America-or, according to some authorities, in any country. It grew out of a strike of the carpenters of Philadelphia in 1827; other trades came to the support of the carpenters, and an organization was effected. Some fifteen societies were later included. Through its efforts what is probably the first wage-earners' paper ever published, "The Mechanics' Free Press," was started in 1828. The organization took an active part in politics, but disappeared soon after the election of 1831.

Mediation. In connection with industrial disputes, the intervention of some "outside" impartial person or body, with a view to promoting the settlement of a dispute by mutual agreement between the contending parties. There is a great deal of confusion in the current use of the terms "mediation" and CONCILIATION. Some writers and labor officials make little if any distinction between the two, while they are often used by different authorities in directly contrary senses. But it should be noted that, as the word itself implies, mediation always involves the introduction of an intermediary or "middle" agency in an industrial dispute; while conciliation does not necessarily involve anything of the sort-although,

as a matter of fact, such an agency is in most cases the determining factor. Mediation, in fact, refers simply to that form of conciliation in which an outside agency is utilized as a go-between by the two contending parties-an agency which endeavors in all possible ways to help the disputants to arrive at a mutually acceptable settlement. In ARBITRATION, on the other hand, the dispute is taken out of the control of the contending parties, and settled by a third party, who acts as a judge on the merits of the case. The practice of mediation is applicable both to disputes regarding general conditions of labor and to those regarding interpretation of existing agreements. It is obvious, however, that mediation is likely to occur only in regard to disputes which have become conspicuous before the general public, and which involve the public interests as well as those of the disputants. In other words, the intervention of outside parties to bring about a settlement usually takes place only in case of open rupture between employers and employees, and usually only after a prolonged strike or lockout. (See MEDIATOR; and all cross references under CONCILIATION.)

Mediator. A public official or an impartial "outsider" who intervenes in an industrial dispute, with the object of bringing the two parties together in a voluntary settlement of their differences, Unlike an ARBITRATOR, the mediator has no power or authority to decide the merits of the case on his own account. If such power is given him by the disputants or by outside authority, he ceases to be a mediator and becomes an arbitrator. The function of the mediator is to act as a go-between in the negotiations, "to promote calm discussion, to draw forth frank explanations, or to suggest possible terms of compromise." The resulting settlement may indeed be largely or wholly of his own framing, but he will seldom let it appear so, his purpose being simply that the disputants shall come to an agreement between themselves. The terms "mediator," "arbitrator," and "conciliator" are often used indiscriminately, with great resulting confusion in the public mind. The distinction between "mediator" and "arbitrator" is sufficiently indicated above. As to "conciliator," there seems no real need for using the word at all. If a mediator has been successful in conciliating the two parties to a dispute, he may of course be termed a conciliator; but there is no practical value in such a distinction. In common indiscriminate usage, what is called a conciliator may be in fact either a mediator or an arbitrator. (See MEDIATION.)

Medical Benefits. See BENEFITS.