votes were polled, and the party ceased to exist. In later years labor interests have occupied themselves more particularly with interior organization in the way of compact and efficient unions that exist without regard to the politics of their members. These trade-unions are, as to their origin, very old. In the United States they belong to the 19th century. The principle on which these trade-unions are formed is that men whose industrial interests are the same should act together in furthering them. A union is an organization that takes an active interest in the welfare of its own members and a secondary interest in the welfare of all similar unions. These unions affiliate and become powerful and influential organizations. An instance of this was the Knights of Labor and (at the present time) the American Federation of Labor.
The American Federation of Labor comprises 119 international and national unions, representing approximately 27,000 local unions, 37 state branches, 538 city central unions and 854 local unions. The total membership is about 2,000.000. The official organ is the American Federationist; besides this representative journal, the affiliated unions issue about 250 weekly or monthly papers devoted to the cause of labor.
In England labor parties and their organizations constitute a new power in politics, 30 members representing labor in Parliament in addition to those known as the Liberal-Labor members. In 1907 the trade-union congress represented 1,693,000 trade unionists, a considerable number of whom are socialists. The labor party in the House of Commons, it is estimated, represents nearly 1,000,000 workers, of whom 975,182 are trade unionists and 2,271 are co-operators. International trade unionism has of recent years grown apace. In 1907 it was estimated that there were 6,505,683 (including working women) laborers organized in trade-unions in the chief countries of Europe.
A feature of the labor situation which deserves special mention is workmen's insurance (q. v.). In the United States, outside of the industrial departments of the regular insurance companies, there are a large number of funds or societies maintained by labor organizations to insure members against sickness, accident, death, old age or other adversity. Some are conducted by workmen for mutual benefit without regard to common employment or connection with any particular union. Of these organizations three-fourths are managed by members, and the majority of the remainder managed by joint arrangement between employer and employe. Nearly all of these funds attempt to secure little more than to relieve immediate necessities. They include “tool,” “unemployment,” and “marriage” benefits.
Trade union (q. v.) demands embrace (1) more efficient enforcement of the eight-hour principle; (2) further restriction of immigration; (3) no relaxation of the Chinese exclusion laws; (4) elaboration of the shipping laws and protection for seamen; (5) no antipilotage laws; (6) reorganization of the Congressional committees on labor; (7) safeguarding against the competition of convict labor; and (8) a more radical antiinjunction bill.
Labouchère (lȧ′bo͞o′shâr′), Henry, an English journalist and parliamentarian, was born at London in 1831. Educated at Eton, he afterwards entered the diplomatic service and served as an attaché at a number of the most important embassies. He was elected to the English parliament in 1865, but was unseated in the following year. He was elected again in 1867, and went abroad in 1868. As correspondent for the London Daily News, he sent news-matter from Paris during the siege by means of carrier pigeons. Returning to England, he was in 1880 again elected to parliament for Northampton, and represented it until 1906. He edited and published a journal called Truth, in which he frequently gave vent to his radical ideas by assailing royalty and the aristocracy. In 1900 he was denounced in the Commons for holding correspondence with the official burghers of the South African Republic before the Boer War, but did not lose his seat. In his later years he spent much time in Italy where he died, in Florence, Jan. 16, 1912.
Laboulaye (lȧ′bo͞o′lâ′), Edouard René de, a French jurist, was born at Paris, Jan. 18, 1811. He adopted the profession of an advocate or lawyer, and in 1849 was appointed professor of comparative jurisprudence in the College of France. Although he attained distinction as an essayist and story-writer, his most important works have been on French law. His Histoire Politique des Etats-Unis is well known in the United States. Laboulaye was elected to the national assembly in 1871, and was made a life-senator in 1876. He died at Paris, May 25, 1883.
Labrador (lăb-ra-dôr′), the eastern peninsula of Canada that extends northwestward from Belle Isle Strait (which separates it from Newfoundland) to Hudson Strait, and on its northeastern front facing the Greenland Sea. The region is bleak and rugged and the climate severe. On the coast are a few Moravian missionary settlements, consisting partly of Eskimos, who are engaged in the seal, cod and herring fisheries and in the fur-trade. A large portion of Labrador, especially on the seafront, is under the government of Newfoundland; the interior forms part of Quebec, and what was the territory of Ungava. Area 120,000 square miles; population under 4,000. There is hardly any vegetation on the Atlantic coast, and the inner parts of Labrador have been but little explored. There are fine forests of firs and birches; while large rivers and lakes afford continuous waterways in summer for great distances. The inhabitants are Cree
