it is but 2.3 per cent. This difference is largely due
to the much greater relative importance of agriculture in the United
States.

The total membership of trade unions in the United States and Canada
is estimated to have been in 1910 about 2,200,000, of which only
about 100,000 were in Canada. This was 5.5 per cent of all persons
(38,130,000) gainfully employed, or 6.8 per cent of male employees,
and 9 per cent of female employees. Organization was very weak (less
than 1 per cent) among the workers in a group of industries occupying
nearly one-half of all workers, including agriculture, the hand
trades, oil and natural gas, salt, and rubber factories. Organization
was not of large extent (1 to 10 per cent) in other groups of
industries occupying more than one fourth of all workers, including
those engaged in producing quarried stone, food stuffs, iron and
steel, metal, paper and pulp, stationary engineers, in public,
professional, and domestic service, and in clerical work. Organization
was of much greater strength, including 10 per cent or more of the
workers, in the remaining industries and occupations.

If deduction be made of the employing and salaried classes, about
7.7 per cent of all persons occupied were organized. If, further,
deduction be made of agricultural, clerical, publicly employed,
commercial and domestic workers, about 16 per cent of the remaining
13,760,000 persons are organized (of women 3.7 per cent). Among the
occupations most highly organized are those of railway conductors (87
per cent) and engineers (74 per cent). In the building trades about 16
per cent are organized, of granite cutters 69 per cent, masons 39 per
cent, plasterers 32 per cent, carpenters 21 per cent, and painters 17
per cent. Similar striking differences appear among the occupations in
the printing industry; of stereotypers 90 per cent are organized
and of compositors only 35 per cent. These figures point to inherent
differences in the conditions favoring organization. Even in the same
craft a high degree of organization may be found in the cities and
little or none in the smaller towns (e.g., in the case of the printing
and building trades in general).[3]

Sec. 6. #Collective bargaining.# The fundamental policy of trade unions
is the substitution, for the individual wage bargain, of collective
bargaining between the delegated representatives of the working men
and the employer, or group of employers, or their representati