Weekly journal-miner., 1919-02-19
LABOR OUGHT ID INCREASE ITS
 FUNCTIONS
By Associated Press.

| tlon Ot minimum wage ScleduleS, maintenance in general of the wage levels attained during the war and permanent establishment of the Ma tional War Labor Board and the United States Employment Service were advocated as essentials of a just reconstruction in a report made public today by. four Catholic bish- ops, constituting the administrative committee of the National Catholic War Council
 While favoring, in the interests of health and morality, prohibition of child labor and reduction to the smallest practicable hints of the em- oloyment of women in industry, the committee urged equal pay for wo- nen doing equal work with men. It declared also for insurance of work ITS against illness, old age, and un- employment until wages are nigh ,nough to tide over such periods, for abolition of monopolies, for contin- nance of heavy taxes on large in- :onles and excess profits, for coop .rative merchandising in necessities
 o reduce the cost of living and for sovernment7assisted colonization of inoccupied farm lands by demobiliz- d soldiers and sailors.
 Take Radical Stand
 AS measure outside its present reconstruction program but of value Il solving the problems of capital md labor the committee urged grad lal participation by labor in the man-
 gemeut and eventually in the own -rship of industry.
 Declaring that "the deep unrest so emphatically and widely voiced throughout the world is most seri- ous menace" the bishops held up
 social justice and contented peo- >le" as the only safeguard of peace.
 Tne authors of the report disclain- d any attempt to formulate conn Drehensive scheme of reconstruction. Their recommendations it was stat ed, were confined to reforms that seemed to be desirable and also ob- tainable within reasonable time, and 70 those general principles which mould serve as a guide for more dis .ant developments"
 Endorse Lanes Plan.
 Discussing the demobilization of the military forces, the report indors- ed the suggestion of Secretary of the Interior Lane that discharged men should be given an opportunity to work at good wages in reclaiming unused lands, afterward to be assist ed by government loans to establish themselves as farmers. It credited the Federal Employment Service with "a fair degree of development md efficiency during the war" and urged that congress continue and strengthen the organization as means of helping to solve the ever present problem of unemployment.
 The bishops rated the National War Labor Board as "one of the most beneficial governmental organ izations of the war Its efforts, they asserted had prevented innumerable strikes and raised wages to decent levels in many industries"
 While holding that "niere justice, to say nothing of chivalry," dictates that women who filled in industry the places made vacant by men call ed to war Should not be compelled to suffer any greater loss or incon- venicnce than is absolutely neces- sary' in the rcadjustment under peace conditions, the report declared that no female worker should remain in an occupation harmful to health or morals. In this classification, street car operation and the cleaning of To-, comotivcs were especially mentioned | An efficient national employment service, it was stated, would be able to shift to domestic and other suit able lines of activity women war workers whose circumstances requir- ed them to continue as wage earners.
 As means of reducing the cost of living the committee favored preven- ton of monopolistic control of com modities and adequate regulation of such public service monopolies as re- main under private operation, and elimination of middlemen by estab lishment of cooperative stores to deal in the essentials of life.
 Abolition of child labor, if neces> sary by taxing it out of existence in "stagnant states" extension of voca tional training and elaboration of the present experiments in municipal housing and medical attendance were iroed as stems tov-ard eoua1izino the