to increase the cost of cultivation by giving higher wages, would make farming unremunerative over a yet wider area. Still more land would lie idle, and the demand for men would be by so much decreased. Hence a combination to raise wages would in many localities result in having no wages.

Now though in most businesses the restraints on the rise of wages are less manifest, yet it needs but to remember how often manufacturers have to run their machinery short hours and occasionally to stop altogether for a time-it needs but to recall official reports which tell of empty mills in Lancashire going to ruin; to see that in other cases trade conditions put an impassable limit to wages. And this inference is manifest not only to the unconcerned spectator, but is manifest to some officials of trade-unions. Here is the opinion of one who was the leader of the most intelligent body of artisans-the Amalgamated Society of Engineers.

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"We believe,' said Allan before the Royal Commission in 1867, 'that all strikes are a complete waste of money, not only in relation to the workmen, but also to the employers.'"

On the workmen a strike entails a double loss-the loss of the fund accumulated by small contributions through many years, and the further loss entailed by long-continued idleness. Even when the striker succeeds in obtaining a rise or preventing a fall, it may be doubted whether the gain obtained in course of time by the weekly increment of pay, is equal to the loss suddenly suffered. And to others than the workers the loss is unquestionable-not to the employers only, by absence of interest and damage to plant, but also to the public as being the poorer by so much product not made.

But the injury wrought by wage-earners' combinations is sometimes far greater. There has occasionally been caused a wide-spread cessation of an industry, like that which, as shown above, would result were the wages of rural labourers forced up. And here, indeed, we come upon a further par

allel between the ancient craft-gilds and the modern wageearners' gilds. In past times gild-restrictions had often the effect of driving away craftsmen from the towns into adjacent localities, and sometimes to distant places. And now in sundry cases wage-earners, having either through legislation or by strikes, imposed terms which made it impossible for employers to carry on their businesses profitably, have caused migration of them. The most notorious case is that of the Spitalfields weavers, who in 1773, by an Act enabling them to demand wages fixed by magistrates, so raised the cost of production that in some fifty years most of the trade had been driven to Macclesfield, Manchester, Norwich, and Paisley. A more recent case, directly relevant to the action. of trade-unions, is that of the Thames-shipwrights. By insisting on certain rates of pay they made it impracticable to build ships in the Thames at a profit, and the industry went North; and now such shipwrights as remain in London are begging for work from the Admiralty. As pointed out to a recent deputation, the accepted tender for repairs of a Government vessel was less than half that which a Thamesbuilder, hampered by the trade-union, could afford to offer. So is it alleged to have been in other trades, and so it may presently be on a much larger scale. For the trade-union policy, in proportion as it spreads, tends to drive certain occupations not from one part of England to another but from England to the Continent: the lower pay and longer hours of continental artisans, making it possible to produce as good a commodity at a lower price. Nay, not only in foreign markets but in the home market, is the spreading sale of articles "made in Germany" complained of. An instance, to which attention has just been drawn by a strike, is furnished by the glass-trade. It is stated that nine-tenths of the glass now used in England is of foreign manufacture.

One striking lesson furnished by English history should show trade-unionists that permanent rates of wages are determined by other causes than the wills of either employ

ers or employed. When the Black Death had swept away a large part of the population (more than half it is said) so that the number of workers became insufficient for the work to be done, wages rose immensely, and maintained their high rate notwithstanding all efforts to keep them down by laws and punishments. Conversely, there have been numerous cases in which strikes have failed to prevent lowering of wages when trade was depressed. Where the demand for labour is great, wages cannot be kept down; and where it is small, they cannot be kept up.

§ 832. What then are we to say of trade-unions? Under their original form as friendly societies-organizations for rendering mutual aid-they were of course extremely beneficial; and in so far as they subserve this purpose down to the present time, they can scarcely be too much lauded. Here, however, we are concerned not with the relations of their members to one another, but with their corporate relations to employers and the public. Must we say that though one set of artisans may succeed for a time in getting more pay for the same work, yet this advantage is eventually at the expense of the public (including the mass of wageearners), and that when all other groups of artisans, following the example, have raised their wages, the result is a mutual cancelling of benefits? Must we say that while ultimately failing in their proposed ends, trade-unions do nothing else than inflict grave mischiefs in trying to achieve them?

This is too sweeping a conclusion. They seem natural to the passing phase of social evolution, and may have beneficial functions under existing conditions. Everywhere aggression begets resistance and counter-aggression; and in our present transitional state, semi-militant and semi-industrial, trespasses have to be kept in check by the fear of retaliatory trespasses.

Judging from their harsh and cruel conduct in the past,

it is tolerably certain that employers are now prevented from doing unfair things which they would else do. Conscious that trade-unions are ever ready to act, they are more prompt to raise wages when trade is flourishing than they would otherwise be; and when there come times of depression, they lower wages only when they cannot otherwise carry on their businesses.

Knowing the power which unions can exert, masters are led to treat the individual members of them with more respect than they would otherwise do: the status of the workman is almost necessarily raised. Moreover, having a strong motive for keeping on good terms with the union, a master is more likely than he would else be to study the general convenience of his men, and to carry on his works in ways conducive to their health. There is an ultimate gain in moral and physical treatment if there is no ultimate gain in wages.

Then in the third place must be named the discipline given by trade-union organization and action. Considered under its chief aspect, the progress of social life at large is a progress in fitness for living and working together; and all minor societies of men formed within a major society-a nation-subject their members to sets of incentives and restraints which increase their fitness. The induced habits of feeling and thought tend to make men more available than they would else be, for such higher forms of social organization as will probably hereafter arise.

CHAPTER XXI.

COOPERATION.

§ 833. SOCIAL life in its entirety is carried on by cooperation, and the use of the word to distinguish a special form of social life is a narrow use of it. As was pointed out when treating of Political Institutions (§ 441), a nation's activities are divisible into two leading kinds of cooperation, distinguishable as the conscious and the unconscious-the one being militant and the other industrial. The commander, officers, and common soldiers forming an army, consciously act together to achieve a given end. The men engaged in businesses of all kinds, severally pursuing private ends, act together to achieve a public end unthought of by them. Considered in the aggregate, their actions subserve the wants of the whole society; but they are not dictated by an authority, and they are carried on by each with a view to his own welfare, and not with a view to the welfare of all.

In our days, however, there have arisen sundry modes of working together for industrial purposes, accompanied by consciousness of a common end, like the working together for militant purposes. There is first that mode lately described under the title of "Compound Capital "-the cooperation of shareholders in joint-stock companies. Though such shareholders do not themselves achieve the ends for which they unite, yet, both by jointly contributing money and by forming an administration, they consciously cooperate. Under another form we see cooperation in the actions