itself to the demand although never without some amount of chronic suffering, even in the most prosperous nations. The quantity of births which the condition of a people will admit of without deterioration never can be known beforehand. It is learnt by experience, and instinct is too strong always, to take its stand on prudence. We have also seen that the difficulty of adapting the supply of labourers to the power of rewarding them is severely aggravated for a country which has all the world for its customers. The ups

and downs of trade, that is, the varying ability of its customers to purchase, bring great trouble on the labour market, and much suffering both on labourers and capitalists. Happily, however, modern civilisation has provided a relieving force of great power. Fresh lands are taken into cultivation in new or imperfectly developed countries, and they speedily raise up large resources for supporting population. Emigration brings help to an over-loaded supply of labour. Emigration saved many Irish lives in the day of her affliction, and bestowed very efficient relief on England during the long years of the recent commercial depression.

Such are the general forces which act upon the market for the hire of labour, and its reward, wages. They present numberless varying situations at different times. On each occasion the two parties, the buyers and the sellers must ascertain for themselves, by bargaining or otherwise, what is the value, then and there, of the article demanded, the services of working men.

But it is contended by large numbers of the labouring class that this is incomplete description of the condition of hiring labour. They maintain that there are ir

regular and disturbing forces which defeat justice and fairness, and give undue advantages to one side of the exchange. They assert that the buyers possess a power of combining which is capable of coercing the sellers of labour, and that consequently they need to organise special protection for themselves in order to attain what is their due. This will form the subject of the next chapter.

CHAPTER VIII.

TRADE UNIONS.

IN most industrial and commercial nations powerful associations have been organised for the protection of what they hold to be the rights of labourers in relation to those of capitalists. They are met by counter organisations of employers. The labourers have the command of large funds, contributed by multitudes of workmen. Elaborate machinery and rules for joint action are provided under leaders possessed of ability and energy. In the market for labour the buyers find that they have to deal with united combinations of labourers. Instead of settling with the men whom he wishes to engage the terms of hiring, the employer is often confronted with the whole body of workmen in his particular trade all over the kingdom. Thus, for the ordinary method of bargaining in the market is substituted a struggle founded upon force. Sometimes negotiation is had recourse to, with occasional success; but the more usual practice is open war. The labourers are withdrawn from the works of the masters industry, the workmen themselves, the employers, and the whole community, are all injured together.

The relations between employers and labourers touch to the quick the welfare of every State. The interests

of civilisation are deeply staked on this great issue. No country is more vitally concerned in the problem than England. She trades with all the world, because all the world buys her products; but by this very fact she is brought into competition with the industries of every country. Any change in the cost of production of any of her manufactures might strip her of a large trade, and thereby deprive her of the power, not only of maintaining her wealth, but of feeding her people. On no subject, therefore, is the duty of all more clear and more imperative than on the relation between employers and employed to analyse its elements, to discover the truths—the facts and principles-which underlie it, and to bring them home to the understanding of every man in the nation. The truths thus obtained will often need to be repeated. A truth is not established in universal reception by its first recognition. Every teacher addressing a body of students must repeat; the things taught must often be sounded in their ears before it can penetrate their minds. Many Political Economists of distinguished ability have treated this very question with eminent power; yet little of what they have shown to be true has sunk into the understandings of millions. The same teaching must be incessantly repeated for a long time to come. "Nothing is taught well," says Matthew Arnold, "except what is known familiarly and taught often."

That it is in the highest degree desirable that masters and men should work together in harmony no`sane man will dispute. The only question that can arise is, Is it possible? The answer to it must be found by a careful examination of the points of difference. But

here, at the very outset, we encounter the unwelcome fact that the denial of this harmony is laid down by most Trade-Unionists as the very foundation of their position. Their doctrines and their actions are based on the assumption that capitalists and labourers are, by their very nature, necessary and irreconcileable antagonists. Let us then consider the theory they propound, and the inferences which they draw from it.

I. Capitalists and labourers are antagonists. They divide a common fund between them. What one man wins of it the other loses. Their respective interests, it not absolutely hostile, are in direct conflict.

2. Capitalists are able to combine for applying coercion on labourers in determining the price to be given for the hire of their services. They can enforce lower wages than the state of the labour market at the time warrants.

This being so, labourers must, on their side, also combine for mutual help in contending against the coercion of masters; in no other way can they obtain fair play and justice. Without union every man would be at the mercy of the buyer of labour, and would be compelled to submit to the wages imposed upon him.

3. Not only must the labourers oppose association to coercion, but further, they must lay down certain economical principles, which would strengthen their position, and would lead to their winning a larger share of the fund to be divided.

The chief of these principles are

a. Limitation of the length of the day's work.

b. Abolition of working by the piece, and the substitution of wages by the hour or the day's work.