a strike, fully aware of the terrible cost it may entail upon them, but they seem fully prepared to endure the sacrifice and to bear the suffering, in order to maintain a principle which they think is essential to their welfare.

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CHAPTER V.

Trades Unions and Strikes.

IN my previous remarks, I have endeavoured to make you distinctly perceive that wages are regulated by demand and supply. The employers and employed are just as much parties to a bargain, as are the buyers and the sellers of any commodity. It therefore seems to me that the one fundamental question to be decided with regard to strikes, is simply this: Is the combination which a Strike implies necessary, in order that the labourer may have the same chance of selling his labour dearly as the master has of buying this labour cheaply? If it can be proved that without strikes the working man would not be able to obtain the best price for his labour, I think strikes at once become justifiable. If, on the other hand, it can be proved that as high wages would be paid if strikes were never resorted to, the conclusion cannot then be resisted that a strike is an unmitigated evil.

The Economic Position of the British Labourer. 163

I have stated the issue to be determined in as simple language as possible, because the discussion of this subject is often confused by the introduction of many collateral topics. Thus most people decide beforehand, that a strike implies everything that is bad, because they assume that a strike is never carried on, without resorting to physical violence and unjustifiable coercion. I am quite prepared to admit that the leaders of a strike have not unfrequently been guilty of gross cruelty and injustice towards those who refuse to join the combination. The builders' operatives of London who struck for higher wages in 1860, often attempted to use physical force against those who wished to continue working. In Sheffield, trade outrages have often assumed the form of dastardly murders, and explosive bombs have been cast into the houses of those who refused to submit to some regulation, which a section of some of their fellow working men were anxious to enforce. But such acts as these cannot fairly be regarded as the inevitable consequences of combinations being formed amongst working men; these acts of violence are illegal, and those who commit them ought to receive the most severe punishment the law can inflict. But experience has shown that the largest combinations of working men have often been formed without the slightest coercion

of individuals, and without doing anything which even bore the semblance of illegality. In order to corroborate this opinion, I would particularly refer to the great Preston Strike of 1854. Seventeen thousand cotton operatives then struck for an advance of 10 per cent. in their wages; not one single individual was coerced to join this strike; the vast combination was the result of a voluntary effort. The strike continued during thirty-six weeks. The rigour of a severe winter increased the hardships that were endured. No complaints were heard, no violence was attempted, but these poor creatures bore their sufferings with a calm resignation, and with a noble heroism, which even those who were bitterly opposed to strikes confessed were worthy of a better cause. Numerous other examples could be quoted, which would still further corroborate the opinion, that a strike has often been simply a peaceful and voluntary combination, and when such is the case, no one can pretend that working men have not a clear and undoubted right to join a strike. Individual freedom would cease to exist, if every man had not the most complete liberty to decide whether he should or should not work for the wages which were offered to him. For similar reasons, a number of working men have an indisputable right to join in an unanimous determina

tion not to work for the wages which are offered to them.

If the manufacturers in any particular district believed that they were selling their goods too cheaply, no one could blame them, if they agreed amongst themselves not to sell any more goods until the price advanced. These manufacturers would however act very foolishly, if in the end they should discover that the price which they had declined was the full price, and that consequently no higher price could be secured after a heavy loss had been incurred by withholding their goods from sale, perhaps for many months. Since the manufacturers have a perfect right to do what they like with their goods, those whom they employ have an equal right not to sell their labour, if they think it realises too small a price. The goods which the manufacturers keep unsold, represent so much capital remaining idle, but they suppose that the increase of price which will ultimately be secured, will compensate them for the profit which this capital would have yielded if productively employed. In the same way, the labourers suppose that an ultimate advance in wages will recompense them for the loss of wages which they suffer during the time they are on strike. I have already said that the manufacturers would do a very foolish thing if they acted upon wrong calculations,