LABOR AND CAPITAL 465 



negligent shopmen will find little mercy at the hands of union officers ; 

 miners will see to it that props are put in place and that covers are not 

 removed from lamps ; incompetent workmen will be weeded out from the 

 factories and the loss through defective wares will be small. Leaders 

 will not be too earnest in breeding discontent or in urging strikes on 

 frivolous grounds. But those who guide union affairs oppose incorpora- 

 tion; that means stability in conditions, steady work for workmen, no 

 waste of savings during enforced idleness and consequently the destruc- 

 tion of the leaders. 



The state, under such conditions, would be compelled to distinguish 

 sharply the several duties of the wage-payer and the employer. Serious 

 responsibilities would still rest upon the owners of property in which 

 men are emploj^ed. There would remain to them the duty of protecting 

 workers against accidents due to imperfect machinery or appliances. 

 Yet even here the complexity would remain and strife would not cease. 

 It would appear that the only solution of the problem may be in placing 

 control wholly in the hand of wage-payers, as in non-unionized in- 

 dustries. 



The professions of the trade unions are at variance with their prac- 

 tise. They pretend that they are warring for human rights, but they 

 deny the natural right of all men to work and endeavor to limit it to 

 their own members; they deny the right to earn, by fixing a common 

 wage for competent and incompetent, for faithful and unfaithful men 

 alike ; they cry for uplift of the working classes, but they resist all efforts 

 to close the cleft between "classes" and "masses," insisting that it 

 remain a bridgeless chasm; an "employer" of labor can not gain or 

 retain membership in a union, because the several interests of labor and 

 capital are antagonistic. When Sir Christopher Furniss offered to his 

 striking workmen the opportunity to purchase his shipbuilding plant 

 on easy terms or to become partners on a profit-sharing basis, the union 

 officials rejected both proposals on the grounds that acceptance of the 

 first would create only another class of capitalists and that acceptance of 

 the second would develop a class of selfish workmen, who would not try 

 to help the "under dog." The plan of the United States Steel Com- 

 pany to offer stock below market rate to the more efficient workmen was 

 denounced as a base trick to bind men to their employers by selfish 

 interest. Workingmen everywhere are taught to look with suspicion on 

 all efforts of employers to encourage thrift. It is impossible to believe 

 that the heads of labor unions have at heart the interests even of their 

 own followers. Enforced idleness during frivolous or sympathetic 

 strikes, lodge dues, strike assessments, testimonials and other contriv- 

 ances, equally ingenious and successful, certainly prevent too rapid 

 accumulation of savings and remove all danger that the men will become 

 financially independent of their owners. Yet these owners never weary 



VOL. LXXXIV. — 32. 



