7 22 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the employed deny this, there is a definite fact at issue; and such 

 strikes are coming more and more to be settled in accordance with 

 what that fact is found to be. It is not often that a strike succeeds, 

 when the employers are able to show that the wages demanded can 

 only be paid by carrying on business at a loss. We can prognosticate 

 with certainty about capital, that it will not carry on business indefi- 

 nitely at a loss — if for no other reason, because it soon eats itself up. 

 Another thing quite as certain is that capital will not indefinitely 

 prolong a conflict with labor at a time when it is possible to effect 

 adjustments by which it can continue to produce at a fair profit. 

 These are two laws which experience has evolved out of this class of 

 labor disputes. 



The engineers' strike presented an entirely different phase of 

 the labor problem. It was never a direct quarrel over dollars and 

 cents; the question of wages, while indirectly involved, was subor- 

 dinated to another, which, if we analyze it carefully, we shall find to 

 be this : Which of the two parties in interest shall control the business 

 that labor and capital jointly carry on? The labor problem in 

 England has reached precisely this stage, and the engineers' strike 

 was, in fact and in essence, a contest for the control of the manage- 

 ment of the works, and the conditions under which these enter- 

 prises shall be carried on. This is a very broad way of stating the 

 case, but it is essentially fair to both parties. It is always easy to 

 recognize, in any labor dispute, the difference between contention 

 for redress of legitimate grievance, as to wages or otherwise, and con- 

 tention for control and direction and limitation over the manage- 

 ment and conduct of manufacturing enterprises. This difference 

 has distinguished and differentiated the engineers' strike from most 

 of the great labor conflicts which have preceded it in England. It 

 was, from start to finish, a contest over a great economic principle — 

 a principle which lies at the foundation of modern industrialism. 

 The whole long struggle has been singularly free from any collateral 

 questions tending to hide or minimize its real significance. Both 

 sides understood it; both prepared for a battle royal; both were 

 ready to wage it to the bitter end; and thus it has been a dogged, 

 determined, remorseless test of endurance over a vital issue of busi- 

 ness economics, while the world looking on has only vaguely sensed 

 its true meaning, or has missed it altogether. 



It is impossible not to admire the splendid fidelity with which 

 the engineers carried themselves through the six months in which 

 they locked horns with their employers. Of all the labor organi- 

 zations in England, tht T>est equipped for such a struggle, both 

 in men and in money, was the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. 

 The organization is quite the aristocracy of English trade unionism. 



