5 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cause he would be " sent to Coventry " by them, and who conse- 

 quently cannot reap the benefit of his superior powers, would see that 

 he is thus aggressed upon by his fellows more seriously than by acts 

 of Parliament or combinations of capitalists. And he would further 

 see that the sentiment of justice in his own class is certainly not greater 

 than in the classes he thinks so unjust. 



The feeling which thus warps working-men's conceptions, at the 

 same time prevents them from seeing that each of their unions is self- 

 ishly aiming to benefit at the expense of the industrial population at 

 large. When a combination of carpenters or of engineers makes rules 

 limiting the number of apprentices admitted, with the view of main- 

 taining the rate of wages paid to its members when it thus tacitly 

 says to every applicant beyond the number allowed, " Go and appren- 

 tice yourself elsewhere ; " it is indirectly saying to all other bodies of 

 artisans, " You may have your wages lowered by increasing your 

 numbers, but we will not." And when the other bodies of artisans 

 severally do the like, the general result is that the incorporated work- 

 ers, of all orders, say to the surplus sons of workers who want to find 

 occupations, "We will none of us let our masters employ you." Thus 

 each trade, in its eagerness for self-protection, is regardless of other 

 trades, and sacrifices numbers among the rising generation of the ar- 

 tisan class. Nor is it thus only that the interest of each class of arti- 

 sans is pursued to the detriment of the artisan-class in general. I do 

 not refer to the way in which, when bricklayers strike, they throw out 

 of employment the laborers who attend them, or to the way in which 

 the colliers now on strike have forced idleness on the iron-workers ; but 

 I refer to the way in which the course taken by any one set of opera- 

 tives, to get higher wages, is taken regardless of the fact that an event- 

 ual rise in the price of the commodity produced is a disadvantage to 

 all other operatives. The class-bias, fostering the belief that the ques- 

 tion in each case is entirely one between employer- and employed, be- 

 tween capital and labor, shuts out the truth that the interests of all 

 consumers are involved, and that the immense majority of consumers 

 belong to the working-classes themselves. If the consumers are named, 

 such of them only are remembered as belong to the wealthier classes, 

 who, it is thought, can well afford to pay higher prices. Listen to a 

 passage from Mr. George Potter's paper, read at the late Leeds Con- 

 gress : 



" The consumer, in fact, in so high a civilization, so arrogant a luxurious- 

 ness, and so impatient an expectancy as characterize him in our land and age, 

 is ever ready to take the alarm and to pour out the phials of his wrath upon 

 those whom he merely suspects of taking a course which may keep a feather 

 out of his hed, a spice out of his dish, or a coal out of his fire; and, unfortu- 

 nately for the chances of fairness, the weight of his anger seldom falls upon the 

 capitalists, hut is most certain to come crushing down upon the lowly laborer, 

 who has dared to stand upon his own right and independence." 



