52 THE* POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The chairman is no less remarkable for his skill in the conduct of large 

 undertakings than for that sympathy with the working-classes which 

 led him to adopt this course. The manager had been himself a work- 

 ing-man ; and so fully possessed the confidence of working-men that 

 many migrated with him from the Midland counties when the com- 

 pany was formed. Further, the manager entered heartily into the 

 plan telling me himself that he had rejoiced over the founding of a 

 concern in which those employed would have an interest. His hopes, 

 however, and those of the chairman, were disappointed. After the 

 lapse of a year, not one of the thousand shares was taken up ; and 

 they were then distributed among the proprietors. Doubtless, there 

 have been in other cases more encouraging results. But this case is 

 one added to others which show that the proportion of working-men 

 adequately provident is not great enough to permit an extensive 

 growth of better industrial organizations. 



Again, the success of industrial organizations, higher in type, re- 

 quires in the members a nicer sense of justice than is at present gen- 

 eral. Closer cooperation implies greater mutual trust ; and greater 

 mutual trust is not possible without more respect for one another's 

 claims. When we find that in sick-clubs it is not uncommon for mem- 

 bers to continue receiving aid when they are able to work, so that 

 spies have to be set to check them ; while, on the other hand, those 

 who administer the funds often cause insolvency by embezzling them ; 

 we cannot avoid the inference that want of conscientiousness must 

 very generally prevent the effective union of workers under no regu- 

 lation but their own. When, among skilled laborers, we find a certain 

 rate per hour demanded, because less " did not suffice for their natural 

 wants," though the unskilled laborers working under them were re- 

 ceiving little more than half the rate per hour, and were kept out of 

 the skilled class by stringent rules, we do not discover a moral sense 

 so much above that shown by employers as to promise success for in- 

 dustrial combinations superior to our present ones. While workmen 

 think themselves justified in combining to sell their labor only on 

 certain terms, but think masters not justified in combining to buy 

 only on certain terms, they show a conception of equity not high 

 enough to make practicable a form of cooperation requiring that each 

 shall recognize the claims of others as fully as his own. One pervad- 

 ing misconception of justice betrayed by them would alone suffice 

 to cause failure the misconception, namely, that justice requires an 

 equal sharing of benefits among producers, instead of requiring, as it 

 does, equal freedom to make the best of their faculties. The general 

 policy of trades-unionism, tending everywhere to restrain the superior 

 from profiting by his superiority lest the inferior should be disadvan- 

 taged, is a policy which, acted out in any industrial combinations, must 

 make them incapable of competing with combinations based on the 

 principle that benefit gained shall be proportioned to faculty put forth. 



