THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 53 



Thus, as acting on the employed in general, the class-bias obscures 

 the truth, otherwise not easy to see, that the existing type of in- 

 dustrial organization, like the existing type of political organization, 

 is about as good as existing human nature allows. The evils there are 

 in it are nothing but the evils brought round on men by their own im- 

 perfections. The relation of master and workman has to be tolerated, 

 because, for the time being, no other will answer as well. Looked at 

 apart from special interests, this organization of industry we now see 

 around us must be considered as one in which the cost of regulation, 

 though not so great as it once was, is still excessive. In any indus- 

 trial combination there must be a regulating agency. That regulating 

 agency, whatever its nature, must be paid for must involve a deduc- 

 tion from the total proceeds of the labor regulated. The present sys- 

 tem is one under which the share of the total proceeds that goes to 

 pay for regulation is considerable ; and, under better systems to be 

 expected hereafter, there will doubtless be a decrease in the cost of 

 regulation. But, for the present, our comparatively-costly system has 

 the justification that it alone succeeds. Regulation is costly because 

 the men to be regulated are defective. With decrease of their defects 

 will come economy of regulation, and consequently greater shares of 

 profit to themselves. 



Let me not be misunderstood. The foregoing criticism does not 

 imply that operatives have no grievances to complain of ; nor does it 

 imply that trade-combinations and strikes are without adequate justi- 

 fications. It is quite possible to hold that when, instead of devouring 

 their captured enemies, men made slaves of them, the change was a 

 step in advance ; and to hold that this slavery, though absolutely bad, 

 was relatively good was the best thing practicable for the time 

 being. It is quite possible also to hold that when slavery gave place 

 to a serfdom under which certain personal rights were recognized, the 

 new arrangement, though in the abstract an inequitable one, was 

 more equitable than the old, and constituted as great an amelioration 

 as men's natures then permitted. It is quite possible to hold that 

 when, instead of serfs, there came freemen working for wages, but 

 held as a class in extreme subordination, this modified relation of em- 

 ployers and employed, though bad, was as good a one as was then 

 practicable. And so it may be held that at the present time, though 

 the form of industrial government entails serious evils, those evils, 

 much less than the evils of past times, are as small as the average 

 human nature allows are not due to any special injustice of the em- 

 ploying class, and can be remedied only as fast as men in general 

 advance. On the other hand, while contending that the policy of 

 trades-unions, and the actions of men on strike, manifest an injustice as 

 great as that shown by the employing classes, it is quite consistent to 

 admit, and even to assert, that the evil acts of trade-combinations are 

 the unavoidable accompaniments of a needful self-defence. Selfishness 



