54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



on the one side, resisting selfishness on the other, inevitably commits 

 sins akin to those it complains of cannot effectually check harsh deal- 

 ings without itself using harsh measures. Further, it may be fully 

 admitted that the evils of working-class combinations, great as they 

 are, are accompanied by certain benefits, and will perhaps hereafter be 

 followed by greater benefits are evils accompanying the transition to 

 better arrangements. 



Here my purpose is neither to condemn nor to applaud the ideas 

 and actions of the employed in their dealings with employers ; but 

 simply to point out how the class-bias warps working-men's judgments 

 of social relations makes it difficult for working-men to see that our 

 existing industrial system is a product of existing human nature, and 

 can be improved only as fast as human nature improves. 



The ruling and employing classes display an equally-strong bias of 

 the opposite kind. From their point of view, the behavior of their 

 poorer fellow-citizens throughout these struggles appears uniformly 

 blamable. That they experience from a strike inconvenience, more or 

 less considerable, sufficiently proves to them that the strike must be 

 wrong. They think there is something intolerable in this indepen- 

 dence which leads to refusals to work except at higher wages or for 

 shorter times. That the many should be so reckless of the welfare of 

 the few, seems to the few a grievance not to be endured. Though Mr. 

 George Potter, as shown above, wrongly speaks of the consumer as 

 though he were always rich, instead of being, in nine cases out of ten, 

 poor ; yet he rightly describes the rich consumer as indignant when 

 operatives dare to take a course which threatens to raise the prices of 

 necessaries and make luxuries more costly. This feeling, often be- 

 trayed in private, exhibited itself in public on the occasion of the late 

 strike among the gas-stokers ; when there were uttered proposals that 

 acts entailing so much inconvenience should be put down with a 

 strong hand. And the same spirit was shown in that straining of the 

 law which brought on the men the punishment for conspiracy, instead 

 of the punishment for breach of contract ; which was well deserved, 

 and would have been quite sufficient. 



This mental attitude of the employing classes is daily shown by the 

 criticisms passed on servants. Read " The Greatest Plague in Life," 

 or listen to the complaints of every housewife, and you see that the 

 minds of masters and mistresses are so much occupied with their own 

 interests as to leave little room for the interests of the men and maids 

 in their service. The very title, " The Greatest Plague in Life," implies 

 that the only life worthy of notice is the life to which servants min- 

 ister ; and there is an entire unconsciousness that a book with the 

 same title, written by a servant about masters and mistresses, might 

 be filled with equally-severe criticisms and grievances far more serious. 

 The increasing independence of servants is enlarged upon as a change 



