ASSOCIATION IN ITS RELATION TO LABOR. 591 



keep him aud allow birn full play. Like tea and wine tasters, they 

 must not loe argued with nor forced into unnatural decisions by the 

 power of numbers. If it be said that a unionist can perform this deli- 

 cate social duty, let us hear what Mr. Thornton ' says in this regard : 



" They " (trades-unions) " tell us plainly what they aspire to is ' control over 

 the destinies of labor; ' that they want not merc4y to be freed from dictation, 

 but to dictate to be able to arrange the conditions of employment at their own 

 discretion." 



Mr. Api^legarth, one of the most accomplished unionists, says : 



" The business of the employed is to look after their own interests, leaving 

 employers, customers, and the rest of society, to look after theirs and to shift for 

 themselves as they best may." 



Firm associations of employers promote the highest economical ends 

 no better when they antagonize the market, or society economically 

 considered. The notion long prevailed in trade and manufactures, 

 that advantages and profits should be secured through monopolies 

 and arbitrary control of the markets. Modern society has abandoned 

 this theory; has forced employers and sellers into a larger view of 

 their own interests through social obligation ; and it will compel 

 labor-organizations toward the same end by irresistible social laws. 

 Mr. Thornton admits this principle in another form, for he constantly 

 says the close organizations of laborers are now compelling absolute 

 combinations of the employers to oppose them, and that these latter 

 must surely prevail. Yet he regards the struggle as necessary, and 

 the only means of bringing order and justice out of clashing class 

 antagonisms. However this may be in England, and it is not our 

 business to inquire, in America the principle does not and cannot 

 prevail. European civilization has left but one citadel to the few, in 

 their opposition to the many. Chieftainship, social prestige, money, 

 all pass away from a class if its individual members are not true to 

 its instincts. One fortress remains, where, intrenched by law, the 

 privilege of classes can hold all assailants at bay, and can repair the 

 unthrifty ravages of reckless individuals. Land, the final reservoir 

 of natural advantage, the sure protector of privilege, is, in Europe, 

 practically beyond the reach of the many. Li England, the country 

 of greatest abundance, capital ventures itself commercially not below 

 five to ten per cent., while it rests content in land at two per cent. 

 This petty profit shows contrariwise the immense power and value of 

 land. In our country it is practically free ; the Government gives a 

 homestead on the open prairie, or, if that be too distant and uncer- 

 tain, the laborer, riding one hundred miles by rail from a crowded 

 district in New England, can find cheap, fertile lands, with homestead 

 buildings abandoned and decaying. It is impossible for one class to 

 oppress another long, while these doors open freely outward to the 



' Pp. 193, 194. 



