136 president's address — section f, 



economists, it does not remove the evils to which the old 

 theory gave birth. Under the wages-fund theory the 

 labourer came to the conclusion that the employer was 

 getting- more than his share of the fund. Under George's 

 definition the labourer is taught, and is beginning to believe, 

 that he is entitled to the whole, and that the employer or 

 capitalist is an encumbrance on the industrial organisation. 

 To those, therefore, who are seeking for some means by 

 which the alleged conflicting interests of employers and 

 employed can be harmonised — who feel that the interminable 

 strife between capital and labour, which has become so 

 intensified in these days, has resulted in a waste of the 

 national energies — the Scylla of George is as much to be 

 avoided as the Charybdis of Ricardo. Of course, no amount 

 of definition can alter the relative rights or claims of labour 

 and capital ; but, as the attitudes of employers and employed 

 are largely determined by their conceptions of these rights 

 and claims, it is clear that a satisfactory solution of our dif- 

 ficulties can only be obtained Ijy a true conception of the 

 economic relations of wages and profit. Before indicating 

 these, however, let us glance for a few minutes at the actions 

 taken by both sides in the contest to secure a recognition of 

 what they have held to be their just claims. We shall con- 

 sider these under two headings : — 



1. Strikes, lock-outs, and trade unions. 



2. Co-operation. 



To an unreflecting employer, the method which at once 

 suggested itself as the infallible cure for disaffection or 

 discontent on the part of his workmen was a lock-out, which 

 speedily starved the recalcitrants into submission. To the 

 equally unreflecting workmen the sure way to coerce an 

 employer was to strike. To a successful strike, however, an 

 organisation was necessary, and this was found in the trade 

 unions. I do not propose to enter into a history of these 

 organisations, but it is necessary that 1 should very briefly 

 indicate their growth and development. In the early develop- 

 ment of the industrial life of England we find the merchant 

 guilds estabhshed for the common benefit of employers and 

 employed, to regulate the conditions of the calling in which 

 they were engaged, to secure tho right of free discussion and 

 association, and to safeguard their interests against the 

 attacks of the patrician classes. In these guilds we find 

 nothing to indicate any conflict of interest between employers 

 and employed. On the contrary, it was presumably felt that 



