ORGANISATION OF INDUSTRY. 509 



business is controlled by trusts ; that everywhere this process 

 is at work. Competing" firms iu every trade, where their 

 small numbers admit, are striving to come to closer terms 

 than formerly, and either secretly or openly joining forces so 

 as to get full control over the production or distribution of 

 some product in order to manipulate prices for their own 

 profit." It is contended, he points out, that the trust " is a 

 natural step in the evolution of capital, that it belongs to the 

 industrial progress of the day, that it is distinctly an effort to 

 induce order into chaos, to save the waste of war and to 

 organise industry ; " but he remarks that " if a single trust 

 rules the market there will be no force to secure to the public 

 any share in the advantage." A review of the whole 

 system must lead to the conclusion that the result cannot be 

 for the benefit of the manual workers or the general body of 

 consumers. 



Considering unrestricted competition, as regards labour, 

 from the point of view in which 1 am regarding it, the 

 miserable condition of large numbers of the labouring classes 

 in the United Kingdom is found to be the greatest in the 

 occupations in which the employment is the lowest ; its worst 

 effects are among the ranks of unskilled labour. The cause 

 of excessive supply is attributed to the influx of the rural 

 population into the towns, and the steady flow into the 

 country of cheap unskilled foreign labour. It cannot be 

 denied that if the population of every country is allowed to 

 increase by foreign immigration beyond the limit which its 

 industries can maintain, that ^nt of employment must 

 prevail, and that in time there will be large numbers for 

 whom the general circle of the industrial system in that 

 country cannot provide. 



The following passages from Hobson's work illustrate 

 exactly, not only the present but that which must be the 

 future progress of thought in the Australian land : — 



" There can be little doubt that if a few shiploads of 

 Chinese labourers were emptied into the wharves of East 

 London, whatever Government chanced to be in power 

 would be compelled to adopt immediate measures of restraint 

 on immigration, so terrible would be the effect upon the 

 low-class European labourers in our midst. . . . It is 

 not improbable that if the organisation of the workers pro- 

 ceeds along the present lines, when they come to realise their 

 ability to use political power for securing their industrial 

 position, they will decide that it will be advisable to limit the 



