LABOUR 263 



lation of Professor Menger's well-known work, has termed " the 

 whole produce of his labour." He asks for value in exchange for 

 value. Being a free man he has a right to do so. He is conscious 

 of the fact that in many cases of employment he has not hitherto 

 received " the whole produce " ; and, realising his loss, and on the 

 other hand his present strength, he is apt sometimes to exaggerate 

 his grievance in his mind, failing to take into account the risk 

 shouldered by the employer, and generalising hastily from a few 

 cases to all. He sees some employers piling up treasure. He does 

 not take into account the large number of employers who lose over 

 their transactions or fail altogether — often enough not owing to 

 want of skill or application, or to questionable soundness of plans 

 laid, but to sheer bad luck. And so he generalises, forgets the 

 employer's skill, flair and financial strategy, and sets himself down 

 unconsideringly as being robbed. And in times like the present, 

 when, owing to the conditions resulting from any war, enormous 

 fortunes are run up with a rapidity reminding one of Jonah's gourd, 

 and the " profiteer " takes good care to rub in the injustice done to 

 others by most vulgar outward display, this phase of feeling is 

 quite naturally altogether in the ascendant. And working folk are 

 not the only people to overlook the fact that the " profiteer," 

 objectionable as he is, is rather the result of high prices than their 

 cause. But unquestionably in rural districts there has been under- 

 paying of labour. The rural labourer has been too much treated 

 as that which the Romans in their expressive language called him, 

 namely, a " vocal implement." 



From the present look of the labour movement it is quite evident 

 that we have come to something like a turning point in its history. 

 What with contentions, threats, wholesale strikes, " lightning " 

 and otherwise, stopping of production, shortage of hands, shortening 

 of hours, with a free option given of further shortening — which in 

 effect is nothing but " ca' canny," though it is not called so — and 

 political demands, we have come, at any rate, very near an eco- 

 nomic and political impasse — an economic revolution, comparable 

 to what in political life is termed a revolution, from which a way out 

 will have to be sought by new methods. For the old methods of 

 settling such disputes, by trials of sheer strength, appear played 

 out concurrently with the complete transformation which has taken 

 place in the relations between the disagreeing forces. The relative 

 position of the two contending parties has essentially changed, and 

 the change brought about calls for new means of settling strife, 

 Results of contention have in the main been only in one direction. 



