790 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



too long hours, the employment of children, etc. But these are gen- 

 eral rules, which do not touch the right of enterprise to select its field, 

 and, under freedom of competition, to make the most of it. Restric- 

 tion within limits may be even demanded by economics as well as by 

 humanity ; but here the limits are of importance to the last degree, 

 since disregard of them may destroy individualism and land us in 

 state communism. 



If force could be used to compel capital under some rule to surren- 

 der all or most of its gains to laborers, it would remove to a great ex- 

 tent the motive for saving and the incentive to enterprise, and prevent 

 the opening of new fields for the employment of new hands, ever ask- 

 ing for something to d6. Hoarding would take the place of invest- 

 ment. Wealth would still be desired for use, but not for business ; 

 and the currents along the old channels would become sluggish, and, 

 with failure to invest for profit, would come the falling off of means 

 for use. This is substantially what takes place during periods of great 

 commercial depression, when loss of confidence and fear of extending 

 credits temporarily deprive capital of its active functions, and throw 

 labor out of employment. It is furthermore substantially the condi- 

 tion of things under Eastern despots, where property is not protected 

 from spoliation, and there is, consequently, little saved for the assist- 

 ance of labor, which has, in consequence, to be done at a disadvan- 

 tage, and all the people are hopelessly poor. 



Employers are not absolute arbiters of fate, and can not make a 

 remunerating profit with the cost of production and the state of the 

 market against them. Should the outlay for wages in any department 

 of industry be so great that its products could only be sold as a loss, 

 managers must contract operations or stop altogether, when the laborer 

 becomes the direct and principal sufferer ; and thus it is shown how 

 easy it would be for him, if he had his own way, to destroy the indus- 

 try on which he depends for support. Most laborers in the present 

 state of their education are not a whit wiser than this implies, though 

 some of them happily are. It is stated that committees of working- 

 men, appointed to confer with their employers, have been known even 

 to refuse the highest wages it would have been possible to exact, lest 

 their product should be so weighted with cost of production as to place 

 it at a disadvantage in the markets, and thus cripple their industry, 

 and in the end do them more harm than good. There are few such 

 working-men, however, and it is to be feared that they are little on 

 the increase in number and influence. Mr. Gregg affirms (1879) that 

 " never during the experience of a generation and a half can I remem- 

 ber to have seen the artisans throughout the length and breadth of the 

 land acting so entirely in defiance of common sense and right feeling, 

 and with so total a disregard of plain and repeated warning" ("Nine- 

 teenth Century "). 



" Oh," interrupts Reformer, " you are running on at a great rate, 



