28 POLITICAL ECONOMY 



custom, education, government, climate, and indeed with every 

 circumstance which affects man's desire for wealth. 



In the assertion of their determination, the capitalists stand 

 at a great advantage when compared with an individual labourer 

 who has no accumulated savings. He must work or starve, or 

 break into open rebellion. When he has saved money, ho may 

 emigrate or change his occupation, since he will have time at his 

 command. If many workmen at once determine not to work 

 below a certain standard, and if they have accumulated funds, 

 they stand more or less on an equal footing with the capitalist. 

 They can wait, and he can wait ; they suffer, and he suffers ; 

 the force of their determination is tested by the time during 

 which each will endure the loss entailed. The capitalist sees 

 opportunities of profits lost, he sees rivals supplanting him in 

 trade ; if his capital has been borrowed, he may see ruin im- 

 pending. The workman sees his savings vanish, he endures 

 privation at his home, he sees a rival workman at his bench, 

 he must face unknown changes, starve, or live on charity. 



This torture soon settles whether really the capitalist will be 

 content with 14 per cent., or the workman with 30,9. Nor is there 

 any other test by which the proportion required to induce in- 

 vestment and 'to induce work can be settled. Workmen will 

 continue to think it outrageous that the capitalist will not be 

 content with less than 15 per cent. Masters will continue to 

 think it monstrous that workmen who live uncommonly well on 

 36s. will not work for less than 40s. In truth, the master has 

 no moral obligation to save or invest capital in consideration of 

 any particular rate of interest, nor is it the duty of the work- 

 man to work at any given rate of wages. Capital and labour 

 are antagonists, they must fight for the spoil, but they fight 

 under this singular condition, which should put buttons on the 

 foils if one kills the other, the victor cannot long survive ; 

 nay, each feels every wound he gives his foe. 



We have now completed the first branch of our inquiry, and, 

 assuming that trade-unions can and do materially increase 

 wages, will proceed to consider whether combination for this 

 and analogous purposes ought to be permitted, and if permitted, 

 under what restrictions, both as to the objects sought and the 

 means employed to compass those objects ; in brief, what are 



