TRADE-UNIONS 37 



both derange the necessary machinery of daily production and 

 traffic and also unnecessarily harass the capitalist engaged in 

 production; and we further declare that the legitimate field 

 for the action of the combination in driving its bargain is 

 defined by the principle that no injury to a third person shall 

 form any part of that bargain. 



We turn now to the description of trade-unions as they are ; 

 and assuming that the general scope and action of unions is 

 sufficiently known, we shall forthwith discuss those rules and 

 practices which are either certainly pernicious, or are thought 

 so by many writers. 



The atrocious outrages detected at Sheffield, and among the 

 Manchester brickmakers, require little comment here ; not, 

 indeed, that too much can be said to show the execration in 

 which such crimes are held : they are only possible in societies 

 where the criminal is conscious of the support and approbation 

 of his associates where the opinions of men are vile, and 

 their conscience degraded. It is therefore most necessary that 

 the thieves and murderers should know that beyond that de- 

 praved circle they are known and loathed as simple thieves and 

 murderers. "We do not pass by these outrages quickly, as of small 

 account, but because there is no question but that they are out- 

 rages, that they deserve the heaviest penalties, and that further 

 legislation is desirable for their better prevention, detection, 

 and punishment. By and by we will discuss the remedies and 

 safeguards against these crimes ; but now, when about to 

 discuss the merits of various rules and practices, it were waste 

 time to prove that assassination, arson, theft, and the destruc- 

 tion of property must remain crimes, even if committed by 

 members of a trade-union in the interests of what they call the 

 trade. 



Unions wholly free from outrage, and whose members neither 

 practise personal violence nor even intimidation, do neverthe- 

 less interfere with non-society men knobsticks, as they are 

 called by engineers. The wretched knobstick need not fear 

 that he will be murdered or even beaten, but he is persecuted 

 nevertheless ; he is jeered at and snubbed on all possible occa- 

 sions ; he is betrayed to foremen for peccadilloes ; he receives 

 none of those little aids by which the other men lighten one 

 another's labour ; apprentices fetch him no beer ; he is generally 



