56 POLITICAL ECONOMY 



in a new form should grow up. We hope and expect that it 

 will ; but so long as masters try to crush the unions, and to 

 detach men from them, this new kind feeling is impossible. 

 The sincere attachment of men to their unions admits of no 

 rational doubt. Over and over again employers have tried to 

 put an end to unions by declaring that they would employ no 

 union men ; as often unions have come out of the struggle 

 more vigorous than ever. Men will starve, they will emigrate ; 

 they have starved, they have emigrated, rather than abandon 

 these institutions. Men trust in them, as they trust in them- 

 selves, with a thorough British self-reliance. A Frenchman 

 clamours for work and protection from his Government, or 

 from his master. They look for their benefits from the head 

 of the establishment as they look for benefits at the hands of 

 the Government. Englishmen are too self-reliant to follow 

 any similar course of life. The English workmen ask nothing 

 but wages and respect from their employers ; and from the 

 Government they ask leave to be allowed to manage their 

 own affairs. They organise themselves and govern them- 

 selves on a small scale, as Great Britain at large is governed 

 on a large scale ; and, when organised, they say little about the 

 rights of man, or communism, or principles of any kind. They 

 want good wages, and where the shoe pinches they try to ease 

 it. They have done so with so much success, and have had so 

 much pleasure in managing their own affairs, that they feel a 

 loyalty to their unions akin to that felt by the middle classes to 

 Parliament. To deny this feeling shows ignorance, to ignore 

 it folly. Would that the workmen felt towards our Govern- 

 ment what they feel for the unions ; they may come to feel this, 

 and if they do England will be stronger than she is now. It is 

 the fashion to speak of the workmen as tools in the hands oi 

 secretaries and delegates, who foment strikes to their own profit. 

 Among the lower trades the men may be in the hands of low 

 men, though probably even there the governors truly represent 

 the governed. The large unions are no more in the hands of 

 their leaders than England is in the hands of Parliamentary 

 leaders. The unions have their Gladstones and Disraelis in 

 pa.ri'o, no doubt, but these are representative men ; and the 

 constitution of a union is singularly well suited to secure ;in 



