TRADE-UNIONS 73 



destroyed ! and why ? Because, forsooth, the accumulation of 

 funds destined to provide these benefits is supposed to be a 

 temptation to extravagance in striking. In other words, the 

 capitalist is supposed to be more ready to peril his position than 

 the spendthrift or needy man. The evidence is wholly against 

 such reasoning. The societies with large benefit funds are the 

 most reasonably managed. If a large fund is accumulated for 

 trade purposes only, it forms an irresistible temptation to strike. 

 How else can it be employed ? Masters would at least have 

 the melancholy satisfaction of being able to foretell when a strike 

 was imminent, by simply watching the accumulation of the 

 trade fund. But a subscriber to a benefit society, who sees the 

 fund applied to trade purposes, knows that he must make good 

 every farthing wasted. The fund that goes is his fund ; either 

 he will some day share it, or if it goes he must some day replace 

 it, by extra payments. You say the men are too stupid to 

 understand this ; but you are wrong. The men do understand 

 it, and even the dullest are taught when, after a strike, whips 

 and levies come week after week to enable the union to meet its 

 liabilities. They will repudiate, you say ; they have not repu- 

 diated, and little good is to be got by repudiation when the 

 assurance is mutual. To provide against the conceivable case 

 of all the young men of a trade repudiating a debt mainly owed 

 to old ones, the dissolution of a company or withdrawal of 

 members may properly be subjected to some restriction, though 

 it seems hardly worth while to provide for a contingency which 

 is highly improbable. So strongly do we feel on the subject, 

 that we would rather urge that no trade society should be allowed 

 to exist without certain benefits. No better guarantee could be 

 obtained for a prudent administration of the funds. This is 

 no theory, but a fact. Separate trade and benefit societies 

 involve separate expenses of management, separate governing 

 bodies : if restricted to a given trade, the funds will infallibly be 

 improperly used for trade purposes ; if they are unrestricted to 

 one trade, the supervision of each member by all the others, 

 allowing benefits to be cheaply purchased, would be sacrificed. 

 You also sacrifice the esprit de corps which brings in the 

 thoughtless lad as well as the sober middle-aged man. In a 

 word, let those who advocate the separation say distinctly in 



