136 EMPLOYERS AND WORKMEN 



be, probably, those who have become so accus- 

 tomed to work up to only a part of their power 

 that now a part of their power is all they care 

 to bring into play. Therefore it might be urged 

 that a scheme of general co-operation is full of 

 deceit, and is really deliberately intended to put 

 a division between workmen — to make them 

 hostile to each other, to draw the more indus- 

 trious to anti-socialism, and make it more difficult 

 for the less industrious to live. This, of course, 

 is not so ; the object of the suggested scheme is 

 to make the lot of the industrious still better, and 

 to try to induce the less industrious to commit 

 themselves to greater exertions ; and to bring 

 this improvement about, not by merely picking 

 pockets, but by so increasing the output that 

 profits also increase, owing largely to the greater 

 demand of people in an improved condition. No 

 doubt it will be very difficult to persuade great 

 numbers that the scheme is honest ; more difficult 

 still perhaps to persuade them that when the 

 status of one class improves, the status of another 

 class need not pari passu decline. We might just 

 as well argue that as the sons and daughters of 

 a family grow to maturity, the father and mother 

 must of necessity shrink into mere specks. A 

 nation grows greatest, in all real greatness, v/hen 

 the advantages of its greatness are shared by all 

 in their several degrees. 



Workmen in Government employ, as in dock- 

 yards, cannot become part owners, though much 

 of their work is monotonous, exactly as it is in 

 the case of others on whom the division of labour 



