ON CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 153 



extremely difficult to determine how far unions have impeded the develop- 

 ment of trade, whether by simply raising prices or by diverting trade from 

 certain districts, or from this to foreign countries. The representatives of 

 capital at the Conference alluded to endeavoured to prove that certain 

 branches of trade have permanently been injured by the unions. "Whether 

 the fact can be established or not, it is imdoniablc that British trade has 

 enormously increased within the last twenty years, and that the exports of 

 manufactured goods are on a larger scale now than they were at any former 

 period *. 



"What is perhaps most objectionable in combinations of labour is the 

 method they often pursue in order to operate on the rates of wages ; for they 

 are not content with making a collective demand on employers for a rise, 

 but endeavour to force it, or resist a fall, by restricting the supply of labour 

 and increasing the need of it. One such method, explained at the Con- 

 ference, seems to your Committee peculiarly objectionable. A representative 

 of labour said, " That when depression of trade comes, by means of associated 

 funds, the men are liable to say to the surplus labourers ' stand on one side, 

 you are not wanted for the time being ; if you go on with your labour at 

 half price, it will not mend the trade : we will not let you become a drug on 

 the market, putting every other man down, but we will sustain you.' " In 

 three years, your Committee were informed, over =£100,000 was thus paid 

 for unemployed labour, in the hope that undue fall in wages would be pre- 

 vented by keeping labourers out of the market. Your Committee are of 

 opinion that the artificial prevention of a fall of wages, when such a fall is 

 necessary and inevitable, is economically wrong, and can only have the effect 

 of still more injuring the condition of workmen, since by so doing they only 

 throw hindrances in the way of production, which is the parent of all wages. 

 Equally objectionable in your Committee's opinion, as interfering with the 

 freedom of labour and with the general economy of production, is every regu- 

 lation of such trade-unions that excludes from employment in the trades all 

 who have not been regularly apprenticed, or any rule which should set a 

 limit to the number of apprentices. Professor Cairnes, commenting on the 

 monopoly thus advocated by trade-unions, said, " It is a monopoly, more- 

 over, founded on no principle either of moral desert or of industrial effi- 

 ciency, but simply on chance or arbitrary selection ; and which, therefore, 

 cannot but exert a demoralizing influence on all who come within its scope — 

 in all its aspects presenting an ungracious contrast to all that is best and 

 most generous in the spirit of modem democracy." 



The only other question on which your Committee will report is whether 

 an artificial restriction of labour or of capital can, under any circumstances, 

 be economically right or beneficial. It is, indeed, scarcely necessarj- to say 

 that any restriction of labour or of capital having the effect of limiting pro- 



* The following were the quantities of some of the principal articles of British pro- 

 duce and manufacture exported from the United Kingdom in 1854 and 1874 : — 



Increase. 

 1854. 1874. per cent. 



Coal and coke 4,309,000 tons. 13,027,000 223 



Copper 274,000 cwts. 709,000 159 



Cotton yam 147,128,000 lbs. 220,599,000 49 



Cotton manufacture 1,092,899,000 yds. 3,006,639,000 113 



Iron 1,175,000 tons. 2,487,000 112 



Worsted manufacture 133,600,000 yds. 261,000,000 71 



The total value of British produce exported iucronsed from £1S5,891,(;00 in 18C0 to 

 i:ii39,558,000 in 1874, or nt the rcte cf 76 per cent. 



