48 
in history to be the vice of the English nation. Independence 
was united to attachment, preventing them from separating 
without good cause. In conducting the struggle of industry, 
many of the captains of industry had their commissions only 
by purchase, not by merit. They had not learned their 
trade. There were, in reality, no institutions where the 
thorough knowledge could be gained. Such institutions as 
taught portions of it were not attended. Badly educated 
masters belong to the dangerous classes. The best men 
rise, because talent is always before capital. 4'ake capital 
to a place and it will be lost without talent; take talent and it 
will make capital. 
As to the men they have a right to unite ; who will help 
them if they never call out ? Pity it is that strikes represent 
the ignorance of the workmen ; the best men are busy raising 
their condition, not striking. The men generally, like many 
of the masters, refuse to learn. They ought to combine, not 
to light, but to make themselves better workmen. It is 
amazing how difficult it is to get good workmen. If masters 
united with their best men, all might assist each other, and 
where there is success this is really done. 
The only way that workmen can rise is by intelligence ; 
just as it is by intelligence only that the master can maintain 
his position. Some of the best masters are men who have 
accumulated property by intelligence and industry. 
Intelligence in workmen causes a rise in wages, entirely 
irrespective of supply and demand. Instances were given in 
which there is a constant and established habit of looking to 
the condition of the employed and to what he might be sup- 
posed to expect. Supply and demand are generally used as 
gross words that skim over great difficulties. They have 
been treated as merely physical, but when moral considera- 
tions enter, supply and demand alter their conditions, and the 
physical laws must give way, because there are moral feelings 
in men stronger than their love of gain. 
