REPEAL OF THE COINAGE ACT NECESSARY.

489

down of its own weight, as sooner or later it must, the miners would be exposed to ruin from the consequent derangements.

The only wholesome treatment of this question is to repeal the Silver Coinage Act. That done, we should add $25,000,000 to our yearly exports, instead of locking up so much of our national product as dead capital in the Treasury; while that increase of exports would give us a greater command of European gold and thereby strengthen our international position in this question. Europe, and especially England, would then be compelled to earnestly consider measures for placing the double standard upon a broad and lasting international basis; and as such a disposition began to manifest itself, the silver market would so far sympathize as to amply compensate producers for any losses they might suffer from a temporary fall in bullion.

HENRY CLEWS.

Bad as the situation is, in respect to this vast mass of the world's circulating medium, yet it is far from being a hopeless one. The more serious it becomes, the nearer will be the remedy. The derangements to commerce and to immense vested interests must ultimately become so serious, that the nations which now obstruct the application of a remedy will be compelled to submit to the necessities of an imperative danger, and the end will probably be that a coinage union will be established between the great nations, on a basis broad enough to give stability to this form of money beyond all possibility of future disturbance.

CHAPTER XLV.

THE LABOR QUESTION.

HARMONY BETWEEN THE REPRESENTATIVES OF CAPITAL AND LABOR NECESSARY FOR BUSINESS PROSPERITY.-IF MANUFACTURERS SHOULD COMBINE TO REGULATE WAGES, THE ARRANGEMENT COULD ONLY BE TEMPORARY.-THE WORKINGMEN ARE TAKEN CARE OF BY THE NATURAL LAWS OF TRADE-COMPETITION AMONG THE CAPITALISTS SUSTAINS THE RATE OF WAGES OPINION OF JOHN STUART MILL ON THIS SUBJECT.-COMPELLING A UNI FORM RATE OF PAY IS A GROSS INJUSTICE TO THE MOST SKILFUL WORKMEN. THE TENDENCY OF THE TRADES UNIONS TO DEBAR THE WORKINGMAN FROM SOCIAL ELE VATION. THE POWER OF THE UNIONS BROUGHT TO A TEST. THE UNIVERSAL FAILURE OF THE STRIKES.REVOLUTIONARY DEMANDS OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR.GOULD AND THE STRIKES ON THE MISSOURI PACIFIC, &c., &c.

TH

HERE is no influence to which business circles are more sensitive than the disruption of harmony between capital and labor. Whatever affects the productiveness of labor affects, more directly than any other cause, the national prosperity and the welfare of all classes of society. The value of the vast aggregate of corporate property represented on the Stock Exchange is vitally dependent on the maintenance of such relations between the employed and employing classes as contribute to the highest welfare of both and to the largest possible national production; and, therefore, whatever tends to imperil such relations becomes a source of serious disturbance to the stock market, to financial interests at large, and to the best interests of labor itself.

There appears to be an idea, in certain quarters, that the modern concentration of capital into large masses has made it necessary for workmen also to organize themselves into

large bodies, sinking their individual rights and liberties and selling their labor en masse. For my part, I am unable to see the force of this reasoning, although I cannot but respect the ability of some authorities by which it is sanctioned. It seems to assume that large employers .of labor have more power to depress wages than smaller ones; and from this it is inferred that it is necessary for workmen to combine to protect themselves against this supposed increased exposure to aggression from capital. But is either the premise or the conclusion sound? In order to concede the assumption we must suppose that large employers can cease to be competitors for labor; for in no other way can they depress wages. But this can never happen; for capitalists will always produce to the fullest extent compatible with an average rate of profit, and this ensures the largest possible demand for labor and, therefore, the highest possible rate of wages. If employers combined to force the rate of wages down, as workmen do to force it up, they would undoubtedly be able to compel a temporary reduction in the remuneration of labor.

But, of necessity, such an artificial depression of wages could only be temporary; for what was thus taken by force from labor would make manufacturing so unusually profitable that new capital would be immediately attracted to it, and the consequent additional demand for labor would necessitate an advance in wages, which the combined manufacturers would be compelled to pay. As a matter of fact, manufacturers do not combine to regulate wages, not only because of the reasons just stated, but also because they know that no such combination could be maintained in the face of the jealousies and conflicting interests that always exist among them. If, then, it is true that manufacturers are compelled by the necessities of competition to pay as much for labor as it is for the time-being worth, and, if they do not and cannot combine to depress wages, I am unable to see where arises the necessity for the workmen to com

FALSE NOTIONS ABOUT COMPETITION.

493

bine for the purpose of protecting themselves against capital.

The workingmen are taken care of by the natural laws of trade far more perfectly than they can be by any artificial arrangement; and trades unions are simply an intrusion upon the domain of those laws, without the power to supplement or perfect their operation, and with a certainty of obstructing and perverting their tendency, with the inevitable result of mischief to all parties. If the unions do occasionally get an advance in wages, it would have come by the natural laws of competition among the capitalists. It might be delayed for a time, but if you calculate the loss of wages and suffering entailed by the strike, I think the workmen would be safer in the end to wait for the natural advance. I am clearly borne out in this view of the case of the capitalist by that great political economist, philosopher and thinker, John Stuart Mill, who was certainly no enthusiastic friend of the capitalist, and is an acknowledged friend of labor as widely as his writings are known, which is almost as extensive as civilization itself.

After laying down the principles of Socialism, Mill says: "Next, it must be observed that Socialists generally, and even the most enlightened of them, have a very imperfect and one sided notion of the operation of competition. They see half its effects, and overlook the other half; they regard it as an agency for grinding down every one's remuneration -for obliging every one to accept less wages for his labor, or a less price for his commodities, which would be true only if every one had to dispose of his labor or his commodities to some great monopolist, and the competition were all on one side. They forget that competition is the cause of high prices and values as well as of low; that the buyers of labor and of commodities compete with one another as well as the sellers; and that if it is competition which keeps the prices of labor and commodities as low as they are, it is competition which prevents them from falling still lower. In truth, when competition is perfectly free on both sides, its tendency is not specially either to raise or to lower the price of articles, but to equalize it; to level inequalities of remuner