is under particular circumstances unable to dictate terms to employers, and which is therefore cautious or bold as the case may be, takes advantage to its own profit or gain, of the very organization which at first sight is directed against it. The labourer seeks to get more out of the capitalist, and the effect is that the capitalist gets all that the labourer gets, and something over, out of the public. In popular language, the struggle of a trades-union is supposed to lie between labour and capital; in effect it lies between the labourer and the purchaser, the man who sells the service and the man who buys it, and to whom the employer is only an intermediary. To this rule there is but one exception.

The effect however of a combination to raise the rate of wages will be found to vary with the relation of the labour to the product: in no case will it fall on the capitalist; i.e. the person who advances the wages.

If by any arrangement, agricultural labourers could combine together so effectually as to raise the rate of wages without making their labour more productive or valuable to the employer, the loss would not fall on the farmer, but on the landlord; i.e. the increased cost must be compensated out of rent. Rent is all that remains out of the price of the articles produced from the soil, after the cost of production is satisfied. When the farmer has received interest on his capital, is insured against the risks of weather, and is paid for his own labour in superintendence, and the like, the residual value of that which he obtains from the soil is paid by him to his landlord as rent. Just the same facts apply to the rent of a house in a crowded thoroughfare as are manifest in the process of ordinary agricultural

business, though in the former case the facts are more complex. A man pays £500 a year for a shop in Cheapside, and only one-fifth of such a rent for equal accommodation in a country town, because the returns of a Cheapside business, as a rule, leave such a margin over the ordinary compensation obtained by a trader, from which the owner of the house can levy this rent.

If rents fall by reason of such a combination, no one but the landlord will be injured: for the origin of his rent, in so far as it is merely compensation for the use of the natural powers of the soil, is entirely due to the competition of purchasers for the products of land. There is no rent in countries where land is cheap, abundant, and naturally fertile: there could be no rent, if the cost of production swallowed up the whole return from the soil. Such a result, in an indirect way, was actually almost reached under the old poor-law, when in some country districts the rate amounted to twenty shillings in the pound, and therefore if the assessment to the poor-rate and the net rent of the land approximated, rents were wellnigh or entirely extinguished. As I have said above, it was because the cost of production during the middle ages was relatively so high, that the rent of land was so low; and it is because the cost of production has so marvellously diminished that in our own day the rent of land is so high.

But there are two causes which will always make the contingency of this diminution in rent very remote, and perhaps prevent its occurrence altogether. One is, the difficulty of combination among agricultural labourers. In those counties which include or are contiguous to the manufacturing districts, agricultural wages are high:

and in those regions where emigration is practised, wages are also high; in both cases owing to scarcity of hands. But no combinations among labourers have yet been heard of. In one or two examples, benevolent persons have relieved the plethora by emigration; and in some purely agricultural counties, population is diminishing. But the difficulties which stand in the way of any voluntary association among farm-hands are so great, that we may fairly predict that, if at all, it will be a very long time before they are surmounted.

But even if such a combination could be effected, the incidence of the event would be obviated by the increased use of machinery in agricultural operations. At the present time, though the use is increasing, it is slowly increasing. Labour is still in excess, and must be maintained; the incentive therefore to substitute mechanical for muscular forces is at present weak. If at some future time the use of such machinery becomes general, the result will be that wages will be lowered till such time as labourers emigrate from the district; and rents will rise when the emigration takes place and the diminution in the poor-rate is effected, for whatever be the way in which the cost of production from the soil is economized, the benefit, as long as competition for the product exists, will enure to the landlord only.

When the product on which labour is exercised, is capable of importation from abroad, the effect of a combination to raise wages, supposing it to be effectual, will not raise prices beyond the amount at which the article can be produced and imported from abroad. Thus, for example, if a piece of English silk cost eight shillings a yard, and could be produced, but for the

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restrictions and charges of the unions, at seven shillings, and if foreign silks, produced under these cheaper conditions, are allowed free importation, the price of the home product must fall, and the manufacture will either be abandoned or the labourer must accept lower prices. Such indeed was only lately the case in this country. Up to the time in which the commercial treaty with France was negotiated, foreign silks were burdened with a fifteen per cent. ad valorem duty. During the continuance of this duty the silk-throwsters and weavers took incredible pains to raise wages by the adoption of trades-union regulations. The natural remedy for dear labour (by which I do not mean high wages, but high wages for inferior labour), i.e. the adoption of improved machinery, was not available, for most of the best silk fabrics were manufactured at their own looms, and in their own lodgings, by the silk-weavers. Hence when the duty was remitted, the price fell, the home silk manufacture shrunk in the competition, and the weavers were wellnigh ruined. Such at least was the case at Coventry. Exactly the same circumstances have attended other processes, which at one time or another have been sustained by protection. There is therefore a natural limit to the operation of a trades-union, or of any combination for the purpose of raising wages, when the article produced can be freely imported from abroad; and hence the union of such labourers as are engaged in these occupations would be practically harmless to the purchaser, though it might, perhaps does, operate injuriously on the aggregate interest of the country.

Much more important however is the operation of a trades-union on those products which cannot be

imported from abroad. Here, supposing the combination to be effectual, the rise in price may be continued as long as the purchaser will submit to the enhancement; or until he economizes its use. According to the terms of my hypothesis, he can substitute nothing for the article produced, and must use it in a greater or less degree. Such, for example, are the materials for housebuilding, and the labour engaged on constructing houses; and it is upon these, technically known as the buildingtrades, that the union is most active and effectual. Here there is hardly any operation on which artificial restraints are not imposed: the making of bricks and tiles, the cutting of stones, the process of building, the work of carpenters and joiners, of smiths, and whoever else contribute to the result, is limited by specific regulations, and controlled by jealous supervision. The number of apprentices, the hours of labour, the method of labour, the quantity of labour, the quickness and slowness of labour, and a variety of other particulars, are determined by the rules of the union or the custom of the trade. And the effect, it may be predicted, is that houses are bad and dear-dearest and worst for the working classes themselves; for of course the necessaries of life consume a far greater portion of the incomes of the poor than they do of the incomes of the rich. It may indeed be doubted whether the real benefit of a rise in the price of labour has ensued; and whether such an increase as has been effected in the money wages of labour, may be more than compensative for the general rise in most prices, which has characterized late years; or at least has not been due to the operation of natural causes, which are quite independent of a trades-union: but it cannot