cause he would be "sent to Coventry" by them, and who consequently cannot reap the benefit of his superior powers, would see that he is thus aggressed upon by his fellows more seriously than by acts of Parliament or combinations of capitalists. And he would further see that the sentiment of justice in his own class is certainly not greater than in the classes he thinks so unjust.
The feeling which thus warps working-men's conceptions, at the same time prevents them from seeing that each of their unions is selfishly aiming to benefit at the expense of the industrial population at large. When a combination of carpenters or of engineers makes rules limiting the number of apprentices admitted, with the view of maintaining the rate of wages paid to its members—when it thus tacitly says to every applicant beyond the number allowed, "Go and apprentice yourself elsewhere;" it is indirectly saying to all other bodies of artisans, "You may have your wages lowered by increasing your numbers, but we will not." And when the other bodies of artisans severally do the like, the general result is that the incorporated workers, of all orders, say to the surplus sons of workers who want to find occupations, "We will none of us let our masters employ you." Thus each trade, in its eagerness for self-protection, is regardless of other trades, and sacrifices numbers among the rising generation of the artisan class. Nor is it thus only that the interest of each class of artisans is pursued to the detriment of the artisan-class in general. I do not refer to the way in which, when bricklayers strike, they throw out of employment the laborers who attend them, or to the way in which the colliers now on strike have forced idleness on the iron-workers; but I refer to the way in which the course taken by any one set of operatives, to get higher wages, is taken regardless of the fact that an eventual rise in the price of the commodity produced is a disadvantage to all other operatives. The class-bias, fostering the belief that the question in each case is entirely one between employer and employed, between capital and labor, shuts out the truth that the interests of all consumers are involved, and that the immense majority of consumers belong to the working-classes themselves. If the consumers are named, such of them only are remembered as belong to the wealthier classes, who, it is thought, can well afford to pay higher prices. Listen to a passage from Mr. George Potter's paper, read at the late Leeds Congress:
"The consumer, in fact, in so high a civilization, so arrogant a luxuriousness, and so impatient an expectancy as characterize him in our land and age, is ever ready to take the alarm and to pour out the phials of his wrath upon those whom he merely suspects of taking a course which may keep a feather out of his bed, a spice out of his dish, or a coal out of his fire; and, unfortunately for the chances of fairness, the weight of his anger seldom falls upon the capitalists, but is most certain to come crushing down upon the lowly laborer, who has dared to stand upon his own right and independence."
