back and most probably crippled. The more carefully we consider the utmost conceivable power which the labourers, as opposed to the employers, can achieve in the domain of industry, the more clearly shall we see that these powers are strictly analogous to those possessed by a horse or donkey of thwarting, of inconveniencing, of throwing, or of injuring its rider or its driver. They are purely obstructive powers; they are essentially non-productive; they are no more able to provide even a portion of that wealth an increased share of which they are put into operation to secure than a horse which indulges in buckjumping when it is not conciliated with sugar is able to manufacture a sugar-loaf by the performance of this trick; or than a costermonger's donkey which lies down in a ford, because it is not allowed a bite at the cabbages in the cart behind it, is able to fulfil by doing so the functions of a market gardener.

Still, the fact remains that obstructive powers like these are capable of securing for their possessors some of the concessions they desire, just as a horse which indulges in buck-jumping when ill-used or over-ridden will by this means secure for itself more considerate treatment. Let us, then, ask, What are the limits to the concessions which the corporate animal labour can wring from its rider or driver by turning restive, by lying down, or by buck-jumping? The answer cannot be given in any exact form, but it is easy to name the facts on which the limits depend. If the corporate animal labour could produce all it wanted without aid from its rider, and if its rider, so far as it was concerned, played no other part than that of preventing it from seizing on the coveted produce, it could by throwing its rider and preventing him from re-mounting gain everything that there could possibly be to gain. But since the coveted produce would be unattainable without the rider's help, the animal would, by getting rid of him altogether, be worse off than it would be by tamely submitting to his discipline. The full exertion of its strength, therefore, would defeat its own ends. The animal must make to the rider concessions equivalent to those which it demands for itself, and, whilst exacting considerate treatment in return for submission, it must make such submission in return for considerate treatment as will enable the rider to guide it and render the saddle tolerable to him. Within the limits thus indicated labour may conceivably do much to improve its own position. How much it can do will depend on its own commonsense; and the demands which, within these limits, it makes from time to time must each be judged on its own merits. It is perfectly within its rights, from every point of view, in using those obstructive powers which as a corporate animal it possesses. All I desire to point out here is that these powers are obstructive only. They have no tendency whatever to develop into a substitute for the powers of the rider or driver against whom they are directed. In other words, trade unionism, though it may secure many industrial reforms, has no

tendency to bring about any industrial revolution, unless it be a revolution by which all civilised industry would be ruined, and which would impoverish the employed even more hopelessly than the employers.

The only practical danger with which the development of trade unions threatens the community lies not in the possibility of their obtaining the control of industry, but in the possibility of their attempting to do so. It lies in the danger of labour mistaking the nature of the power which it acquires by combination, and imagining that, because it can obstruct and dislocate production, it can direct production; for as much harm can be done by attempting what is impossible as by achieving what is disastrous. As has been said already, if the trade unions of to-day could gather into their ranks all the labourers of the civilised world, could ruin the existing employers and drive them from their present positions, labour thus incorporated could continue the business of production only by submitting itself to a new set of masters as able and as enterprising as the old; and even if such men were to be found amongst those who are at present labourers or representatives of labour, they would cease to be either the moment they became masters.

This is shown plainly enough by the fact that a large number of the greatest employers of the modern world have begun as labourers, and very likely as trade unionists; and no doubt not a few of the employers of the immediate future are to be found amongst the ranks of the trade unionists now; but they will only become employers by showing themselves to be possessed of powers entirely different from those which they represent as trade unionists, and they will cease to represent the latter when they begin to exercise the former. Many enthusiasts are blinded to this truth by a fact which really affords an interesting proof of it. The class of men who are commonly called labour leaders, and who are foremost in the attempt to dominate and dictate to the employers-the organisers and managers of trade unions, the instigators of strikes, and so forth-are many of them men of remarkable energy, will-power, and resource of a certain kind; and seeing that they, in spite of their exceptional faculties, come forward as the champions not of the employers but the labourers, their admirers imagine that in these men we have a class who will be able to direct industry as efficiently as the employers do now, but will, though separated from the labourers by their functions, remain united with them by their sympathies and their interests. Now, it is of course not impossible that there may here and there be a man of ability who, though separated from the mass of labourers by his exceptional productive powers, is yet willing, so far as the interests of the labourers are concerned, to take sides with them against himself in his capacity of their employer or director; but such men are at present certainly not common, and there is nothing in the powers evinced by our so-called labour leaders

to indicate that they will become more common in the future. On the contrary, the powers of the labour leaders, the more carefully we consider them, will be found to point to a precisely opposite conclusion.

I have no wish to indulge in any irritating personalities. I shall therefore confine myself to a general statement; though, indeed, in what I am about to say no taunt or insult is intended, but merely a statement of a broad and remarkable fact. Considerable as the powers may be which many of the labour leaders may have possessed or may possess at this moment, they have not been powers by which the efficiency of civilised industry is either advanced or maintained. Some of these men doubtless have been and are skilful manual labourers; but not one of them has belonged to that class of masterminds who, by invention, enterprise, or industrial generalship, render labour, whilst stationary as measured by its amount and quality, more and more efficient as measured by the result produced. So far as the labour leaders have influenced production at all, they have influenced it by resisting improved industrial methods, not by devising or introducing them. In other words, they have organised productive labourers, but they have never shown themselves capable of organising productive labour; and the object with which they have organised the labourers has been not only not production, it has been the stoppage of production. It has been not to help the labourers to produce more, but to prevent them from producing anything. The exceptional faculties, therefore, shown by the socalled labour leaders-if we still may use the common but inaccurate term—instead of indicating that the contemporary labour movement comprises any of those forces necessary for controlling industry, and for increasing or even maintaining our present power of wealth production, in an exceedingly striking manner prove the precise contrary; and the proof will become the more conclusive the more carefully we examine it.

The marked deficiency in the labour leader of any of those faculties which make industry more and more productive, and to which the material progress of the whole world has been due, might be set down as an accident from which no conclusion could be drawn, if it were not a fact of which there are two natural explanations. One is, that the task which the labour leaders have accomplished successfully is incalculably easier than the task for which they have shown no aptitude. To organise obstruction, which they continually do, is a very simple thing; to organise production, which they have never done, is a very difficult thing: and the power to do the one is in consequence common, whereas the power to do the other is, by comparison, very rare. A hundred thousand men could organise the blowing up of the Forth Bridge for every one man who could superintend the building of it. The other explanation is that if the labour leaders

did, as a fact, possess the faculties necessary for successfully organising production, they would be organising it and making their fortunes by it, and would not be organising obstruction. It may be argued that to say this implies a cynical view of human nature. It is quite unimportant whether the view is cynical or not. It is at all events a true view. As a matter of fact, however, there need be nothing cynical about it. If any of the labour leaders were capable of organising production, we may assume that they would be making fortunes, if not for themselves, at all events for the benefit of the cause. For instance, if the Amalgamated Engineers possessed amongst their ranks any men of commanding industrial genius, they would invest their funds by supplying these men with capital, so that they might start a business the profits of which would go to the Union. In reality they do nothing of the kind. They invest their 300,000%. in ordinary securities, like any other investor, and wisely abstain from attempting to exercise any control over the various enterprises from which the interest on their capital is derived, and on the continued prosperity of which the safety of their principal depends. This is a proof, if any proof were wanted, that combination has done nothing to enable them to employ themselves or to retain among their ranks anybody capable of employing them.

Would space permit of it, I might emphasise this point further by showing how confused and childish, so far as all general economic questions are concerned, the reasoning of the leaders in the engineers' strike has been. But I refrain from doing so for reasons other than those of space. The observations which I have made in this short paper, though suggested by the engineers' strike, have no exclusive reference to it. They refer to strikes generally, and have nothing to do with the question of whether the demands of the engineers on the present occasion be right or wrong. My only aim has been to point out that the growing power which labour is said to be acquiring is of quite a different nature from what is popularly supposed, and very much more limited-that it is merely, as I have said, a power like that of an animal, who requires a rider to guide it, of kicking the rider off; and that it can employ even this power to a limited extent only unless it is prepared to injure itself even more seriously than him.

W. H. MALLOCK.

IN the calm of the autumn recess our thoughts turn naturally to the legislation of the past session. Amongst measures that have passed through Parliament the Workmen's Compensation Bill seems to have excited most criticism; therefore it may be interesting to briefly examine the extent of this criticism, and the opinions held by the various parties concerned. We will begin with the political side of the question. Lord Salisbury declared in the House of Lords that the party now in power were pledged to bring in a Workmen's Compensation Bill; but surely the Conservative party, even if they remember their experience of dishing the Whigs,' in their wildest flights of imagination never contemplated that a similar policy would be initiated by Lord Salisbury's Government in connection with Mr. Asquith's Compensation Bill for 1894, which Lord Salisbury had succeeded in wrecking in the House of Lords. The Cabinet decided that a measure was necessary, because in all probability Mr. Chamberlain, the spokesman' of the Conservative party, wished it. There had been no urgent demand for such legislation on the part of the working classes. No deputations had waited upon, and no petitions had been presented to, the Home Secretary, so far at least as can be gathered from the Government; indeed, some of the representatives of the working classes did not hesitate to say that the Bill was unasked for, and one went so far as to assert that it was unjust. Still, previous to the immediate introduction of the Bill, the employers of labour consoled themselves with the belief that at any rate they could rely with confidence on the attitude of the Conservative Home Secretary, who they knew possessed practical knowledge of the chief industries included in the Bill. What was their dismay, therefore, to see the nominal sponsor of the Bill relegated to a subordinate position before the measure had been long under the consideration of Parliament; and his place taken by the Colonial Secretary, who previous to 1886 had the reputation of being an advanced Radical on all matters connected with home legislation! The Bill, however, became law, thanks to the obedience