"I don't know as I hold with you," repeated Stevens.
"It's found to be true."
"Found by who?"
"Men who know a deal more of the matter than you or I. Men who have workmen in all parts of the world, and are able to compare the rise and fall of wages in different countries at the same time, noting the cause of each. These things have been watched and written about."
"And you mean to say you'd do away with strikes altogether?" asked Stevens, in a voice of dissent.
"No; I've told you already I wouldn't. But I would have them the last instead of the first resort. If you're being really paid under the fair worth of your labour, it's because the demand for that labour is increasing; and in such a case competition among the masters will soon act for you, and bring about a rise. If your labour is being paid at its fair value, no strike can bring about a lasting rise. If labour is growing more plentiful, and the demand is growing less, then, strike or no strike, your wages must fall."
"And who's to settle what the fair value of our labour is? And who's to say when we're paid over or under what's right?" A subdued stamping signified general acquiescence in this question.
"That's the difficulty, I grant you," Holdfast answered. "It's easy to say, if you and I are each on one end of a see-saw, we've just got to sit still, and let the board balance up and down till it finds its right position. We shouldn't need there to ask anybody to come and settle the slope of the board for us. The weight at each end would do that, if the board's only let alone. But it ain't so easy in the matter we're discussing; for each side is eager to grab the biggest profits, and it's hard to say how much ought justly to go to each, nor when things are fair and square. I wouldn't say no manner of pressure is ever needed on either side, to keep fair relations between employers and men—on both sides, mind!"
"But I do say it's the pressure of competition which does in the end settle the question—the competition of masters for labour, or the competition of men for work, depending on which is the more scarce. We need to look after our interests, and the masters need to look after their interests; but neither they nor we have that power over the question which some would make out. Where there's much work to be done, and few men to do it, no combining of masters can keep the wages down; and where there's little work to be done, and many men to do it, no combining of men can keep the wages up."
"Clear as daylight, ain't it?" chimed in Stuckey. "If labour's runnin' downhill, nobody can't make the wages run uphill; and if labour's runnin' uphill, nobody can't make the wages run downhill. If a rise is your due, why, you're pretty sure to get it by waitin' a bit; for it'll come in the natural course of events, like! If ye strike first, why most like ye'll wait a bit then too; and when it comes, ye'll be mighty stuck up, and think ye've won a huge victory. But fact is, you haven't got a victory at all. Ye've only half-starved your families, an' used up your savings, an' pawned your clothes, just for to get what ye'd have got in the end without all that bother, if ye'd been patient an' waited. The board's found its balance, don't ye see?—An' it's moral sure to have done that, if you hadn't given it no such shake."