"Ho! workers of the old time styled
The gentle Craft of Leather!
Young brothers of the ancient guild,
Stand forth once more together!
Call out again your long array,
In the olden merry manner!
Once more on gay St. Crispin's day,
Fling out your blazoned banner!"

These masters thus organized with their laborers were the capitalists of their time, and in this vital matter differed from the Unions of to-day, which are made up of laborers as such organized to confront, and if need be, to antagonize, capitalists. A royal charter was indispensable to the legal existence of those craftsmen. It took money for them to start their guilds, and in progress of time most of them became very rich. "A common fund was raised by contributions among the members, which not only provided for the trade objects of the guild; but sufficed to found chantries and masses, and set up painted windows in the church of their patron saint. Even at the present day the arms of the craft-guild may often be seen blazoned in cathedrals side by side with those of prelates and kings." This radical difference between the two must always be borne in mind in all arguments and inferences drawn over from the mediæval "unions" to those of the present day.

Two points may be freely conceded to these labor-organizations before we pass to the economic objections to them. In the first place, the employers set the example for the employees in a tacit if not open combination as against the employees in their own interest and emolument. The so-called "protective" tariff, for instance, is nothing in the world but a strongly-linked combination of certain rich capitalists to extort from the masses (their own laborers included) artificially lifted prices for the necessaries of life; and the certain result of shutting out imports by tariff-taxes is the shutting in of would-be exports, to the certain lowering of general wages in a country, because there is a lessened demand for laborers in consequence. For a second good instance of combinations as against employees on the part of employers, take the well-known understanding among manufacturers of the same sort of goods in the same general locality, that laborers discharged from one establishment shall not be hired in any of the rest; and that if the general voice call for a "shut down," or for three-fourths time or less, all in that line of goods shall comply. How can laborers be blamed for organizations in their own behalf when they find themselves confronted as individuals with an organization of employers?

Then, too, it must be acknowledged, that, had it not been for united action of some sort on the part of the laborers, the unreasonable hours of fifty years ago in mills and factories would probably not have been shortened to this day. Capitalists as a class are conservative of methods, as well as of ends. The cotton and woollen manufacturers of Berkshire County, for example, who may doubtless be taken as a fair sample of the manufacturers of New England, stiffly refused the demands of their work-people that the hours might be reduced from an average of 14 throughout the year to an average of 11. When the late Civil War was going on, and the manufacturing became extremely profitable, and the mills were more or less depleted by enlistment, and the remaining hands felt more independent from the consequent rise of wages, the combined demand in one mill for fewer hours was reinforced by simultaneous demands for the same in other mills in the neighborhood (the time and manner having been agreed upon beforehand), and visits in force by the work-people from mill to mill completed the desired reform. The mill-owners were sullen and indignant, and submitted of necessity. The work-men were right. The reform was imperative. Credit must be given to them for the good they have done acting as a body on this and other occasions.

On the other hand, all this is not business. All this is contrary to the very old, and the very good adage, that it takes two to make a bargain. If we express this adage in the language of our science, it will take some such form as this: When two men have mutual services to exchange, let them come to a fair agreement as to the terms on which they will exchange. Certainly, let each make the best terms he can, but let the bargain always be free. If one party, who happens to have the power to do it, uses anything like compulsion upon the other, it ceases so far forth to be a bargain at all, and becomes a sort of robbery, of which in some cases courts will take cognizance. Now, workmen bring a certain valuable service to the market, just such a service as the capitalist wants, and he has to offer just such a service as they want, namely, wages: let the two parties come to a free and fair agreement on the terms of their exchange; let each workman by all means make the very best terms he can, insisting to the last penny on all he can get elsewhere, for the value of his service is determined, as other values are determined, by what it will bring: let the employer do just the same on his side, and so let a fair bargain for the time present be struck. This is a very good kind of striking, and the more intelligence and skill and self-respect a workman has, the better prepared he is to strike the bargain and secure his just due by and for himself alone; and this gives a good chance for every man who has any peculiar gift, who may have surpassed his fellows in diligence and skill, to secure a proportionate reward now and to go on higher in future; all this gives opportunity for diversity of relative advantage, which, as we have seen, lies at the basis of all exchange, which itself starts in individualism and naturally proceeds in a still higher individualism to the end. This is the only way for a laborer of talent and diligence to secure fully what belongs to him as a man and a workman. If he cannot get from a given employer what he thinks he ought to get, what he thinks the service is worth in another market, let him exercise his perfect right to quit and go elsewhere. All this is fair and aboveboard and individual and progressive.

Everybody knows that there is a kind of striking now in vogue wholly different from this, in that it brings a sort of compulsion into play. A fair bargain should be broken, if at all, just as it was made, with the two parties face to face, and everybody else aloof; and a new bargain should be made, just as the old one was, with the two parties face to face, and everybody else aloof. But a combination among workmen to leave an employer in the lurch, and especially a combination which forces into its ranks by cajoling or menaces those who are unwilling to join it, as is so commonly the case in Strikes, is not only contrary to the inmost nature of a bargain, but is also of itself a sort of confession of the injustice of the claim. If the claim be just so far as all the individuals are concerned, there is no occasion to extort it. If the value of the service rendered by each be equal to the sum demanded, and especially if this can be obtained elsewhere, which is the only gauge of the value of any service anywhere, there is no need of conference and combination and conspiracy. Of course, this radical argument against Strikes implies that employers of that grade have not entered into a combination not to hire dissatisfied laborers from other establishments; if they have, then the agreement can be turned with equal force against the employers themselves, for they are resorting to means outside the nature of a bargain, means of the same nature as a Strike. Let, then, each workman tell his employer the present facts just as they are, and if this appeal prove ineffective to secure his commercial right, let him go quickly where he can get the most for his service. That this is not done, that means of the nature of a threat are brought to bear upon the employer, that the justice of the claim is not relied on in a case where more than anywhere else justice can enforce itself, that free and full explanations are not had, that no notice is given, that great damage is expected by their action to accrue to the employer,—all this seems to forget that the transaction between employers and employed is a case of pure exchange, a simple bargain of one service against another service.

The above is the universal and fundamental objection to Strikes. The remedy for economical evils, real or supposed, must ever be found in economical considerations. The strong but foolish tendency of the times is to mix up things that are quite distinct; to try to apply to the evils of Trade the rules of Morals, which is a useless task; to appeal to Politics in matters of pure Bargain; and to resort to Force to cure the evils that flow from the wholly voluntary action of individuals. This is like the doctor who would cure bodily ailments by mental and spiritual recipes. It has all the absurdities of the late famous "Mind-cure." The mind is indeed higher than the body, but bodily maladies must be treated as such, or the patient will die; the imperatives of Ethics are certainly superior to the profitables of Economics, but the latter are well able to take care of themselves on their own ground; Religion is loftier than Morals, but it becomes a very poor substitute for morals in the daily routine of life. Similia similibus curantur. Economical evils can only be removed by a better Economics better applied. Strikes are an outside and irrelevant remedy for low Wages.

A bad principle works badly in practice of course; the principle that underlies strikes is so opposed to the fundamental nature of exchange, that we might know beforehand that it would work badly; and as a matter of fact, it does work badly enough both upon employers and employed, because strikes are certain to embitter the relations between the two classes, which ought always to be cordial and free, and especially, because strikes must work on the minds of the capitalist to lessen the Wages-Portion for the next industrial cycle. Fortunately, we possess authentic statistics gathered about Strikes by the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, and published in detail in the Report of December, 1888. The information given is exact in relation to five principal States, and approximate in relation to the other parts of the United States. We will copy first the table exhibiting the Losses in six years on account of Strikes of both Employers and Employees, and the outside assistance received by the latter:—

Employees' Loss and Assistance and Employers' Loss in the Five Principal States on Account of Strikes and Lock-outs for 1881-1886.

States.Employees' Loss.Employees' Assistance.Employers' Loss.
Strikes.
Illinois,$6,636,208$238,452$5,251,829
Massachusetts,4,200,489266,7081,970,881
New York,8,581,784726,6965,966,421
Ohio,6,378,757415,5682,793,427
Pennsylvania,12,890,346781,3383,897,757
Other parts of the United States,13,127,139895,79510,821,238
The United States,$51,814,723$3,324,557$30,701,553