defence, as the case may be, in matters directly relating to labour, such as wages, hours of work, modes of hiring and of pay, overtime, and the like. They are pleased to style this "the new trade unionism." Herein they display their utter ignorance of the history of labour movements, and of the origin and development of trade unions. The form of organisation which they advocate is nothing more than a revival of older forms, long since discarded by the better class of modern trade unions; it is the cruder and ruder form which existed when the very idea of associative effort, for mutual aid and support, was in its infancy. This stage has been passed. Any return towards it would be a retrograde step. Unions based on such old lines still exist, and have existed from time to time all through the present century. But their history has been usually one of mutability, often of failure. The modern trade union, with its manifold benefits, is the offspring of progress, the outcome of experience, and the type of association which is destined to survive all attacks from its enemies, whether from within or without its own ranks.

CHAPTER IV.

POLITICAL ECONOMY AND TRADE UNIONS.

§ 1. POLITICAL economy has been defined by Thomas Carlyle as "the dismal science." As expounded by some writers on the subject, it might be termed the "grab-all science," for, according to their conceptions, its fundamental principles seem to be on a par with the advice: "Make money, honestly if you can, but make money." Many writers on political economy appear to have been blessed with the notion that the be-all and end-all of existence is the accumulation of wealth; they endeavour to raise the low selfishness of human nature into the dignity of a scientific law, and then they worship it as the grand idea of humanity. The Right Honourable G. J. Goschen, M.P., in a speech delivered in the House of Commons, June 29, 1877, on the proposal to assimilate the county to the borough franchise, said that "it appeared to him that political economy had been dethroned in that House, and that philanthropy had been allowed to take its place. Political economy was the bugbear of the working class, and philanthropy was its idol." He opposed the motion because, in his opinion, "the reign of numbers, if it endangered nothing else, endangered political economy." In other words political economy and philanthropy are incompatible, ergo, as the sequence of such logic, Christianity is a farce, and the teachings of Christ are a delusion and a

snare.

§ 2. There would appear to be more truth in the allegations

* In a speech delivered on the eve of May-day, 1890, the same right honourable gentleman referred to the Labour Question, in a tone much more commendable, because more humane.

of the right honourable gentleman than most persons are disposed to admit. If we compare side by side the doctrines of Christianity and the theories put forward by political economists, we shall discover some things which can scarcely be reconciled, and consequently if we accept the one we shall find that we must discard the other. For example, Christianity says, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;" "Do unto others as ye would that men should do unto you;" "Love one another; "Bear ye one another's burthens." Passages of similar import could be cited in abundance, but these will suffice. Political economy, on the other hand, practically says, love thyself; seek thine own advantage; promote thine own welfare ; put money in thy purse; the welfare of others is not thy business, let them see to it for themselves. It is for the Christian Church to rebut these materialistic theories, in so far as they are incompatible with, or run counter to, the doctrines of the New Testament. The object of the following pages is to combat some of the axioms of economical writers in so far as they affect labour, and the condition of the masses of the people who work that they may live.

§ 3. Political economists, or those who assume to speak in their name, assure us that there is a science of production, definite, distinct, exact, the axioms of which are as universal and demonstrable as those of astronomy, the practical rules of which are as simple and familiar as those of arithmetic." "But when we come to study the science we certainly do not find this agreement amongst its professors. Agreement is the last thing they think of. There are, indeed, few subjects of human thought on which there is less. There are hardly ten generalisations in the whole science on which all the writers are at one, and that not on the details but on the first principles; not on intricate points of practice, but on the general laws of production. Indeed, we find ourselves not in a science properly so called at all, but a collection of warm controversies on social questions." Thus wrote Mr. Frederic Harrison, in the Fortnightly Review of June, 1865.

§ 4. What was true at that time is even more true now, for during the intervening years many of the theories then current

have been modified, others have been completely abandoned, and consequently the conclusions based upon them have been altogether discarded. Mr. Francis D. Longe, in 1866, and subsequently Mr. Thornton, in 1869, so effectually demolished the wage-fund theory, that Mr. John Stuart Mill gave it up as untenable; whilst Mr. Harrison has thrown so much discredit upon the favourite maxim of supply and demand as usually expounded, that it requires considerable hardihood on the part of public writers to reproduce it in its original nude state, without some kind of decent clothing so as to avoid shocking the sensibility of those who have a modicum of faith still left in the higher attributes of human nature.

§ 5. The glibness with which some writers and talkers treat this subject in its relation to labour, the air of infinite wisdom which they assume, and the overweening confidence with which they propound their crude notions, would be ludicrous, were it not for the mischievous consequences which too often result from their absurd blunders and false theories. The effects of such erroneous doctrines are disastrous to those who are misled by them, for many persons are too ignorant to detect the gross errors which underlie the fallacies in the very plausible utterances here referred to, and therefore they act upon them as though they were gospel truths. Mr. Harrison, in the article above quoted, very clearly pointed out that the wisest and greatest of our economical writers base many of their conclusions on a theory of political society which they themselves have worked out, and to accept the one without the other is a folly which only spurious economists and ill-informed writers would be guilty of. He further says that many of the so-called laws of political economy are only partially true, that they may be applicable under certain circumstances and given conditions, but that even then we must be quite sure that all the facts are accurately noted and stated, or else we shall be blundering and groping in the dark, like a blind man among the tombs.

6. What we have here to deal with is political economy as applied to industry and profits, to production and distribution, and at the very threshold we are met by confusion and want of accurate definition. It is not so easy, as some superficial writers

imagine, to define absolutely the objects and scope of their favourite science. If we examine the several treatises which have been published from the time of Adam Smith down to the year 1890, we shall find that a great variety of subjects are discussed having more or less reference to the theory of Government as a whole, only that some of these writers avoid certain matters, which others, as for instance Mr. Mill, include, as having a direct bearing on the questions of production, distribution, and value, as forming part of the economy of Government.

§ 7. Great differences of opinion seem to exist as to the precise meaning of the "science" itself, and as to the subjects which it professes to teach. Mr. McLeod says that it is "the science of the laws which regulate the exchangeable relations of quantities;" while Archbishop Whately defines it as "the science of values; " Mr. Mill objects that, in the latter definition, the consideration of value regards the distribution of wealth too exclusively of its production.

§ 8. In the preface to a recent edition of Mr. Malthus's "Definitions in Political Economy" occurs the following: "The questions which the science of political economy embraces may for the most part be ranged under two separate heads-the one of them relating to the interchange of commodities, or the proportion in which they exchange for each other; and the other to their distribution, or the proportion in which they are divided into the three several groups of wages, rent, and profits, which form the primary revenues of mankind, from which all other revenues are either mediately or immediately derived." This writer does not appear to understand that the question which precedes both interchange and distribution is production, without which neither of the others could exist. If political economists could once settle the laws and values attaching to production, exchange and distribution could then be much more easily defined and explained.

$9. The following definition by Mr. John Stuart Mill is much more comprehensive: "Writers on political economy profess to teach, or to investigate, the nature of wealth, and the laws of its production and distribution; including directly or remotely, the operation of all the causes by which the condition