e, and pay very low wages. They think that capitalists
have it all their own way unless they are constantly watched, and
obliged to pay by fear of strikes. Employers are regarded as tyrants who
can do just as they like. But this is altogether a mistake. No
capitalists can for more than a year or two make unusual profits,
because, if they do, other capitalists are sure to hear of it, and try
to do likewise. The result will be that the demand for labourers in that
kind of trade will increase; the capitalists will bid against each other
for workmen, and they will not, generally speaking, be able to get
enough without raising the rate of wages.

There is no reason whatever to think that trades-unions have had any
permanent effect in raising wages in the majority of trades. No doubt
wages are now much higher than they were thirty or forty years ago; but
to a certain extent this is only a rise of money wages, due to the
abundance of gold discovered in California and Australia. The rest of
the increase can be easily accounted for by the great improvements in
machinery, and the general prosperity of the country. It is certain,
too, that the increase of wages is not confined to those trades which
have unions; even common labourers who have no unions receive
considerably more money wages than they did, and domestic servants, who
never strike in a body, but simply leave one place when they can get a
better, have raised their own wages quite as much as any union could
have done it for them.

#50. Strikes and Lockouts.# #Workmen are said to strike, that is, to
strike work, when a number of them agree together to cease working on a
certain day for certain employers#, in order to oblige these employers
to pay better wages, or in some way to yield to their demands. When one
or more employers suddenly dismiss their workpeople altogether, in order
to oblige them to take lower wages, or agree to some alteration of work,
it is called #a lockout#, and a #lockout is nearly the same as a strike
of the employers#. Strikes sometimes last for many months, the workmen
living on what savings they have, and on contributions sent to them by
workmen or unions in the same or other trades. The employers at the same
time lose much money by their factories standing still, and they
sometimes receive aid from other employers.

There is nothing legally or morally wrong in a strike or lockout when
properly conducted. A man, when free from promises or contr