acts, has a
right to work or not to work, as he thinks best, that is to say, the law
regards it as beneficial to the country, on the whole, that people
should be free to do so. Similarly, employers are free to work their
mills or not as they like. Neither employers nor employed, indeed, must
break engagements; men who have promised to work to the end of the week
must of course do so; they are not free till their promise is performed.
Again, nobody should be allowed suddenly to stop work in a way
endangering other people. Enginedrivers and guards in America sometimes
strike when a train is halfway on its journey, and leave the passengers
to get to the next town as they best can. This is little better than
manslaughter. Neither the owners nor the workmen in gasworks,
waterworks, or any other establishment on which the public depends for
necessaries of life, should be allowed suddenly to stop work without
notice. The safety of the public is the first consideration. The law
ought therefore to punish those who make such strikes.

#51. The General Effect of Strikes.# There is not space in this little
work to argue the matter out in detail, but I have not the least doubt
that #strikes, on the whole, produce a dead loss of wages to those who
strike, and to many others#. I believe that if there had not been a
strike during the last thirty years, wages would now be higher in
general than they are, and an immense amount of loss and privation would
also have been saved. It has, in fact, been shown by Dr. John Watts of
Manchester, in his "Catechism of Wages and Capital," that even a
successful strike usually occasions loss. He has said, "Allowing for
accidental stoppages, there will not be in the most regular trades above
fifty working weeks in the year, and one week will therefore represent
two per cent. of the year. If a strike for four per cent. rise on wages
succeeds in a fortnight, it will take twelve months' work at the
improved rate to make up for the lost fortnight; and if a strike for
eight per cent. lasts four weeks, the workmen will be none the richer at
the end of twelve months; so that it frequently happens that, even when
a strike succeeds, another revision of wages takes place before the last
loss is made up; a successful strike is, therefore, like a successful
lawsuit--only less ruinous than an unsuccessful one." If we remember
that a large proportion of strikes are unsuccessful, in which case of
course there is simp