ngmen's being thrown
into prison, they have in England led on to the brilliant
series of reforms which mark our century, as told so well in
the articles by Mr. Howell (_The Nineteenth Century_ for
October, 1882) and by Mr. Harrison (_The Contemporary
Review_ for October, 1883). Doubtless they have committed
plenty of follies, and are still capable of stupid tyrannies
that only succeed in handicapping labor, in alienating
capital, and in checking productivity--that is, in lessening
the sum total of divisible wealth. Such actions are
inevitable in the early stages of combination on the part of
uneducated men, feeling a new sense of power, and striking
blindly out in angry retaliation for real or fancied
injuries.

Trades-unions are gradually, however, outgrowing their
crude methods. The attempts, such as we have seen lately,
of great corporations to break them up, is a piece of
despotism which ought to receive an indignant rebuke from
the people at large. Labor must combine, just as capital has
combined, in forming these very corporations. Labor's only
way of defending its interests as a class is through
combination. It is the abuse and not the use of
trades-unions against which resistance should be made.

The chief abuse of our trades-unions has been their
concentration of attention upon the organization of strikes.

Strikes seem to me in our present stage of the
"free-contract" system entirely justifiable when they are
really necessary. Workingmen have the right to combine in
affixing a price at which they wish to work. The supply of
labor and the demand for goods, in the absence of higher
considerations, will settle the question as to whether they
can get the increase. The trying features of this method of
reaching a result are incidental to our immature industrial
system. Strikes have had their part to play in the
development of that system. We note their failures and
forget their successes; but they have had their signal
success, and have won substantial advantages for labor.
Their chief service, however, has been in teaching
combination, and in showing labor the need of a better
weapon by which to act than the strike itself.

The strike requires long practice and great skill to wield
it well. Practice in it