y in the last ditch."

It was of no use. The men's wages went up twenty per cent.; and there
was an end of the bonuses. The coal famine continued. The masters,
instead of making profits, made immense losses. The price of iron went
down. The mills stood idle for two months. The result was, that when the
masters next met the workmen in public meeting, Mr. Waterhouse, the
auditor, reported that "while the gross earnings of the year have
exceeded the expenditure on materials, wages, and trade charges, they
have been insufficient to cover the full amounts to be provided under
the co-operative scheme for interest on capital, depreciation, and the
reserve for bad debts; and that consequently it was his duty to declare
that no amount was at present payable as bonus either to employers or
employed." No further report was issued in 1875, excepting an
announcement that there was no dividend, and that the firm did not
intend to continue the co-operative scheme any longer. During the time
that it lasted, the _employes_ had received about eight thousand pounds
in bonuses.

Since then, Sir Joseph Whitworth has announced his intention of giving
his workmen a bonus upon his profits; but the principle of the division
has not yet been announced. On hearing of his intention, Mr. Carlyle
wrote the following letter to Sir Joseph:--

"Would to heaven that all the captains of industry in England had a soul
in them such as yours. The look of England is to me at this moment
abundantly ominous, the question of capital and labour growing ever more
anarchic, insoluble altogether by the notions hitherto applied to
it--pretty sure to issue in petroleum one day, unless some other gospel
than that of the 'Dismal Science' come to illuminate it. Two things are
pretty sure to me. The first is that capital and labour never can or
will agree together till they both first of all decide on doing their
work faithfully throughout, and like men of conscience and honour, whose
highest aim is to behave like faithful citizens of this universe, and
obey the eternal commandments of Almighty God, who made them. The second
thing is, that a sadder object than even that of the coal strike, or any
other conceivable strike, is the fact that--loosely speaking--we may say
all England has decided that the profitablest way is to do its work ill,
slurily, swiftly, and mendaciously. What a contrast between now and say
only a hundred years ago! At the latter date all England aw