re placed upon the numbers able to enter and
remain in the trades.

"We have had experience enough to know that the difficulties of
maintaining a ring fence around an occupation, which secures to
those inside the fence special advantages, are rapidly increasing,
and in a growing number of instances, the fence has been entirely
broken down by changes in the methods of production. We know,
further, that ... the majority of trade unionists still remain
_sectionally isolated_, powerless to act except in single'
sectional bodies, and incapable of approaching each other and
merging and amalgamating forces for common action. _This it is that
is responsible for the modern practice of entering into lengthy
agreements between employers and workers. Sectional trade unions
being incapable of offensive action, and gradually giving way
before the persistent power of the better organized capitalist
class, they fall back upon agreements for periods of from two to
five years, during which time they undertake that no demands shall
be made._" (My italics.)

The industrialists, therefore, advocate the termination of all wage
agreements simultaneously and at short intervals or even at will (like
tenancies at will, or call loans). They claim that employers are
practically free to terminate _existing agreements_ whenever they
please, as they can always find grounds for dismissing individuals or
for temporarily shutting down their works or for otherwise
discriminating against active unionists or varying the terms of a
contract before its expiration. But it is in America that the policy of
no agreements, or agreements at will is most advanced. In Great Britain
it is thought that agreements for one year and all ending on the same
day may lead to the same results. If there is a central organization
with power to call strikes on the part of any combination of unions, and
the large majority of the workers are organized, it is held that the new
unionism will soon prove irresistible, even if agreements in this form
are retained.

The recent strikes have not only been stimulated by this gospel and led
by its chief representatives, Tom Mann, Ben Tillett, and others, but
from the very first they have been an actual application of the new idea
and have marked a long step towards the complete reorganization of the
British unions. They were started with the seamen's s