the question. The manager's profits may be
assumed by both manager and wage-earners to arise from reduction of wages.
The necessary reticence of business managers and the frequent arbitrary
decisions as to wages help the wage-earner to feel that his interests
conflict with those of his employer.

It is well for all to realize that this conflict, when there is one, is
not so much between the rich and the poor as between the struggler for
profits and the struggler for wages. In many instances the true solution
lies in the same direction, if both could see the facts alike. It is an
acknowledged fact that generous wages make enlightened, energetic
laborers, and that greater profits come in the long series of undertakings
from the most intelligent service. A farm-hand at $20 a month is sometimes
worth more than two at $15. On the other hand, if markets are low and
profits decline, permanence of employment will depend upon a readiness of
wage-earners to accept a new adjustment of wages to conditions. Everything
which fosters a better understanding between profit-makers and
wage-earners contributes to the welfare of both. Everything which hinders
such understanding injures the welfare of both. The cost of such friction
is borne by both parties. But in the long run, the wage-earners are liable
to carry the larger part. Even the destruction of property by rust, decay,
or even violence, comes back upon the wage-earners who might have been
employed in its use, quite as truly as upon the manager whose profits and
accumulations are wasted.

_Obstacles to fair understanding._--The necessary ills connected with
advancing civilization, in the laying aside of old methods for new, in the
adoption of extensive machinery, and in the more perfect competition with
the world, fall upon both profit-maker and wage-earner. The wage-earner
feels the immediate loss of his usual opportunities. The profit-maker
feels the weight of providing new machinery, devising new methods and
taking the longer range of chances. All these ills are met in time by
intelligent and hopeful struggles for the best. In the worst conditions
ever brought by improved machinery, a very few years have brought relief
and improvement to the very class of laborers injured.

The danger is that wholesome competition upon a clear basis of fair
understanding and free range of enterprise may be checked by legislation
or organization for class purposes. Against the interests of the