e of Socialists. The Socialists
complain: "The British trade union suffers from three fatal defects:
(1) It is anti-revolutionary. It disavows the fact of the class
struggle. It accepts the capitalist system as a permanency. The rules
and constitutions of many unions explicitly refer to the 'just rights
of the employer,' and those who do not set forth any such statement
openly, admit it in actual practice. The capitalist class, as voiced
by the capitalist press, recognise in these unions the bulwark of
present-day society against the advance of Socialism. (2) The British
trade union method of organisation is a complete negation of the
solidarity of labour. Each trade or section of a trade has its own
particular and autonomous organisation. Even trades which are most
closely connected are divided into separate unions, each union
ignoring the interest of the rest, making its own special contracts
with the capitalists, and assisting them by remaining at work when
their fellow-workers in a kindred trade are on strike. The most
noteworthy example of this form of inter-trade treachery was offered
in the case of the engineers' strike of 1897-8, when the Boilermakers'
Society by remaining at work were the means of defeating the
Amalgamated Society of Engineers and of forcing them to return to work
on the masters' terms. (3) The British trade union refuses to admit to
its ranks those teeming millions of workers whom it terms
'unskilled.'"[386]

Other Socialists complain: "Trade unionism recognises the present
system of society, justifies capitalism, and defends wage-slavery, and
only seeks to soften the tyranny of the one and assuage the evils of
the other. Social Democracy aims at destroying the whole system."[387]
"We are never allowed to forget the splendid incomes earned by these
aristocrats of labour, a mere tenth of the whole labour class. The
trade unionist can usually only raise himself on the bodies of his
less fortunate comrades."[388] "The old-fashioned policy of the
English trade unions has made them _guilds of privileged_, rather
than fighting representatives of their class."[389]

Similar complaints are raised against the co-operators. "Co-operation,
though regarded by the individual trader as an enemy, does not
necessarily enter into conflict with the capitalist at all. Indeed, so
far as it transforms workmen into shareholders, it forms a bulwark for
capitalism, the same as the creation of small landholders or a