ny other
class of small proprietors would do."[390] "At present the
co-operative societies in England are very apathetic with regard to
political affairs."[391] "In spite of abstract resolutions, our trade
unionists are devoted to the wages system; still our co-operators
yearn after dividends; still the mass of our producers admire the men
who rise upon their shoulders to place and pay. The twin curses of
democracy, slavishness and jealousy, are curiously blended in their
views of social and political life. They envy capacity; they bow down
before successful blackguardism."[392]

Some Socialists have called for the unification of all the trades
unions, arguing "Union has failed to adapt itself to changed
conditions. Just as budding industrial development called into being
the shop union, and further industrial expansion meant development of
the union to the local and then the national organisation, so the
exigencies of our time demand a working-class union--one union, not
eleven hundred, as now."[393] Others have bespattered the unions with
insults, and some do so still. A very violent Socialist organ recently
wrote: "Our trade union leaders are not so corrupt as those of
America? Are they not? As a matter of fact, the corruption is tenfold
greater. The difference is that here it is legalised and respectable.
In America the corruption takes the form of a wad of dollar notes
pushed into the fakir's hands in a dark corner. In this country our
trade union leaders are openly corrupted in the face of day by
positions on conciliation boards, Justiceships of the Peace, Cabinet
positions" [this is a hit at Mr. John Burns], "and well-paid jobs in
the Labour Department of the Board of Trade. Are Shackleton, Bell, and
Barnes honester men than Gompers, Mitchell, and Tobin? As Dr. Johnson
very coarsely expressed it: 'It is difficult to settle the question of
precedence between a bug and a louse.'"[394]

To the more far-sighted Socialists the folly of attacking the powerful
trade unions, with their 2,000,000 members, was perfectly clear. One
of the Socialist leaders wrote: "Of all the blind, fatuous policies in
the world, that of decrying trades unionism by professing Socialists
is about the worst; and the next worst thing is the trades unionist
abusing Socialism."[395] Some Socialists recommended changing the
policy of denunciation for a wiser one: "We have to _convert_ the
trade unions, not to _antagonise_ them"[396]; and their c