It drives away existing capital to other trades and foreign countries. The second reason alleged in favour of this policy proves that it would be practised at the cost of the very men whose interests it professes to serve. If it is a sound principle the Unions are bound o apply it to all trades, and the labourers will be hoisted with their own petard. The wished-for rise in he price of commodities will make everything that the abourers buy dearer; they will lose with one hand what hey supposed they gained with the other. No posible advantage can come to them from acting in such - manner, whilst there will always be the fatal results, less wealth, a smaller stock of commodities, a poorer state of The country, and injury to every one of its inhabitants. t is a base and ignoble war-aiming at no lofty end— illing the impulse to improve and to reach a higher tandard of feeling and civilisation—and injuring the hole community in the interest of the lazy, the lowinded, and the soulless.

(d.) A fourth measure demanded by many Unions is he abolition of payment by the piece. They complain hat piece-work is apt to be scamped, to be inferior in uality to that produced by the man who is paid by the ay. The labourer is too eager to have plenty of surface work to be measured; he is rendered careless as to its uality. Such language in the lips of men who claim he same wages for the idle and inferior as for the good nd conscientious workman, thus treating the quality f the work given as unimportant, is strange indeed. [asters who, of their own choice, adopt this system of ages are fully able to take care that goodness shall ot be disregarded. Then it is said that by piece-work

labourers are tempted to work overtime and thus to injure their health. It is enough to reply that every labourer is master of his own freedom in this matter, and he is perfectly able, if he chooses, to protect himself against his own cupidity. He does not require a Union for this. No Union has ever been dreamed of to save barristers, physicians, or literary men from an excess of voluntary self-imposed labour. The reason alleged by the Trade Unions is purely artificial. The real ground of their dislike to piecework is that payment upon that system is measured by the results of the labour, by its worth. It leaves a career open to the able and energetic workman to rise above his fellows, and that is a thing disliked by most leaders of Unions. Such a labourer stands on his own resources, he is eagerly engaged by his employer. He needs no help from others to obtain his fair rights. He is a standing protest against the policy pursued by Unions.

On this question of piecework Mr Brassey-who could speak with the highest authority—made a most emphatic declaration which, it is much to be hoped, that his audience at the Trades Union Congress have seriously pondered over. "It is because it is so important to inspire workmen with the hope of bettering their condition that I have always advocated the principle of payment by results. My father entertained the firmest convictions on this point. I know that many trades' unions object to it on the ground that payment by the piece leads to over-work and bad workmanship. The answer to this is that whatever may be the particular form of payment, whether it be by piecework, contract, ratuities for extra diligence, or per centage upon

profits, it is essentially necessary to give to the workman a personal motive for exertion."

Whether piecework is a system generally applicable is a question wholly distinct from its merits when applied. It is a matter which must be left to employers of labour to decide.

The objection made by Unions to overtime is the same n substance as that raised against piecework. It is the ndividual workman, acting for himself that is disliked; and this all the more if he is a non-unionist. Men workng overtime are a weapon in the hands of employers wherewith to combat the Union.

(e.) That the number of apprentices taken by an emloyer shall be limited is a demand urged with great ehemence and pertinacity by many leaders of Unions. They seek to diminish competition against the labourers lready engaged in a trade. But what is this but the nstitution of a monopoly? And no truth is more niversally recognised, not only in political economy ut in all the commercial world, that monopolies are most injurious to the public interest, to the welfare of he whole people. This is an undisguised attempt to aise wages artificially by reducing the number, not of he whole body of labourers, but of a chosen few at the xpense of all the others. It creates a close labour orporation—very profitable to the men who belong to e Union, but unjust and full of loss to all who do not. They are excluded from the field of labour; and what ey buy for their wants is made dearer. On what rinciple can a prohibition on the employer not to give aching and work to as many labourers as his capital ill permit, and a deprivation of the labourer's natural

rights and liberty to lend his services to any man who wishes to engage them and offers a reward which he is ready to accept, be justified, except that of a cruel desire to gratify personal selfishness by force? Restriction of apprentices attacks non-union workmen far more seriously than it does the employer. It is a direct declaration of war against their personal liberty and their right to govern their own conduct for themselves. "By restricting the number of apprentices," The Financial Reformer justly remarks: "Unionists deny to boys, even their own children, the opportunity of learning a trade and earning honest bread."

(f) A minimum wage, securing comfort and respectability for every labourer, has been the fond and natural wish of many excellent and patriotic men. A fair day's wage for a fair day's work—the work and the wages to be provided by an employer-has been their cry, not only in behalf of the man who has given the work and ought to be properly rewarded, but also in behalf of the man who can find no employer. No man of right feeling could do otherwise than rejoice were such a consummation realised; but, unhappily, it is nothing more than a dream. It cannot be accomplished under the laws imposed on human life. The labourer to whom no master has work to give can be kept alive only by charity. If that charity is granted by the State he is supported by a tax levied on the community. He has no connection of any kind with wages: he belongs to the domain of a poor law.

But a minimum wage is demanded in a different sense by Unions, and by many philanthropic writers. If men are actually hired by an employer, he shall be bound to

conform himself to a standard of payment below which he shall never descend. "Our claim is simple," says “A Striker" in the "North American Review." "We de

nand fair wages.

The reward of the workman shall

never sink below what a man, and a member of a highly ›rganised society, ought to receive." We may waive ere the formidable and endless question—what is a fair vage? The answer would vary with every age, every country, every district, every trade, every kind of ideas, every form of feeling. But supposing the standard to have been settled, who is to provide these necessaries or every workman engaged? The employer, is the nswer in the heart of every utterer of this sentiment, whether from his own sense of propriety, or under compulsion of law. But with what is the employer to betow these indispensable comforts? Let him be conented with moderate profits, is the reply; and if his profits are excessive, the solution of the problem is not mpossible. If every master in the kingdom is reaping oo large profits, fair wages may be obtained by every workman. Masters declare that competition already xtinguishes excess of profits, so severe and effective is is action. If these profits are only moderate, and yet very labourer must be brought up to the fitting standard f wages and the proper mode of living, how is it to be ffected? By adding to the price of the goods, when ade; that is the only resource, if the employer's capital not to be eaten up and consumed. The process seems mple. The consumer must pay more for what he buys; e is the man who shall supply the workman with what needed for decency and reasonable comfort. But unckily dear goods, when made dear by a decree, not of