Wealth owes its advantages in production largely to
forecast, combination and tacit concert. Nothing can be
more unreasonable than to resent the same tendency in
the working classes, and that because it takes them,
as mere waifs, out of the stream of traffic. These
combinations are not to be judged by their earlier
efforts, or by their mistakes alone, but by their di-
rection of growth and the spirit called out by them.
It is one of the highest achievements of our time that
workmen are learning to think, combine, resist, aid ; and
all more or less wisely under the laws of production and of
morals. If the gains of combination were much less than
they are, and the dangers even greater than they are,
deliberative, united effort would still be the beginning
of better things. We must be content to pay the price
of progress. The actual and probable evils of unions
among workmen are trifling compared with those of war,
yet we are still willing to try the gains of war.
Says Mr. Rogers : " The habit of making provision
against casualties arising from the weakness of the individ-
ual's own position in relation to the risk of sickness or
other contingencies, is soon extended toward making
provision against the risks which attend on employment.
