The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-09-22
Mr.. w. II. Mallock on Strikes.

Mr.. w. II. Mallock on Strikes.
The strike of the Amalgamated Engineers
in England has impelled Mr.. w. H. NAL
LOCK to discuss in the Nineteenth Century
the limits of the power Of organized labor.
He arrives at the conclusion hat this
power is Of a different nature from what is
popularity supposed; that it is not applica.
bic to production, and Is confined to oh.
struction. He compares it to the power
possessed by an animal. who requires a
rider to guide it, of kicking the rider off;
and he points out that even this power can
be employed only to a limited extent, un-
less labor is prepared to lnjure itself even
more seriously than its employer.
Mr.. MALLoCK does not deny that labor
can accomplish something by organized
strikes; what is needed is to recognize just
what that something is. Undoubtedly, a
horse which INDUCES In buck-jumping,
when i'll used or overridden, can by this
means secure for itself more considerate
treatment. There are obvious limits, how.
over. to the concessions procurable in this
way. For, If the horse shows itself entirely
intractable, the rider will decline to feed
1t, and it will starve to death. This would
Ilog " Viz NaSC IL tIc ilolSO Soulu plOCuEc
food for itself, but this, in a civilized COM
munity, it cannot do. So, if labor, which
for the sake of comparison, Mr.. NAL.
LOCK describes as n corporate animal,
could produce all it wanted without
aid from capital, its rider. and II its
rider, SO far as it was concerned, played
no other part than that of preventing it
from scizing OF the coveted produce, it
could, by throwing its rider and preventing
him from remounting, gain everything that
there could possibly be to gain. Since,
however. as a matter of fact, the coveted
produce would be unattainable without the
riders help. the animal would, by getting
rid of him altogether, be worse off than it
would be by tamely submitting to his dis
cipline. The full e%xertion Of it's strength,
therefore, would defeat its own end. How
much II it can do will depend upon it's own
common sense.
Mr.. MALLoCK acknowledges, as we have
said, that labor is within it's rights in using
those obstructive powers which, as a cor
porate animal, it possesses; but it should
never lose sight of the fact that these pow.
ers are obstructive only. They have no
tendency whatever to develop into a sub.
stitute for the powers of the rider or driver,
against whom they are directed. In other
words, trade unionism, or any combination
of workmen, though it may secure many
industrial reforms, has no tendency to
bring about any Industrial revolution
unless it be a revolution by which
all civilized industry will be ruined,
and which would impoverish the employed
even more hopelessly than the employers.
If the labor associations of to-day could
gather into their ranks all the laborers of the
civilized world, could ruin the existing EN-.
ployers and drive them from their present
position, labor thus incorporated could con-
tinue the business Of production only by
submitting itself to n new set of masters as
able and as cnterprising as the old and,
even If such men were to be found among
those who are at present laborers or repre-.
sentativcs of labor, they would cease to be
either the moment they became masters.
There would be, therefore, no industrial
revolution; there would simply be a change
of employers.
a proof OF this may be seen in the fact
that a large number of the greatest en-
pioyers of the modern world have, them
selves, begun as laborers, and, very likely,
IA members of a labor association. We
may take for granted that not a few of the
employers of the immediate future are to
he found now among the members of labor
associations. They will only become EN-.
ployers, however, by showing themselves
to be possessed of powers entirely different
from those which they represent rs mem.
bers of a laDor association, and they will
cease 10 represent the latter when they be.
gin to exercise the former.
But, il may be asked, will not the so.
called lab"" leaders. who have shown them.
selves capable of organizing obstruction,
be able 10 direct industry as efficiently as
employcrsdo Dowi The answer is that not
one OF the labor leaders has belonged to
that class OF master minds who, by inven.
tion. enterprise, or industrial pcneralship,
render labor, while stationary as meas.
ured by its amount and quality, more and
more efficient as measured by The results
produced. So lar as the labor leaders have
influenced production at all, they have In.
iiueiced 1t by resisting improved industrial
methods, not by devising or introducing
them. They have not helped tho laborcrs
10 produ " more, but have striCcn to make
Them produce less. The task which they
have accomplished is incidentally easier
than the task for which they have