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TRADES SOCiETIES: THEIR OBTECTS .AVD POLICY. rlg
&de ~soeiat-h, but direct their exertions to the most useful
ends. It is not Unions which seem to me and to many others
mistaken; it is the object which Unions aim at, and still more
the policy they adopt to reach it.
I wish to 808 workmen becoming by degrees their own
capitalists-sharers in all the profits and all the advantagss
which capital confers. You cannot do without capitnl. He
must be a drcamcr who tells you that you can, and he only
plays upon words who tells you that labour is capital.
Labour alone mill not suffice for raising n factory, or a
house, nor even for cultivating an acre of ground. YOU lust
have D sum of money to buy tho tools and materials, or at all
ovcnts to maintain yourself whilst sou are working. If not,
why do you not &spouse with cmployers altogether, and raiso
your own fwtories and works ?
Iht, when once you rlcterukino to 11:~ve cnpitd on your sido
I Lelicvcb you can do it : the Hnll in wllich WVL‘ ~ncct is ovidonco
7. i tllnt you can do it. SRVC 111onc!y, hwvcver little, and invest it in
,$ a co-opcrativo society, and 1ct it grow, and when you have a
little sum, join with otl~crs in co-operative works. I bulievo
that there are n multitude of different kinds of busincss
requiring only a moderate amount of capital, which workmen
’ will readily be able t.0 carry on upon their own account when
they set thomsclves seriously to think of it.
Thcrc aro many branches af trado, however, in which such
grcnt cnpitnls arc required that you can hardly be nblo to
untlcrtnke them safely without the aid of capitalists. In some
trndes again, cspccidly the iron trade, there are groat ups arid
downs in profits. For sevcrnl years losscu rather than profits
mny bo the result,, nnd then for several years large profits may
be reached. As the wages of tho operatives have to bo raised
or lowered accordingly, I seo no way of avoiding interminable
disputes but by the workmen themselves being ndmitt.ed to
reccive a share of ths profits under the Industrial Partnerships
Act. The Partnerships scheme ‘has been tried with SUweRs in
3fessrs. Briggs’ collieries, and Messrs. Fox, Head &, CO.’~
Newport Iron Mills. I believe that many employers are well
inclined to try it, and it only remains for the men to appreciate