第15章

As the contrivers and enterprising undertakers of new works,they may be called employers as well as labourers,and they deserve the respect of the labourer.As capitalist,and as the agents of he capitalist,they are merely middlemen,oppressing the labourer,and deserving of anything but his respect.The labourer should know and bear this in mind.Other people should also remember it,for it is indispensable to correct reasoning to distinguish between these two characters of all masters.If by combining the journeymen were to drive masters,who are a useful class of labourers,out of the country,if they were to force abroad the skill and ingenuity which contrive,severing them from the hands which execute,they would do themselves and the remaining inhabitants considerable mischief.If,on the contrary,by combining they merely incapacitate the masters from obtaining any profit on their capital,and merely prevent them from completing the engagements they have contracted with the capitalist,they will do themselves and the country incalculable service.They may reduce or destroy altogether the profit of the idle capitalist --and from the manner in which capitalists have treated labourers,even within our own recollection,they have no claim on the gratitude of the labourer --but they will augment the wages and rewards of industry,and will give to genius and skill their due share of the national produce.They will also increase prodigiously the productive power of the country by increasing the number of skilled labourers.The most successful and widest spread possible combination to obtain an augmentation of wages would have no other injurious effect than to reduce the incomes of those who live on profit and interest,and who have no just claim but custom to any share of the national produce.