may be easily adjusted to the satisfaction of both parties; for though the customer may think that the tailor has claimed too much, he admits that to a certain sum the tailor has an undoubted right. But if the customer were a madman, who believed when he ordered his clothes that in abstract justice he ought to be charged nothing for them, and that any claim on the tailor’s part was in reality robbery and oppression, whatever deduction the tailor might consent to make, the customer’s grievance against him would remain the same as ever. It is possible for customers and tradesmen to come to some satisfactory understanding, so long as the demand of the former is that their bills shall not be too high. No satisfactory understanding could be arrived at between them possibly—there would be nothing but friction, constant dunning, and writs—were it known that the customers entertained and meant to act on the theory that they ought not, in abstract justice, to pay their bills at all. Now such is the labour-leaders’ theory with regard to the employing classes. For a time some part of their bills must unfortunately be paid—that is, some part of their profits be allowed them. But to these profits they have no real right, and the employed must never be contented until they have absorbed the whole of them. So long as such a theory prevails, no satisfactory progress in the condition of labour is possible, {371} partly because the employed, whatever advantages they may gain, will be no nearer to content than they were before, partly because the employers are constantly forced into a position of unwilling antagonism to men whom they would wish to befriend.