If it had been, indeed, true that, by any natural laws of distribution, any class of society could be placed in a position of necessary and permanent inferiority of rights to any other class, all writers on the philosophy of society would have shrunk from relating any fables which must convey so sad a moral. But there is a very cheering moral involved in every melancholy story that we hear of the contentions of masters and men, and of the sufferings which thence arise. The fact is that, so far from the masters having any natural power,—even if they had the wish,—to oppress the working classes, the working classes hold a power which may make them the equals in independence of any class in society. That they have not yet used it is less their fault than their misfortune. Whether fault or misfortune, it is destined to be remedied, if we may trust to experience working its invariable work, and communicating that wisdom and power which can by no other means be gained. The only control over the price of labour resides with those who can control its quantity. Overstock the market with labour, and the most compassionate of capitalists can do nothing to prevent its being ill rewarded. Understock the market with labour, and the veriest miser that ever employed gold for profit cannot prevent labour fetching a high price. And with whom does it rest to overstock or understock the market with labour? With whom does it rest to determine whether the subsistence fund which exists shall be divided among a moderate number or among a scrambling multitude? Most assuredly not with the capitalists but the labourers.