As I have said already, it is impossible, in any general way, to give any indication of what this limit is; but the industrial history of this country supplies a most instructive instance in which it was notoriously overpassed, and what was meant as a benefit to Labour, under circumstances of exceptional difficulty, ended by endangering the prosperity of the whole community. I refer to our Poor Law at the beginning of this century, the effects of which form one of the most remarkable object-lessons by which experience has ever illustrated a special point in economics. ◆¹ That Poor Law, as Professor Marshall well observes, “arranged that part of the wages [of the labourers] should be given in the form of poor relief; and that this should be distributed amongst them in the inverse proportion to their industry, thrift, and forethought. The traditions and instincts,” he adds, “which were fostered by that evil experience are even now a great hindrance to the progress of the working classes.”[56] Now that particular evil on which Professor Marshall comments,—namely, that the part of the wages coming through this Socialistic channel were in the inverse proportion to what had really been produced by the labourer—is inherent in all Socialistic measures, the principal object of which is to raise or supplement wages; as is clearly enough confessed by the Socialistic motto, “To every man according to his needs.” ◆² It may accordingly be said that, absolutely necessary as the Socialistic principle is, and much as may be hoped from its extension in many directions, it neither has been in the past, nor can possibly be in the future, efficacious to any great extent in increasing the actual income of the labourer.[57] [Sidenote ◆1 Trade Unionism in this way can do far more. We will see first how, and then within what limits.] ◆¹ Such being the case, then, let us now turn our attention to another principle of an entirely different kind, which, so far as regards this object, is incalculably more important, and which has constantly operated in the past, and may operate in the future, to increase the labourer’s income, without any corresponding disadvantages. I mean that principle of organisation amongst the labourers themselves which is commonly called Trade Unionism; and which directly or indirectly represents the principal means by which Labour is attempting, throughout the civilised world, to accelerate and regulate the natural distribution of wealth. I will first, in the light of the conclusions we have already arrived at, point out to the reader what, speaking generally, is the way in which Trade Unionism strengthens the hands of Labour; and then consider what is the utmost extent to which the strength which Labour now derives from it may be developed.