There is, however, much more to be said. With each increase of their wages which the labourers succeed in gaining, they will be better equipping themselves for any fresh struggle in the future; for they will be able to set aside a larger and larger fund on which to support themselves without working, and thus be in a position to make the struggle longer, or, in other words, to inflict still greater injury on the employer. ◆¹ And if such will be the case when there is one employer only, much more will it be the case when there are two—when John and James, as we have seen, are forced by the necessities of competition to grant part of the labourers’ demands, even before they are formulated. It might thus seem that there is hardly any limit to the power which a perfected system of Trade Unionism may one day confer upon the labourers. There are, however, two which we will consider now, in addition to others at which we will glance presently. One is the limit with which we are already familiar, and of which in this connection I shall again speak, namely, the limit of the minimum reward requisite as a stimulus to Ability. The other is a limit closely connected with this, which is constituted by the fact that if the demands of Labour are pushed beyond a certain point against disunited employers, the employers will combine against Labour, as Labour has combined against them, and all further concessions will be, at all costs, unanimously refused. [Sidenote ◆1 The ultimate tendency of Trade Unionism is to make any conflict between the employer and employed like a conflict between two individuals.] [Sidenote ◆2 The limit to which it can raise wages is fixed by the minimum reward that suffices to make Ability operative.]