◆¹ Now a situation like this is the ultimate situation which all Trade Unionism tends to bring about. It tends, by turning the labourers into a single body on the one hand, and the employers into a single body on the other, to make the dispute like one between two individuals; and though for many reasons this result can never be entirely realised,[59] the limits of the power of Trade Unionism can be best seen by imagining it. What, then, is the picture we have before us? We have Labour and Ability in the character of two men confronting each other, each determined to secure for himself the largest possible portion of a certain aggregate amount of wealth which they produce together. Now we will assume, though this is far from being the case, that neither of them would shrink, for the sake of gaining their object, from inflicting on the other the utmost injury possible; and we shall see also, if we make our picture accurate, that Labour is physically the bigger man of the two. It happens, however, that the very existence of the wealth for the possession of which they are prepared to fight is entirely dependent on their peacefully co-operating to produce it; so that if in the struggle either disabled the other, he would be destroying the prize which it is the object of his struggle to secure. Thus the dispute between them, however hostile may be their temper, must necessarily be of the nature not of a fight, but of a bargain; and will be settled, like other bargains, by the process of compromise which Adam Smith calls “the higgling of the market.” ◆² When such a bargain is struck, there will be a limit on both sides: a maximum limit to what Ability will consent to give, and a minimum limit to what Labour will consent to receive. There will be a certain minimum which Ability must concede in the long run; because if it did not give so much, it would indirectly lose more: and conversely there is a certain maximum more than which Labour will never permanently obtain; because if it did so the stimulus to Ability would be weakened, and the total product would in consequence be diminished, out of which alone the increased share which Labour demands can come. [Sidenote ◆1 Thus the possible power of Trade Unionism in raising wages is far more limited than it seems.] [Sidenote ◆2 If we judge hastily by the magnitude of modern Labour combinations, and the extent to which they can terrorise the community.]