By limiting output the workman genuinely believes that he is performing a moral duty to himself and to his trade. He argues first, that he is reducing unemployment by making the work go round; secondly, that he is keeping up the value of his handicraft by putting a premium on its application. Workmen have described to me the difference between possible and actual production as being “their reserve fund.” Over and over again this policy has been justified to me by reference to the action of commercial trade combinations which pool orders and limit the output of the works of certain of their members in order to ensure business for other members less fortunately situated, and also by reference to groups of manufacturers who systematically keep up prices by “keeping the bottom in the market” through restricting the quantity of their output that is offered for sale. The workmen will tell you in words to which no economist can object that value is due to utility and to limitation of supply. What he overlooks is that all that is thereby established in practice is a minimum rate of wages, and that maximum earnings depend on maximum output. There are many classical instances, well within memory, where unemployment in certain trades was in fact almost entirely abolished by restricting the output of those employed, notably by discontinuing the then existing systems of payment by results—“blood money” as it was called. These recollections live. But, as a matter of fact, these instances prove nothing. They occurred just about the commencement of a depression in trade, and, in fact, the extra cost of production subsequently caused by the limitation of output, accelerated the unemployment in those very trades. Still working men, like most men, argue from particular cases of personal experience to universals.