There are some who say, in connection with this question, that you are at liberty to extort anything you can from your fellow men, provided you do not use a pistol; that you are at liberty to fleece the sailor who implores you to save him from a wreck, or the emigrant who is in danger of missing his ship. I say that this is a moral robbery, and that the man would say so himself if the same thing were done to him. A strike is a war, so is a lock out, which is a strike on the other side. They are warrantable, like other wars, when justice cannot be obtained, or injustice prevented by peaceful means, and in such cases only. Mediation ought always to be tried first and it will often be effectual, for the wars of carpenters and builders, as well as the wars of emperors, often arise from passion more than from interest, and passion may be calmed by mediation. Hence the magnitude of the unions, formidable as it seems, has really a pacific effect; passion is commonly personal or local, and does not affect the central government of a union extending over a whole nation. The governments of great unions have seldom recommended strikes. A strike or lock-out, I repeat, is an industrial war, and when the war is over there ought to be peace. Constant bad relations between the masters and the men, a constant attitude of mutual hostility and mistrust, constant threats of striking upon one side, and of locking out upon the other, are ruinous to the trade, especially if it depends at all upon foreign orders, as well as destructive of social comfort. If the state of feeling and the bearing of the men toward the masters, remain what they now are in some English trades, kind-hearted employers who would do their best to improve the condition of the workman, and to make him a partaker in their prosperity, will be driven from the trade, and their places will be taken by men with hearts of flint who will fight the workman by force and fraud, and very likely win. We have seen the full power of associated labour, the full power of associated capital has yet to be seen. We shall see it when instead of combinations of the employers in a single trade, which seldom hold together, employers in all trades learn to combine. We must not forget that industrial wars, like other wars, however just and necessary, give birth to men whose trade is war, and who, for the purpose of their trade are always inflaming the passions which lead to war. Such men I have seen on both sides of the Atlantic, and most hateful pests of industry and society they are. Nor must we forget that Trade Unions, like other communities, whatever their legal constitutions may be, are apt practically to fall into the hands of a small minority of active spirits, or even into those of a single astute and ambitious man.