now and to go on higher in future; all this gives opportunity for _diversity of relative advantage_, which, as we have seen, lies at the basis of all exchange, which itself starts in individualism and naturally proceeds in a still higher individualism to the end. This is the only way for a laborer of talent and diligence to secure fully what belongs to _him_ as a man and a workman. If he cannot get from a given employer what he thinks he ought to get, what he thinks the service is worth in another market, let him exercise his perfect right to quit and go elsewhere. All this is fair and aboveboard and individual and progressive. Everybody knows that there is a kind of _striking_ now in vogue wholly different from this, in that it brings a sort of compulsion into play. _A fair bargain should be broken, if at all, just as it was made, with the two parties face to face, and everybody else aloof; and a new bargain should be made, just as the old one was, with the two parties face to face, and everybody else aloof._ But a combination among workmen to leave an employer in the lurch, and especially a combination which forces into its ranks by cajoling or menaces those who are unwilling to join it, as is so commonly the case in Strikes, is not only contrary to the inmost nature of a bargain, but is also of itself a sort of confession of the injustice of the claim. If the claim be just so far as _all_ the individuals are concerned, there is no occasion to extort it. If the value of the service rendered by each be equal to the sum demanded, and especially if this can be obtained elsewhere, which is the only gauge of the value of any service anywhere, there is no need of conference and combination and conspiracy. Of course, this radical argument against Strikes implies that employers of that grade have not entered into a combination not to hire dissatisfied laborers from other establishments; if they have, then the agreement can be turned with equal force against the employers themselves, for _they_ are resorting to means outside the nature of a bargain, means of the same nature as a Strike. Let, then, each workman tell his employer the present facts just as they are, and if this appeal prove ineffective to secure his commercial right, let him go quickly where he can get the most for his service. That this is not done, that means of the nature of a threat are brought to bear upon the employer, that the justice of the claim is not relied on in a case where more than anywhere else justice can enforce itself, that free and full explanations are not had, that no notice is given, that great damage is expected by their action to accrue to the employer,--all this seems to forget that the transaction between employers and employed is a case of pure exchange, a simple bargain of one service against another service.