That the actions of trade unions are very largely of this type is a fact insufficiently appreciated by the middle-class public. The elaborate system of piece-rate lists which has been evolved in the Lancashire cotton industry is primarily designed to secure the same wage for workers of equal efficiency in all mills, irrespective of the degree to which the machinery is antiquated or up to date. This result is wholly to the good: not only does it secure "fairness" for the worker, it stimulates the employer wonderfully to efficiency. The same result could never be secured so effectively by the free play of competition. But this tendency, which is easily the predominant element in the trade union regulations of the cotton trade, is at least an important element in the policy of "The Common Rule" of all trade unions, though it may often be mixed up with the more questionable tendency to eliminate differences of pay for differences of natural ability, and the unquestionably bad tendency to discourage output. As between different occupations, the insistence of a trade union that wages must be leveled up towards the wages obtaining in similar trades acts again as a far more powerful force than competition. But the actions of trade unions are by no means wholly of this type. They often serve rather to secure still higher wages for workers who, comparatively speaking, are already highly paid. It makes little difference whether this effect is secured directly by wage demands, or indirectly by restricting the right of the entry to the trade. In either case the consequences are the same, and there should be no ambiguity as to their nature. They are certainly bad for the community, certainly bad for the _other_ workers of the grade, almost certainly bad for the workers of the grade regarded as a whole. The higher wages must raise the money costs of production, and result, sooner or later, in fewer workpeople being employed in that occupation; larger numbers must accordingly seek employment elsewhere; and this cannot but depress the wage rates of less strongly organized trades. Thus the effect is twofold: a larger proportion of workpeople will be employed in badly paid occupations; and the wages there will be lessened.