The employer, if he employed only union men, should have a right
to demand that the supply of labor should not be artificially
restricted, and that he could depend upon procuring as much labor as the
growth of his business might require. Finally in all skilled trades
there should obviously be some connection between the unions and the
trade schools; and it might be in this respect that the union would
enter into closest relations with the state. The state would have a
manifest interest in making the instruction in these schools of the very
best, and in furnishing it free to as many apprentices as the trade
agreement permitted.
In all probability the general policy roughly sketched above will please
one side to the labor controversy as little as it does another. Union
leaders might compare the recognition received by the unions under the
proposed conditions to the recognition which the bear accords to the man
whom he hugs to death. They would probably prefer for the time being
their existing situation--that of being on the high road to the conquest
of almost unconditional submission.
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