want; and also that separate and graduated workhouses might be
established for the deserving poor. It will be admitted on all hands
that proposals of this character land us on very delicate ground, and
require the most mature consideration. Even now the inmate of a
workhouse is often better supplied with food, clothing, and shelter
than the poor labourer, who has to pay taxes to support him. If the
condition of that inmate is made still more comfortable, will it be
possible to prevent hundreds and thousands of the very poor, who now
keep outside these institutions, from immediately crowding into them
as soon as the slightest economic difficulties arise? Almost all
philanthropic schemes, and especially all such schemes when supported
by the public purse, have a tendency to be administered with more and
more laxity as time goes on; and a scheme of this kind, if carried
into law, would require to be managed with the utmost circumspection
in order to avoid pauperising great masses of the community.

A scheme of this character will, however, have to be tried if the
manifesto of the Executive Council of the Dockers' Union, issued in
September last, is to be acted upon by Trade-Unionists in general.
According to the doctrine laid down in this manifesto, the idea of a
Trade-Union, as a free and open combination, which every workman may
enter, provided he pays his subscription and conforms to the rules, is
an idea which must for the future be abandoned. Henceforth, a
Trade-Union is to be a close corporation to be worked for the benefit
of persons who have succeeded in getting inside it. The Dockers'
Union, to do them justice, see that this policy is bound to increase
the numbers of the destitute, but they propose to remedy this
condition of things by establishing "in each municipality factories
and workshops where all those who cannot get work under ordinary
conditions shall have an opportunity afforded them by the community."
If these State establishments are to be started for the unemployed,
the workers in them must work at something, and it will have to be
something which the unskilled labourer will not require a great deal
of time to learn. What would the dockers say if one of these
establishments was instituted by the municipality for the loading and
unloading of ships? Hardly a Trade-Union Congress meets in which the
complaint is not made that prison labour interferes with free labour;
but what sort of outcry would there