es care that
his constant work shall leave him no time to hunt for a better position.
Indeed, by a few judicious threats from his employer, the man may be put
in terror of losing the pittance he already has, and seeing those
dependent on him in absolute starvation. Such cases are amply provided
for by the trade union. Ill treatment of any one of its members may be
avenged by the organization as a whole, on the principle, whose spirit
of fraternity and self-sacrifice all must admire, that "an injury to one
is the concern of all." More than this, by means of the benefit feature
of the fraternity, the member unfortunate, or in distress, is properly
cared for. No member is obliged to feel, when seeking for employment,
that his food or shelter is at stake if his attempts fail, and he need
never be at the mercy of employers who drive sharp bargains.

It is often charged as an evil of trade-unions interfering with wages,
that they tend to bring all their members to the same level, and are
opposed to the payment of wages in proportion to the varying abilities
of the men working at the same employment. But with unorganized labor,
and employers who were none too just in their ideas, it was not uncommon
to see the necessity of the laborer, or his inability to drive a good
bargain, taken advantage of. Thus the workmen whose necessities were
greatest, and who were the most docile and obedient, received lower
wages than the men who were not particular whether they were busy or
idle, and were inclined to pay more attention to their own rights and
prerogatives than to the work for which they were hired. While the
tendency toward non-recognition of the varying abilities and ambitions
of workmen by the trade unions must be deprecated, it has largely grown
from the reform of this worse abuse.

There is another benefit which the organization of labor has effected
which may, perhaps, be thought an evil by some, but which every broad
and generous man must gratefully recognize as a gain to the whole
community; and in a self-governed nation like our own, it is a benefit
whose importance it is difficult to over-estimate. This is the
maintenance of the laborer's dignity and self-respect. We have but to
look back to the times we have already mentioned, to see the laborer
hardly better than a dog, a cringing dependent, kicked and beaten on
slight pretext, and with almost every vestige of manhood worked and
bullied out of him. We have come upon fa