against trade unions, they have become less
influential with the discrediting of much of the theoretical teaching
on which they were based. In 1867 a book by W. T. Thornton, _On Labor,
its Wrongful Claims and Rightful Dues_, successfully attacked the
wages-fund theory, since which time the belief that the rate of wages
was absolutely determined by the amount of that fund and the number of
laborers has gradually been given up. The belief in the possibility of
voluntary limitation of the effect of the so-called "natural laws" of
the economic teachers of the early and middle parts of the century has
grown stronger and spread more widely. Finally, the general popular
feeling of dislike of trade unions has much diminished within the last
twenty-five years, since their lawfulness has been acknowledged, and
since their own policy has become more distinctly orderly and
moderate.

Much of this change in popular feeling toward trade unions was so
gradual as not to be measurable, but some of its stages can be
distinguished. Perhaps the first very noticeable step in the general
acceptance of trade unions, other than their mere legalization, was
the interest and approval given to the formation of boards of
conciliation or arbitration from 1867 forward. These were bodies in
which representatives elected by the employers and representatives
elected by trade unions met on equal terms to discuss differences, the
unions thus being acknowledged as the normal form of organization of
the working classes. In 1885 the Royal Commission on the depression of
trade spoke with favor cf trade unions. In 1889 the great London
Dockers' strike called forth the sympathy and the moral and pecuniary
support of representatives of classes which had probably never before
shown any favor to such organizations. More than $200,000 was
subscribed by the public, and every form of popular pressure was
brought to bear on the employers. In fact, the Dock Laborers' Union
was partly created and almost entirely supported by outside public
influence. In the same year the London School Board and County Council
both declared that all contractors doing their work must pay "fair
wages," an expression which was afterward defined as being union
wages. Before 1894 some one hundred and fifty town and county
governments had adopted a rule that fair wages must be paid to all
workmen employed directly or indirectly by them. In 1890 and 1893 and
subsequently the government has ma