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