If workingmen only understood how much the apparent gain when they win in a strike is overbalanced by their loss in the higher prices which they have to pay for the necessaries of life, and in the reduced demand for labor, they would be as anxious to protect capital as they now are—some of them—to injure it. The strikes make timid the men who have capital to invest. They will not loan their money to business men, builders, manufacturers, or any one who wishes to use it to employ workmen, except at a higher rate of interest, to pay for the increased risk. Hence, the cost of the capital used in production is greater, and the price the public has to pay for the product must be greater.
Again, when men have to pay higher rates of interest for the money they borrow they are slower to engage in new enterprises. Mr. A. a builder, intended to put up a block of a dozen houses this season, which would have tended to reduce rents; but the fear of strikes, with their attendant damage and loss, has prevented him from borrowing money at less than 8 per cent. interest. He concludes that, on the whole, this will eat up so much of his profits that he will not build. Is it not too plain to need proof that the moral influence alone of the strikes has robbed the workmen at every point? And this is one of a thousand cases in a hundred different industries.