valuable to the state. They would protest that they should not suffer simply because unskilled laborers lacked their skill and talent. Should the skilled workingmen not be heard, the new state would have another throng of enemies.
Compromises might be attempted by different adjustments of talent and skill to physical labor in determining the wage schedule; but in each case the new regime would only be at the beginning of troubles. What bitter disputes among the skilled workingmen in different trades! There would be conflicting views of every sort regarding the exact amount of skill and of physical labor required in the different trades, and regarding the difficulties, disagreeableness of work, dangers to health and life, and increased value added to the raw material in each line.
But what would happen even if the ship of state under the red flag and its mast could weather the wage-storm and come safely into port with some working system?
The people, we are told, would enjoy equal rights. The government could not refuse to grant work to any qualified person applying for it. Suppose the members of some trade, the carpenters, for example, displeased with the wages they were getting, should apply for other work and stick to it until the government was forced to grant their demands. Other craftsmen, seeing how easily the carpenters had won their strike, would imitate their example. Thus would occur derangements of the intricate wage scale--which had occupied the attention of the country for so long a time and been adopted only after the greatest difficulty--causing great discontent and jealousy, while the economic losses through successful strikes would raise the prices of commodities, bringing on a general fever of discontent.
A further source of trouble would be the problem of determining what wages should be paid to shirkers and those incapable of working with