Sec. 7. Probabilities of Industrial Peace.--This concentrative process at
work in both capital and labour, consolidating the smaller industrial
units into larger ones, and tending to a unification of the masses of
capital and of labour engaged respectively in the several industries, is
at the present time by far the most important factor of industrial
history. How far these two movements in capital and in labour react on
one another for peace or for strife is a delicate and difficult
question. Consideration of the common interest of capital and labour
dependent on their necessary co-operation in industry might lead us to
suppose that along with the growing organization of the two forces there
would come an increased recognition of this community of interest which
would make constantly and rapidly for industrial peace. But we must not
be misled by the stress which is rightly laid on the identity of
interest between capital and labour. The identity which is based on the
general consideration that capital and labour are both required in the
conduct of a given business, is no effective guarantee against a genuine
clash of interests between the actual forms of capital and the labourers
engaged at a given time in that particular business. To a body of
employes who are seeking to extract a rise of wages from their
employers, or to resist a reduction of wages, it is no argument to point
out that if they gain their point the fall of profit in their employers'
business will have some effect in lowering the average interest on
invested capital, and will thus prevent the accumulation of some capital
which would have helped to find employment for some more working men.
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