THE  SOCIALISM  OF  TO-DAY.

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subject  all  industries  to  this  strait-waistcoat,  any  nation  would
submit  to  it.
Lassalle,  replying  to  Gerlach,  shows  clearly  how  chimerical
are  these  dreams  of  restoring  the  past.  “  Given,  he  says,
“  the  organic  force  of  the  large  industrial  system,  it  is  as
impossible  to  arrest  its  course  as  to  stop  streams  from  flowing
into  a  river  and  helping  to  swell  it.  But,  just  as  we  may
possess  ourselves  of  the  force  of  the  stream  and  take  advantage
of  it,  so  we  may  utilize  the  very  development  of  the  large
industrial  system  in  order  to  reconstitute  a  middle  class  of
working-men  capitalists,  as  in  the  old  corporations,  though
founded  upon  another  basis.  It  is  more  in  conformity  with
the  philosophy  of  history  to  make  use  of  the  forces  resulting
from  the  natural  evolution  of  civilization  in  order  to  attain
our  ends,  than  to  attempt  to  put  on  the  drag,  which  would
moreover  be  quite  useless.”
The  Gerlach  group  has  been  designated  under  the  name
of  Zunftreaction—“reaction  in  favour  of  corporations.  Two
well-known  writers,  who  defend  the  same  general  ideas,  Professor ­
  Huber  and  Councillor  Wagener,  separate  themselves
from  Gerlach  upon  this  point.
If  there  is  a  social  question,  says  Professor  Huber,  it  is
because  wages  are  too  often  insufficient  j  and  why  is  this  ?
Because  the  lowering  in  the  price  of  manufactured  articles,
resulting  from  diminution  in  the  cost  of  production,  is  always
obtained  by  the  reduction  of  wages.  In  point  of  fact  this  is
far  from  correct
It  would  be  better,  adds  Huber,  to  arrive  at  the  same  result
by  a  diminution  of  profits.  It  is  not  by  virtue  of  any  moral,
rational,  or  economic  law  that  one  of  the  parties  who  joins  in
the  production  of  wealth  should  always  be  sacrificed  to  the
other.  The  remuneration  of  labour  should  not  be  fixed  in  an
arbitrary  manner,  but  by  equity.  Now  equity  demands  that,
when  capital  has  received  its  interest,  and  labour  its  wages,  the
surplus  profit  should  be  divided  between  the  two  parties  in
proportion  to  their  services.  But  who  shall  fix  this  share  ?  It
could  only  be  by  a  sort  of  jury  of  true  men,  in  which  masters
and  workmen  should  be  equally  represented,  and  the  decisions