232 
POLITICAL ECONOMY 
demand increasing than they would have done 
otherwise. It is quite possible that the gain 
of the working classes through the resistance 
offered to social friction by trade union 
action may have been an amount well worth 
having. But could an all-round combination 
of labour raise wages on the assumption 
that there was previously no social friction, 
or, in other words, could trade union action 
do more (in the absence of any increase of 
efficiency on the part of labour) than counter 
act social friction ? 
To find the correct answer to this question 
requires more than a passing acquaintance 
with economic principles. We may argue the 
matter in this way. Wage earners, were they 
strong enough to hold out, and were they in a 
position to sell their labour in the lump, could 
immediately secure an appreciably higher wage. 
The higher wage would be won at the expense 
of employers’ earnings and interest on in 
dustrial capital. Consequently, in the long 
run the amount of employing capacity 
devoted to industry would probably be 
reduced, and so also would the amount of 
capital devoted to industry. Now when 
industrial capital and the quantity of the 
employing factor acting in production were 
both diminished the sum of the national