THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 
86 
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, Pro 
fessor 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