PROBLEMS OF DISTRIBUTION 243 
western countries the methods of industrial 
peace are not unlike those of England. 
The generation of friction by the processes 
taking place in the labour market, as com 
pared with the relatively amicable bargaining 
which goes on continually where goods are 
bought and sold, has nothing mysterious in its 
origins. It is easier to be dispassionate in 
selling our services indirectly, in the form of 
what we have made, or acquired as traders to 
dispose of, than in selling them directly as the 
workman does who is bargaining about his 
wages. As practical economists we must 
admit all facts of this kind into our reckoning, 
and allow for the danger of leaving some 
things to be settled by the undisguised and 
unmitigated action of demand and supply. 
Just as there are cases, calling for special 
consideration, in which serious friction is 
generated by the unrestrained interplay of 
economic forces, so there are other cases, 
equally calling for special consideration, in 
which harm results because the economic 
forces which would normally be working in 
the interests of a class are so smothered as not 
to be properly effective. We have examples 
in many miserably paid callings, and in much 
of the casual labour system.