professional sociologists wish them to be, when conflicts are confined to disputes about material interests, there is no more opportunity for heroism than when agricultural syndicates discuss the subject of the price of guano with manure merchants. It has never been thought that discussions about prices could possibly exercise any ethical influence on men; the experience of sales of live stock would lead to the supposition that in such cases those interested are led to admire cunning rather than good faith; the ethical values recognised by horse-dealers have never passed for very elevated. Among the important things accomplished by agricultural syndicates, De Rocquigny reports that in 1896, "the municipality of Marmande having wanted to impose on beasts brought to the fair a tax which the cattle-breeders considered iniquitous … the breeders struck, and stopped supplying the market of Marmande, with such effect that the municipahty found itself forced to give in."[1] This was a very peaceful procedure which produced results profitable to the peasants; but it is quite clear that nothing ethical was involved in such a dispute.
When politicians intervene there is, almost necessarily, a noticeable lowering of ethical standards, because they do nothing for nothing and only act on condition that the favoured association becomes one of their customers. We are very far here from the path of sublimity, we are on that which leads to the practices of the political-criminal societies.
In the opinion of many well-informed people, the transition from violence to cunning which shows itself in contemporary strikes in England cannot be too much admired. The great object of the Trades Unions is to obtain a recognition of the right to employ threats
- ↑ De Rocquigny, op. cit. pp. 379–380. I am curious to know how exactly a tax can be iniquitous. These worthy progressives speak a special language.
