Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/222

 combination for various objects will at all be lost sight of. But we shall perceive that voluntary combination is a form of self-government vastly more friendly to the preservation of self-respect than legislative action, and also a form much less likely to be oppressive. It will be seen, for instance, that it is more desirable for working men to fix, through their trade-unions, the hours of labour in various industries, arranging to meet exceptional circumstances where the latter arise, than for Parliament to decree that nobody shall work more than eight hours a day. Neither is the panacea of compulsory arbitration in trade disputes likely to be a feature of future politics, because we shall certainly not be long before we perceive that, while it is no doubt quite easy to compel employers and employed to submit their respective cases to a tribunal appointed by law, there is no known way in which the award of such a tribunal can be enforced, and if there were, the effect of its employment would be almost intolerably injurious to the commerce of the country. What will happen a hundred years hence is that trade disputes will have disappeared, because all the workers will be practically their own employers.

Consequently free contract and not socialism will be the basis of the political system of a hundred years hence, and. the standard of