Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/29

 1832. The further extension of 1867 brought us our General Education Act of 1870, and its succeeding improvements; and the impending still further franchise extension may be expected to give a marked further impetus to society's advance.

Yellowly was an ardent unionist, but he was quite alive to certain vices and defects in unionist views. He was, for instance, utterly opposed to the whole coercion system, which doubtless both prejudiced and limited union life. He thought that unions might be so regulated, that membership would be a privilege, pecuniary and otherwise, of sufficient value to prove self-attractive, and, at the same time, to give the effective whiphand over members in regard to union discipline or personal conduct. One of his great aims was the institution of a permanent great National Representative Union, composed of selected delegates from all the other unions—a sort of Upper House or Senate in union life. Such a body, serving as a final Court of Appeal, might be expected to reject or annul such narrow, selfish, and erroneous views and rules as still lingered in the separate unions. He was encouraged in this idea by the decided progress towards better and more correct views within the unions, even during the last few years.

Yellowly hoped, in short, to see the last prejudices against such inevitable results as the piece-work system die finally away, and along with it that unreasonable and unreasoning fancy about giving to all hands, good, bad, and indifferent, the same rate of