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 1 84 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

ones. In the form of these prohibitions of association the divide et impera occurs, therefore, as the most highly sublimated think- able prophylaxis of the one element, against all eventualities from the combination of the others. This preventive form can also recur in qualitatively the same fashion, in case the multi- plicity which is in contrast with the one consists of the various elements of power in one and the same personality. The Anglo- Norman monarchy took care that the fiefs in feudal times were as widely scattered as possible. Some of the most powerful vassals had their lands in from seventeen to twenty-one shires. Through this principle of local separation, the domains of the crown vassals could not, as on the continent, be consolidated into great sovereign principalities.

The prophylactic prevention of unification operates now more distinctly in case there exists a direct endeavor for union. Under this scheme belongs the phenomenon complicated, to be sure, with other motives that employers generally hesitate most decidedly to treat of conflicts about wages and other matters with third persons, who do not belong to their own body of laborers. They thereby not only prevent the laborers from strengthening their position, by combination with another per- sonality with nothing either to fear or to gain from the employer, but they also embarrass the unified program of the labor bodies of different trades which, for example, is aimed at the introduction of a single scale of wages everywhere. By declining the offices of the intermediary person, who could at the same time treat for several bodies of labor, the employer heads off the threatening combination of the laborers. As a measure against the existing efforts in that direction, this is regarded as so important for his position that combinations of employers frequently impose upon each of their members this isolation of their workmen, in case of conflicts and conferences, as a part of the stipulated duty of their membership.

This preventing of combination between the elements attains, instead of a merely prohibitive, an active form in case the third party instigates jealousy between them. We have not here in mind the cases in which he instigates hostilities between the