Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/739

 -i89o] Labour troubles. 707 Still it is true that the system of production on a large scale was not widely prevalent till after the war ; and in the later period the problem of labour assumed a new phase. The first warning the country had of the new power was the series of railroad strikes in 1877, which were accompanied by serious outbreaks of disorder, necessitating a resort to Federal troops. Then followed the appearance of the "Knights of Labour," and the first exhibition of their power in the serious strike on the Missouri Pacific line in 1886. By this time the movement toward labour organisation was rapidly progressing ; and strikes became frequent. Occasionally there occurred great conflicts such as those already men- tioned, followed by the Homestead and Chicago strikes (1892 and 1894), when the public again stood aghast before the spectre of an industrial war which amounted to armed insurrection. Suclf excesses were perhaps inseparable from the rise of a powerful new organisation in economic life, carried away by its first consciousness of strength; but the educated public, which was still marvelling at the material triumphs of the capitalistic system, was little prepared for the sudden problem which followed logically in its train. Gradually better leaders have arisen; and the harder lessons have been at least partially learned by the unions. If they have been slow in appreciating the necessary limits within which alone they can hope for success, the employing class on the other hand has been equally slow in recognising the utter futility of the attempt to crush the new organisation ; and the public have as much to forgive on the one side as on the other. The problem is the same in America as in every industrial nation to-day. Combination has arisen to meet combination ; and only as the rights of each are recognised will the bitterness of the conflict cease. There are special reasons why this is to be hoped for in the United States, before a sense of social cleavage becomes more acute. For though the masses are easily roused by a sense of injustice and incited by that spirit of independence, which has been their chief pride, to resist promptly even at the expense of law and order, class divisions are not yet permanently fixed, and the conscious- ness of class is still subordinate to the sense of national unity. Little space has been left for the consideration of the agricultural development of the country during this period, although that develop- ment has been the true basis of its prosperity. Even all the advantages for industrial growth which have been enumerated would have been insufficient for the establishment of a great system of manufactures, had not the home market been constantly expanding. The period from 1860 to 1890 is indeed as notable for the way in which the United States became the chief source of supply for food-products and raw material to Europe as for the extent to which the country achieved its independence of European industry. Between 1860 and 1870 the population of the grain States (the "North Central" division) increased by more than 42 per cent., and in the next CH. xxn. 45 2