Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/95

 it should be in a position to obtain from all the others. Experience teaches him that any amelioration of working conditions is not stable, and only merits being put into execution on condition that it can be generalized, and thus maintain the equality of employers in competition. "Undertake nothing that cannot become a universal rule of action" is the essential principle of practical Trade Unionism, the basis of the whole moral. The obligation to conform to the dictates of common sense, as shown by the complete and rapid downfall of associations that ignore this principle, is that not a form, and one of the most efficacious, of responsibility?

Since Trade Unions and committees differ from each other most profoundly, even to the pitch of representing two forms of organization opposed, indeed almost contradictory, must we conclude that these two institutions are bound to clash, and that eventually one will overpower the other? It seems much more probable that one will end by absorbing the other