Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/588

 six hundred, while only five hundred workmen are employed there. Accordingly, there exists a large number of stockholders who are not also workmen in the factory, on the other hand, all the workmen are not at the same time stockholders. In consequence of this an agitation broke out in 1861 among the workingmen stockholders who did not work in the factory, and also among those who were both employees and stockholders, against the workmen who were not stockholders receiving a share of the profits. On the part of the workingmen stockholders the principle was laid down simply and frankly that, according to the usual custom in the whole industrial world, the claims of labor were satisfied with the wages and that wages were determined by supply and demand (we have seen above by what law). "This fact," relates Professor Huber in his report of this affair, "was considered valid without further question, as the natural condition, needing no further justification, in opposition to a quite exceptional, arbitrary innovation, even though it were according to the statutes." Bravely, but only with very dimly understood emotional reasons, this proposition for the changing of the statutes was opposed by the original founders and managers of the association. In fact, a majority of five-eighths of the workingmen stockholders voted for the change of the statutes, taking exactly the same position as the capitalist employers, and the change was defeated for the time being only because, according to the statutes, a majority of three-fourths of the votes was required. "But nobody," states Professor Huber, "is unaware that the matter is not thereby settled; it is more likely that still further serious internal dissensions are to be looked for by this association, the outcome of which, perhaps even next year, may well be a successful repetition of this attempt—all the more so since the opposition is determined to make its influence felt in the election of the officials of the association, an election at which the majority elects, and through which the