I refer to the policy pursued by the trade-unions of reducing the practical efficiency of all their members alike to the level which can be reached by those of them who are least active and dexterous.

Bricklayers, for example, are forbidden by the English unions to lay, in a given time, more than a certain number of bricks, though by many of them this number could be doubled, and by some trebled, with ease.

Now, although, from the point of view of those bodies who adopt it, such a policy has many advantages, and is perhaps a tactical necessity, this levelling down of labour to the minimum of individual efficiency is denounced by many critics as a prelude to industrial suicide, and the alarm which these persons feel is doubtless intelligible enough.

It is, however, largely superfluous.

The levelling process in question must of course involve a certain amount of waste; but its effect on production as a whole is under most circumstances inappreciable.