ABSTRACT
T H E ANTECEDENTS OF T H E TRADE UNION
I
T H E struggle within and between the various trading and industrial organizations, which has been the subject of the preceding chapters, has presented itself in two main aspects. It was a conflict between the small capitalist and the large capitalist; and it was also a conflict between industrial capital and commercial capital. At the outset the interests opposed to each other were in both these two cases the same. The industrial capital was mostly in the hands of the small capitalist, whilst the large capitalist was generally a mere trader. But as the development proceeded this identification ceased to be valid. Industrial capital was so far victorious as to win for itself an equal place as an organized interest alongside commercial capital. The cause of the small master, on the other hand, so far as his share in organization was concerned, suffered in most cases irreparable defeat, for the simple reason that the greater part of industrial capital was passing out of his hands to assume larger forms in the hands of a new class of manufacturers, who might still be traders to some extent, but whose principal function it was to be employers and organizers of labour.
