Whatever notion there is, there is no notion whatever of protecting the
employed person _from his employer_. Much less is there any idea of his
ever being anywhere except under an employer. Whatever the Capitalist
wants he gets. He may have the sense to want washed and well-fed
labourers rather than dirty and feeble ones, and the restrictions may
happen to exist in the form of laws from the Kaiser or by-laws from the
Krupps. But the Kaiser will not offend the Krupps, and the Krupps will
not offend the Kaiser. Laws of this kind, then, do not attempt to protect
workmen against the injustice of the Capitalist as the English Trade
Unions did. They do not attempt to protect workmen against the injustice
of the State as the mediaeval guilds did. Obviously they cannot protect
workmen against the foreign invader--especially when (as in the comic case
of Belgium) they are imposed by the foreign invader. What then are such
laws designed to protect workmen against? Tigers, rattlesnakes, hyenas?
Oh, my young friends; oh, my Christian brethren, they are designed to
protect this poor person from something which to those of established rank
is more horrid than many hyenas. They are designed, my friends, to
protect a man from himself--from something that the masters of the earth
fear more than famine or war, and which Prussia especially fears as
everything fears that which would certainly be its end.
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