the best way to get at it; the long way may be the better, or the short
way; the direct way or the oblique way, or the purely selfish way, or the
partly selfish way; but if you ever lose sight of that end you might as
well shut up shop. That seems to be the first law of nature, as well as
the first law of business."

"Ah, we mustn't go to nature for our morality," the minister protested.

"We were not talking of morality," said the manufacturer; "we were talking
of business."

This brought the laugh on the minister, but the lawyer cut it short:
"Well, then, I don't really see why the trades-unions are not as
business-like as the syndicates in their dealings with all those outside
of themselves. Within themselves they practise an altruism of the highest
order, but it is a tribal altruism; it is like that which prompts a Sioux
to share his last mouthful with a starving Sioux, and to take the scalp of
a starving Apache. How is it with your trades-unions in Altruria?" he
asked my friend.

"We have no trades-unions in Altruria," he began.

"Happy Altruria!" cried the professor.

"We had them formerly," the Altrurian went on, "as you have them now. They
claimed, as I suppose yours do, that they were forced into existence by
the necessities of the case; that without union the working-man was unable
to meet the capitalist on anything like equal terms, or to withstand his
encroachments and oppressions. But to maintain themselves they had to
extinguish industrial liberty among the working-men themselves, and they