At the same dinner Sir Henry Fowler declared that the
cloud which darkened the commercial horizon was " the relationship between capital and labour." " There was an absolute identity of interest between capital and labour. They could not carry on business as manufacturers except by a combination of capital and labour, and nothing could be more suicidal than strife between these elements. There could not in this conflict be conquest. Let them remember that capital could never conquer labour and that labour could never conquer capital. The difficulty arose as to the respective shares of the product. There was no real severance of interest. The labouring man had no capital but his labour, and he was entitled to bring his labour into the beat market. The effect of a conflict between capital and labour was an enormous injury to both sides and to the best interests of the country. These two great powers must refer their disputes to arbitra- tion." That is all excellent sense; but, unfortunately, it is far easier to find a verbal formula to express the true relations of labour and capital than to get A B and C D out of an embittered quarrel in which the amour-proprc of each is hotly involved.
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