"The Housing Question is also worthy of attention. Trade unionism should require the State to erect buildings to be let at a sum which would cover cost of construction and maintenance alone. This would give them a stationary rent, and when locked out by their employers, they, as unemployed workers, would not be so liable to be turned into the street.
"The workers, unconscious of economic development, unfortunately side with one political party or the other, not seeing that the one must inevitably be as antagonistic to their interests as the other. Tory and Liberal politically represent two classes, who divide the spoils between them. One is connected by tradition with the soil, the other with commerce. When they have a quarrel, it is as between kites and crows for the possession of prey. To assert that a Tory is better than a Liberal, or a Liberal better than a Tory, is like affirming that one exploiter is less a thief than another. Until trade unionists form themselves into an independent party, there can politically be no common agreement between them and Socialists, because, while they support the capitalist class they are placing power into the hands of the exploiting class, who is the common enemy. Co-operation between Socialists and trade unionists should be adopted whenever possible, and, when occasion offers, an alliance should be entered into for common purposes. In America a large section of trade unionists have already recognised that the class war is inevitable under the present system of exploitation, and they have entered into an active alliance with the Socialist party. It is to be hoped that the trade unions of Great Britain will ere long see their way to follow the example set by their American brethren in the United States."[404]
Another writer urged: "Is it not time that we combined and strove for something higher, wider, and more far-reaching? Let the trade unionists unite, combine, federate; not for constantly squabbling with the capitalist over the spoil which the workers alone create, but to secure for the latter, organised, the control of their own tools and raw materials--of the mines, the railways, the factories, the shipping, the land--of all those things which only have value through their labour. Let the co-operators co-operate with each other, with trade unionists, and Social Democrats for the same object. Let us all agitate, educate, and organise to form the workers of the world into a gigantic Trade Union, an International Co-operation, a Social-Democratic Commonwealth."[405]