Can strikes really improve the condition of the masses?

The question—the very serious and practical question raised in Mr. Johnston's late interesting paper is this—Can the toiling masses really improve their condition by these incessant and unhappy Strikes, or are they only beating their hands against the iron bars of inexorable Economic Law? For instance, the question is not whether if all nominal incomes were raised real incomes would be raised too, and that if everybody had twice as many shillings, other things being unaltered, everybody would be twice as well off.
Briefly summarised, the proposition placed before us in Mr. Johnston's paper is that strikes, if carried out on any extended scale, must fail, because a mere increase of nominal wages, unaccompanied by any increase in production, cannot really improve the condition of the masses. The aim of this paper is to show that it can.
In all industries increased wages will signify increased price of goods. But these goods again are of two kinds, those which the masses consume, and those which they do not.
The question before us is simply whether strikes when they are successful can really improve the labourer's position. I have tried to show that they can. It is for the present company to decide for themselves Whether I have succeeded.