The Sun.
London, England, 1869-08-30 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, AUGUST 30, 1869.

3.IIsCEZZ4NEOI7S NETVS.

THE rNTERNATIONAL BOAT RACE.

The contest between the Oxford and Harvard
crews has in one respect puzzled the British public
sorely. The Harvard four made an excellent fight
In spite of their disadvantages, of which bad
steering was one, and yet they were trained on milk,
vegetables, and fruit. They certainly used no alcohol,
rind it is reported on all hands that they ate little meat.
The fact is, as has been often pointed out, a great por-
tion of the human race exists very comfortably
without the assistance of either animal food or
stimulants. " A Turkish hamal would take an
English porter and his load on his shoulders, and
walk away comfortably, and he never drinks any.
•thing stronger than coffee; while a Highland keeper,
'ared upon milk and oatmeal will walk most other
nen down."

German girl is the Empress of the French, the wife cf
Louis Napoleon."
The shares of the French Atlantic Cable Com-
pany continue to fall, as the people discover (what a
little acquaintance with the American character would
have taught them) that they would have no chance of
competing on equal terms with the Anglo-American
Company, and things being equal, that the business will
remain with the latter. Few names aro more obnoxious
in America than those of the promoters of the French
Company, few names are more cherished than that of
Cyrus W. Field, the man who risked all his fortune,
his reputation, almost his life, on the design he so ener-
getically carried to a success. There are no people more
loyal or more consistent and long-enduring in their
dislike than the Americans in a national way, and the
reason is worth noting. A genuine Republic has the
peel to for its sovereign, those who benefit the nation
place the sovereign under an obligation, and that sove-
reign being the people, if they be truly imbued with a
sense of their position, they feel and express a na-
tional indebtedness to him who has served them„
which they take every opportunity of repaying.
If they do that, they may be relied on with certainty to
do the reverse. hence the weight the nation attaches to
individual action, which is so often a matter of surprise to
the English. Though a nation may never award or punish
as speedily and liberally as a monarch, yet, if each, who
make up the Republic, feels himself bound to help, in his
small way, when the opportunity ca-rs, to reward or pun-
ish, the influence will be more widespread and lasting, if
not so directly experienced, The French Company are
certain to reap some of the harvest sown by two of the
most conspicuous names connected with the undertaking ;
and however sentimental this may be considered in Eng-
land, the shareholders will find in the long run that thole
is something more substantial than sentiment in it. Mas-
sachusetts is about the last State whereon they should
have landed the line viewed from this point, for the names
would not have had the same injurious influence in the
Southern States.

7.11 E NATIONAL LABOUR CONGRESS.

It is unfortunate for the cause of the working-
men generally that National Labour Conventions
will diverge from the discussion of the subject they
assemble to debate, and on which they are entitled
to be listened to with attention, into difficult eso-
nomic problems, wherein they flounder, making
themselves ridiculous. The operators cf the French
Cable have taken the trouble to despatch a message
from New York, stating that the delegates to the
Labour Congress had assembled at Philadelphia,
and had adopted a platform, regardless of party
considerations. They denounce the National Bank-
ing system, they favour the payment of State debts,
and all debts, both public and private, in currency.
Not only do they propose to tax the Bonds, but to
reduce the rate of interest on the National Debt,
declaring that the present financial system was
adopted as a necessity during the war, but is now
perpetuated in the interest of the bondholder ex-
' tortionists to the detriment of the producing,
classes. It is a pity that they left out a very mate-
rial plank, the redistribution of property There
is no good reason why such bloated capitalists as A.
T. STEWART or VANDERBILT should not have their
wealth confiscated, and distributed among the people
as well as the bondholders. Indeed there are at
least two sound arguments, which go to prove that
sort of "grab" to be preferable to the other. The first
is that the nation does not owe these " bloated
capitalists" anything. They cannot come whin-
in2 with the old story that the money they lent in
the nation's extremity was that which carried it
successfully through a desperate peril. The United
States not owing them anything, seizing what
they possess would only make them common robbers,
not, as in the other case, adding vile ingratitude to
audacious theft. The second is an economic truth,
and one that might be as usefully applied to the
biped, man, as to the busy bee. Men like STEWART
or VANDERBILT are essentially honey-makers ; they
can no mere help making honey than can the bee—
and why should not they also be smoked out at inter-
vals, their combs removed, and themselves turned
adrift to make more. This is the way to deal with
bloated capitalists of the ROTHSCHILD class; and Eas-
stern Monarchs from time immemorial, as well as
Europe during the Middle Ages, understood this
economic principle, and frequently acted on it.
A Labour Convention might decide how a PEA-
BODY ought to be dealt with who insisted in giving
away his own money ; but we should be. much
surprised if any such Convention attained to the
liberality cf sentiment which permitted it. There
are no such thorough-going Tories as constituted
the mass of those assembled in the Philadelphia Con-
vention except it be Fenian delegates, meaning by To-
ryism the narrowing and checking of the national in-
terests and progress to what the delegates consi-
Cer to be for the benefit of their class. The most
bigoted of lords among the Peers of England never
venture to enunciate the grossly dishonest and
selfish doctrines so frequently heard in Labour
Convealions, though the aristocrat is supposed to
be a benighted Tory, while the working men ima-
gine themselves to be in the van of progress.
The wording of these resolutions, epitomised as
we have received them, is almost too good to be
true, nor without some experience of what such
a Congress can resolve on would they be readily
credited. The present financial system was not
adopted as a necessity during the war ; for the
financial system then in vogue was to meet the heavy
expenditure by enormous loans, certainly a very
great necessity while the strife lasted. It was not till
the close of the struggle that the second necessity
arose, which the working men now consider to be
no necessity whatever—to repay the money they
got during the first necessity they are good enough
to admit. The case would be somewhat similar if
a delegate through accident, through great stagna-
tion in trade, or any other unavoidable cause, was
reduced with his family to a point of starvation,
and found a neighbouring storekeeper willing to
supply him on credit with everything he required,
believing that he would eventually surmount his
difficulties. This the delegate does; becoming more
prosperous than ever, forgetting alas! with his troubles
during the hard time, the generous confidence of the
storekeeper which had enabled him satisfactorily to
get through them. What would he think of himself
or of his neighbour who under such circumstances
said to his creditor that, pressed by necessity, ha
had been compelled to adopt the system of get-
ting large supplies from him on credit, but that
the necessity being passed he cannot suppose that
a workman is now going to reduce the wages
that he laboriously earns in the interest of a store-
keeping extortioner like him. Yet this is pre-
cisely the morality enunciated by the National
Labour Congress assembled at Philadelphia. What
advantage do these delegates expect to derive from
this stupid talk? It is their class, more than the
capitalist class, whose savings are really invested in
the National Bonds. The great merchants and
brokers, and bankers of the commercial centres use
them freely as a means to equalize exchange, and
as collaterals whereon to bsrrow, being handy in
their business, as is currency or other good nego-
ciable paper ; but these men would quickly drop
them in case the platform of the National Labour
Congres showed signs of prevailing, and it is not
in the hands of the " bloated capitalist" that the
bonds, under such circumstances, would eventually
be found. Many in the Convention may have been
unaware that all the greenbacks they had paid into
their Savings' Banks, which they supposed to he
hoarded in a mysteriously productive state within
the Banks' vaults, had been converted into United
States Bonds, and if they succeeded in financing them
out of existence, that they would get but a " Flemish
account" of their greenbacks, when they called for
them at the Savings' Banks. A photographer ought
then to be there to pourtray the countenance of
the working man on discovering that all the while
he was himself a " bloated bondholder," and had,
under the impression that he was bitting at the
capitalist, been employed in getting rid of his
own sa.vinv. The delegates may depend upon this,
that there is no such effective way of capturing a
pile as by confiscating the accumulations of such
busy bees as the STEWAIITS and VANDERBILTS. The
bondholder is but a myth, while they are a reality.
The Working-man's ideas on Finance are not of
that encouraging nature, either as regards good
sense or morality, which would lead us to expect
profound wisdom in dealing with intricate ques-
tions on the relations between labour and capital.
That they have good cause for agitation, we firmly
believe, for the tendency of civilization is to add to
the disparity between the rich and the poor, and
nothing but combination can prevent the work-
ing nama from pinking into the fiIAYQ of the capi- j

talist. His difficulty is sufficiently great to steer
a fair course among the shoals that surround
him, without recklessly encountering the breakers
of finance. On either side, if he does not take care,
he may become little better than a bondsman, on the
one hand to the employer, while the other is more
dangerouSstill, to the leaders of the organization into
which he is enrolled as a member. The struggle be-
tweenlabour and. c apital is made fiercer by the changes
which must constantly occur in the value of an irre-
deemable paper currency. Wages rated on a metal
basis assume another value with gold at 50 pre-
mium ; and the workman must be disagreeably af-
fected by the low purchasing power even of the in-
creased number of dollars he receives. Hence,
while gold is rising, he will constantly be on strike.
Suppose circumstances change, that the value of the
greenback approximates to par, and the nation,
through a painful process, struggles back to its old
specie basis. The contention then will be reversed,
employers combining to reduce wages which they
cannot pay and profitably carry on their business,
while it would be manifestly unfar for the labour-
ing men to expect the same number of dollars of a
much higher purchasing power, as when those dol-
lars were of a greatly depreciated value. This will be
the next phase of the struggle, and then capital will
bring the Chinese to its aid. In view of this strenu-
ous efforts are being made by the working classes to
exclude the Celestials, and it is probable that it will
be around the Chinese standard that the battle will
rage. Capitalists are fortunate in the timely arri-
val of this ally, for when the turning point of the
contest comes, as it has already—that is, when la-
bour has struggled up to its highest in the number of
dollars received, following currency in its greatest in-
flation—with the collapse of that inflation through
which the dollar will receive an enhanced value, the
workman is on the vantage ground, from which the em-
ployer has to force him to descend, whereas it was the
employer who was on the vantage ground when the
case was the reverse. Thus the working man, in the
new order of battle, will be found entrenched and in
possession, and the employer, instead of being the
attacked, must become the attacking party. The
Chinaman will be useful not only as a labourer,
but as a feint. He will be flourished incessantly
in the face of the working men, and unless we
mistake he will soon have the same effect on a Trade
Union as a red rag on a bull. The true policy, if
men could see it, is for both parties to meet the
changing circumstances as far as practicable ; the
employers to pay rates on which their workmen can
live with some degree of comfort, and for workmen
not to strike when the employer pays all he can, so
as to leave him a narrow margin of profit. But
this is very fine in theory, which we know cannot
be worked out into practice, except through grey
blundering, loss, and suffering, till, in the end, the
economic laws each attempts in his own interest to
violate, force on both, some such result.