The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1849-09-15
Strike in Rnsinn-

The iourneymen taiors of Boston are on a
strike" as il is called-that is, they are combin-
ing to refuse work until their employers shall raise
their wages. 1t is part of the same old struggle
about the division Of profits between capital and
labor, which begun when the earth was turned up
by the first spade offs son of Noah for hire, under
a proprietor of land As in most cases where
concentrated capital comes into conflict with I'M
organized industry, the laborer will have to give
way, with common loss to both parties by the
struggle. The tailor suspends work to coerce the
employer into a more equitable arrangement. The
employers, funwilling to yield, can afford to wait
Their subsistence does not depend upon their daily
returns. They may live on their capital, and wait
for the necessities of the workman to force him to
come into their terms by the, pressure Of want.
Every days labor lost in the strife is much of
bread thrown away by needy mouths, and
few days soon exhausts the scanty fund The
charity and sympathy of their brethren in trade,
may protract the struggle, but the chances are
nearly all the side of the power of capital 1t is
at all times an unequal contest, and the more so
that the whole of trade can never be brought to
join in a combination to stop work altogether. In
the Boston case-and it is type of all others
large number of the journeymen have agreed with
each other to refuse the wages offered, but there
! are many observation-disclosures from selfshness, and
some from pure necessity. One class reoices at the
advantage of having less competition, another can
not stop without starving The neighboring cities
send in their workmen, and the country takes the
regular work The combined workmen therefore
see the wages they refuse to take distributed among
others, and the regular course Of their business
changed, perhaps permanently, into new channels,
| a. Il IL al, I
wait for the SILENT sure effects of distress upon
the poor to force them into submission. The strike
thus becomes totally inefficient as a means of
acknowledgement into a struggle for mischief
and ends in suffering and loss to both parties.
The laborer has lost recoverable time, which is
to him the life blood of his daily existence. The
employer has been compelled to keep his capital
/ unemployed in part, or TO consume it in living.
Thus the very fund out of which wages are paid
being wasted by the effort to obtain little better
| dividend for the abOrer-becOmes incapable of sup
plying their wants even so freely as it did before.
Such has been the lamentable history of most
strikes" They reco on the labOrer most terri
bly,, and rarely fail, for time, to aggravate the
causes of complaint in which they originated.
Yet in many of them, the sympathies of the just
and the generous are all on his side. We wish
nun suCGCsHs anu G6l that tllCAC 10
perfect yet in the social institutions which appor-
ton the rewards of labor unequally, and impose
such heavy penalties upon the efforts of the masses
| to improve their lot. With full knowledge OF
the consequences, intelligent and conscientious
men sometimes approve and encourage these COM
binations. If they do not work good to the suffer
ing parties-and they do not always iail-they un-
cover to the public eye the workings of bad sys.
tem-they lead the philanthropist and the phioso-
pher into earnest investigation of the causes and
remedies for great social evils-they force the EN-
ployer into more liberal estimate of the depen
dence of his own prosperity upon the well-beng anc
contsntsdness of the laborers, and open the way
for amelioratiOn of their condition. With no gooC
opinion of the political economy of strikes" WI
think them occasionally wholesome in their effects
and calculated to bring ultimate good out of pre-
sent suffering.