The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1851-07-31
To- To- ... No. QUESTION.

p To- To- %s%1. QUESTION
i. Iks labor a position If one will b2' '6sk dasFiv
enO0g is the open question of the age. Civiliza-
ton can do nothing more for the theory of politi-
cal government aud social order than it has already
attained, and the Church dates her latest and last
ideas, some say, say eighteen hundred years back,
and none later than the era Of the English ref
ormation. Whatever interest Of society remains
unsettled after civil and ecclesiastical institutions
have so long proved incapable of adjusting them,
must be looked to as falling within some other
department of speculation and action than these
embrace. The most advanced ideas of civil gov
eminent leave labor and capital su open field for
their bar of competition, esteemiDg all interior
and the church treasures the results of the strife
by enjoining conformity to the order and obedi-
epce to the laws Of society. Wherever civil gov
eminent or a religious establishment NEEDLES more
than this with the industrial and pecuniary affairs
of the people, it is in such fashion and to such
issues as stamp them with the name of despotism
In the worlds past history there has been no be.
nefcent legislation by either Church or State
which in any way extended to the primary rela-
tions of labor and health 50 as to regulate their
mutual play and power upon each other. The old
time Governments either introduced and authoriz-
ed the multiform slaveries of labor, or confirmed
them wherever they found them.
Democracy and Professionalism have but one
notion about this, and that is, let IL alone Every
drop Of blood shed fec hSRsa sghsn sRsfa aJA
principle, and the established formula of freedom
is, that is the best Government which governs
least" Democracy steers by this starlight through
the deep, and Churcbianity understands her duty
to require " obedience to the powers that be, and
conservation of things as they are" Faith and
morals, exclusively, fall within her accepted off.
ces, and, though opinion and duty might rule and
order evy interest Of life, the first IT, in practice
restricted to subjects wholly metaphysical, and
the latter in fact, comes TO be only endorsement
and assurance Of the actual business conditions Of
society
II civil government thus excludes the Labor
Question from its programme, and the Church
oracles answer "Amen 10 every point in the
States liturgy, it must depend for settlement upon
some science not yet canonical, and some system
not provided in the Constitution. 1t needssR-he
treated free subject, and must be decided with
out help from the authorities
And it is " the order of the dsy,n actually. In
dustrial Congresses are meeting regularly now in
our own country, North and South in Georgia a,
well as at Albany and State legislation, here and
there going far in prescriptions as it is pushec
by opinion among the constituency but no com
plete or consistent policy reigns in council. Tn,
socialism of Europe, whatever else it seems to en-
brace and involve, means nothing else and news
paper statistics and philosophy bring it up in
thousand forms every day.
We have said that it is THE opsi question of thu
times, and our present reflections are only to thi
point.
We are not saying that current legislation ha
no relation to policies which concern and contro
labor. Tariffs and taxes treaties and constitu
tons, laws of Inheritance and assurances of veset
rights, with the whole system of corporation an,
bank capital aud interest upon money, all, il
their several ways, turn upon II all the force whcl
they derive from II but we are saying that tn
Interests of labor, primarily and independent,
considered, enter into no system Of civil sdminis
traton, and the subjects of speculation only il
that sense Of the word which makes the auriferou
quartz matter of science to the gold digger, an,
70 the same end.
Political economists talk about it more than
| anything else, and none more than the slsvehold
err Of the South, and very few from any more lib
eral point Of observation than he. A couple o
articles in the Mem York Tribune, both in eItract
and editorial, will illustrate. A paragraph from
the London Times, occupied with the startling de
crease in the population of Ireland in the last ter
years, exposes the philosophy Of our subject 40
cording TO the system accepted by the men o
trade. Half a million Of Irish people die of fam
inc and million emigrate exclusive Of the nat
ural incrcasel in ten years. The first inference
drawn is that the population was actually in ex
cess - that the country was overcrowded with
people, and that they persisted or were extruded
by the operation Of natural and inevitable causes
The Times states II thus {" For q whole genera
ton, man has been drug IN this country, and pop
ulcfion a masdaeep The startling waste Of lite
which the last census indicates is offered as the
Providential remedy, and II is asked Why should
not the population Of Ireland be reduced, say, to
four or FIVE Millions 2" from eight, at which il
stood in is4o) Should this happen, III musl
greatly increase ihe palne Of labor and the appreci
alton Of the lsbOrer throughout these isleso The
starving cheapuess Of labor is sscribed to the
competition Of an Over.supply Of laborers; and
the improvement and power Of the country ID
credited 10 the same cause With these inhu.
man and even blasphsmOus fslsities, We are con.
cerned now only to show the brutal blindness Of
the installed authorities upon one point We
have the conclusion In the following sentence
"Will there not be change and beginning Of
changes when our great reservoirs Of human L.
Dor begin to fall short; when every employer Of
the people, from the authorities at the Horse