Arkansas true Democrat., 1860-04-07
Capital and Labor.

It does not require that man should be we'll versed in political economy, to be able ro detect the fallacies in the late speech of Senator Seward, when he treats of capital and labor. In England and at the North where African slavery does not exist, 1t Is there where the conflict is going on between labor and capital. Capital is souless and united; labor is hungry and disunited. It is natural that the manufacturer should en- deavor to get work done at the lowest rates. The southern planter pays the same rates to his hands in seasons of prosperity or of diversity. At the north, during "hard times,' the wages of the laborer are reduced. MT. Stewards great error, and it was wilful one, was in stating that there was antagonism between the poor white man at the south and the slave holder- On the contrary, their mutual relations are the best and most ennobling for both par ties.
 Some day the abolitionists of the north will be taught dreadful lesson. Their freedom to their laborers is the privilege of incessant toll for pittance, or starvation. Labor often rebels. Sometimes it assumes the form of "strikes," which, if successful, end in wringing from its masters 6 small increase of wages or the reduction of four teen to twelve hours of daily toll. Some times, with rude banners on which are in- scribed such significant sentences as "bread or blood" 1t marches through the streets past the doors of the capitalists. It has been known to break open warehouses, tear down factories and even to carry the heads of its heartless masters onp bikes through the cities. Very terrible is a hungry mob.- And that terrible sight has been seen at the north more than once; at the south, never.
 The best test of the working of system is the happy condition of the people living under it. The N Q. Bee gathers the fol- lowing statistics from the message of Gov. Morgan, of New York.
 "While in twenty years, from 1891 to l9!l the population of the State increased only 6l per cent pauperism increased roc per cent In 1851 there was only one person relieved to every l2O inhabi- tants; in l84l, one to every IT. We learn from the report of the Secretary of State of New York that the entire number of paupers relieved throughout the State during the year 1858 was 26l ,l55, const tuting upon the State population of 3,500,0 900 a ratio of between and per cent, or one pauper in every l3 of the population of the Empire State thrown upon public charity during the past year"
 The increase of crime has been in still greater ratio. And this is a result of that continued and irrepressible conflict between money and work between capital and labor, that has been going on in Senator Stewards s own State for the last thirty years.
 A petition is in circulation in ever coun ty in that State praying for the passage of law prohibiting any person to purchase and hold more than 160 acres of land, or a certain number of town or city lots. The reason is that the ownership of the soil is rapidly concentrating in the hands of a few The country is being consolidated into large estates. A disastrous season forces the poor man to sell his freehold and become a tenant. From LOO freeholders in one county, in less that three years all the land was owned by 300 persons. These will gradually dwin'lle down, till it is divided into few princely estates, with tenants, free only in name, and who will become the mere vassals of the proprietors. The people see this and hence their struggles against the oppression of the capitalists.- Hence the black republican policy of na tiona' homestead law, that will drive or en- tice off their white slaves and leave the land free to the rich capitalists. If they can drive off small farmers to settle on our lands, they accomplish two things: They flood our country with northern sentiment anc northern people, and they avoid a con hict with the labor that demands support from those who have filched from it. Not between the north and south, as Mr. Sew ard says, but in the north and between the two classes there, will he find labor array ed against capital, and let him and his see to it that the issue Is not hereafter, a bloody one.