Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1867-05-14

catalogue Of edibles. What we wear
has advanced likewise In an equal
or greater degree, be It covering
for the head, the body or the
feet, and be the material leather, cot
ton, linen, or wool. The housing Of our
bodies from the incLemencies Of the
weather has increased in expensiveness
in an equal ratio with the materials for
their warmth or their repair. Building
materials, and the tools used in their
preparation, have doubled in value dur
ing the same period, Iron, infinite in
the number and variety Of its uses, has
almost exactly doubled. Laths and
lime have more than doubled. Lumber
in every shape has experienced an i'm
mems advance; and so on through the
list. The success of the strikes will con-
tinUe and advance the present high prices
for all these necessaries Of life.
Before the strikes began trade was
already dull. Many . firm, prudent and
well-esta5liShed, found a balance against
them at the end of their last years BUSH
ness, apd every such firm throughout
the COMPLY has entered upon the pres
ent years business with excessive eau
ton, small orders, few risks, and short
time sales. This temper in our mercan-
tile classes is Of itself almost sufficient to
produce the partial paralysis which we
are now experiencing. But the causes !
which bred such g prudent temper in
them-the fluctuations OF the currency, |
the high prices and the uncertainty az
20 their COMMUNICATIVE seemed to
establish this partial paralysis as the
habitual condition of the trading class,
which Is exceedingly large and among
the most enterprising in the community.
The success of the strikes will make re-
covery from this paralysis more diff
cult.
Business enterprises Of every descrip-
tion-the investing Of capital in anything
new, whether the building of a new
house ia Fiftieth street, or the establish
ing IF q new steamship line, or the dig
ging Of a new gold mine in Montana
have languished for the same and similar
reasons. New York, for example, is
Over-crOwded. But small provision has
been made during the last seven years,
or is making now, for the accomnaOds-
ton Of this surplus population. Success
ful strikes will tend to paraIyze what
enterprise still survives.
What these demands OF labor at bot
tom signify, who can doubt ? They sig
nifty hat the national debt and its at
tendant taxes begin at last to grind the
faces Of the poor, as well as to empty
TX b1%h1@ VI hAS NEAA~Ag-AOa Jul Z
years of war, hundreds Of thousands of
men slaughtered, millions, billions of
treasure spent like gunpOwder which is
blown into the air and seen no more ;
can these things be and no one suffer
save those who are killed and those I
who mourn? These strikes are
the sWOrkhR-man's cry Of distress.
Once the United States was the
working-man's harvest field. Here
he had high wages, plenty of work,
andAsl the means of living cheap. He
cOulN educate his children easily, feed
them and elothe them well, and lay up
against a rainy day out of the surplus Of
his earnings. Now he a barely support
himself and his family, and the most
pinching economy viii hardly provide
against sickness or for the feeding of a
new mouth. As for the luXuries in
which he once could indulge-the excur-
sion, the new dress, the hospitality they
are rs impossible to him As = house
on Fifth n These strikes, we
repeat, are the wOTking-man's cry Of dis
tress /, they are his dumb protest, SO 10
speak, against that sectional party call
ing itself to-day with sublime effront-
~, a " uniOnn party, which assisted and
spurred the hot-heads Of the south to
bring on the war against the same men
who prolonged it and squandered double
its needful cost; against the same men
and the same paTty-the I" uniOn' party,
forsooth-who for two years Of peace
have defeated all the victories Of war,
and who now insult the north with the
prostrati0n of all its industries, and the
south with the humiliation of a submis-
sion to military despOtism, as the me-
cessaTyh conditions of reconstruction.
That is what these labor strikes signify:
and he must have a heart of stone who
who can hear without infinite pain and
sympathy this cry of distress wrung
from the men who have no language but
this, and no remedy but this, for the
wrongs and the distress they endure.
But the ~guDpOwder blown into air and
the blood that makes green the Virginia
hillsides must all De paid for, to the ut
termOst fsFthing. Evil would cease to
be that which 1t is, if it did not entail its
.iaRaFi tanee of suffering. War would be
no such calamity as it is, were the sor-
row all ended when the peace bells ring.
No class can now hope 10 escape the bur
dens Of war. They are alOad which will
not stay shifted any more tho-
the weight Of the atmosphere will.
Shut il out of the door and it
comes in By the windows; q long
road ending at q. pin-hOie is as shdRt
as the shortest, to this universal press
ure. And so it is with the pressure of a
gigantic national debt. Should the
strikers carry their point and put Up the
wages OF labor, fewer ships win be
launched, fewer houses will be built.
fewer houses painted, less iron cast, less
work Of every sort viii be done st the
price and, consumption thus +
cuFtailed, markets will be depressed ire
afatfhfu aauffaIfeta fndfupouaI 70 trrvocA
in new enterprises, and the price of Ia !
Dor will thus be reduced, BY this IN
forced combination Of every other inter-
to a level with the ability and the
willingness of those who employ labor
to pay for it. /,
The eight hour law agitation and the (,
for higher wages fOr ten hours, :
labor, are One and the same thing, aad :
in the present condition of things will
be equally f~ruitless OF any good result.
Business which is done at a loss now, !
cannot bear higher wages and larger
losses. The striking mechanics will yet I
iearn-fOr experience viii be their cruel I
teacheT-ChGG, even If they succeed ia :
their strikes, they fail in their pur- !
pose. Prices must go down in er- I
der to mitigate their own suffer- Z
in the least, to give life or prosper
Ity to %prOductioD or enterprise Of any I
sort, or to tender possible competition :
with the enterprise of other countries {
and nothing would so soon compel a fall
n prices as lower wages for work. Every !
iOliar thus yielded would come back 10
with usury, for the purchasing I
power of the lower wages would, after 3 l
of prices, much more than equal the
purchasing power of the wage which
hey demand, in the absence Of that fall
IF prices which their strikes hinder. :
Al iRmense and unmanageable Nal :
ionsl Debt, compelling excessive taxa :
jon and adding enormously to the cost :
# articles imported and to the manufae-
prices for these produced by him /
lad protected by legislation, and this
iebt evidenced by an immensely depre- Il
paper currency, at first creates I
prices for work and a hollow pros
,erity Of imitation, but ends in pressing :
With crushing weight on the laboring :
lasses. These cannot long escape dis
ress, when an Ersdeemable currency Of
mali notes expels from circulation the v
mail silver coin, and rag-money takes :
place ia all pockets of that which has "
intrinsic value. What is lost by the
appreciation Of the paper falls on some
'ody. For every fortune made by spec
in stocks n coin, by means of {
fluctuations in prices, there is an exact
~quivalent in losses, Somewhere. .
The annual expenses OF mis-eoyern- (
nent ave reached the frightful sum of
hundred and eighty millions Of dot \
ars. While one hundred thousand per-
ons In South Carolina have not tasted
neat in thirty days, a~rspaclous tyranny z
as collected q tribute of three cents on
very pound Of cotton and forty cents on /
very pound Of tobacco raised in the s
.outh, and thus diminished to the same Vi
xtent the consumption by the people g
+ The South of the imports and manu- al