The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-05-25
WENDELL PHILLIPS AND THE LABOR
QUESTION.
From the N. Y. Times.


From the NJ Y. Times.
The great anti-slavery orator has found
new theme-or, perhaps, it would be fairer
to say that he has returned to an old one No
sooner is the enfranchisement of the negro
complete, than he sees in the condition of
the laboring classes the work for new or
ganization, and in the eight-hour law the OBJ
ject of fresh agitation. In the ora
ton at Boston, recently given, Wendell
Phillips exhibits, in undiminished force, his
powers of vigorous defamation and impas-
stoned rhetoric. While heartily coincding
with his general principles, and, in the main,
agreeing with many of his demands, we think
that the orator overlooks, to great extent,
the practical difficulties of the question. The
relation between capital and labor is a sub
ject which cannot be settled by Legislatures.
No one can find fault with working man
making the best possible bargain on the score
of time and wages, and as in the nature of
things it is impossible for labor to treat on
equal terms with capital unless in combina-
ton, no one can deny the necessity of united
action on the part of workmen. But while
labor is to some extent stationary, capital is
the most migratory of all the elements of
production. Not all the eloquence of Mr..
Phillips can infuse so much sentiment into
this great power as will induce it to pur-
chase labor at home at higher price than it
has been to some extent tried in England,
and the result is that Belgium and France
supply the machinery that used to come
from English workshops. The labor ques-
ton must, therefore, be looked at as an in
ternational one, and, to ensure success, its
leaders must seek q common rallying point,
by which the scattered organizations exist
ing all over the world may be united in one
invincible host. The Unionists of Europe
are becoming alive to this fact, and are at
this moment laying the foundation of cos
mopolitan association such as We have in
dicated. r
The prospect of creating power so formi-
dable may appear to bode little good to the
ultimate progress of society. Were one to
judge from the rawlings of certain socialistic
leaders of tho movement in France, the for
nation of a great labor league would GER
| tainly seem likely to be calamity to the
| human race. But one result of universal
| interchange of plans and opinions would be
| to dispel such illusions as these which are
| cherished by the European communists; and
our American workmen could perform no
| greater service in the cause of humanity than
| by showing that they can recognize, as fairly
and frankly as their spokesman did at Boston,
the true place and function of the capitalist.
| 1t is to be wished that Mr.. Phillips had in
sisted emphatically upon the necessity of
adopting some plan of adjusting trade dis
! putes by discussion or arbitration, instead of
| by the summary and wasteful process of
| strikes Capital and labor must be, to some
| extent, although we hope a constantly dimin-
| ishing extent, opposing forces; but line of
| progress is quite possible between them, as
it is in many parallel cases in society and gov
| ernment. ....#