The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1871-09-17
The Labor Question.

| The Labor Question.
In Europe this is the grand question OF
the day. The international, Association Of
Workingmen is but striking presentation
of the problem on scale which cannot fail
to arrest attention. We may here remark
that this is almost exclusively movement
of Protestant countries, Germany taking
the lead in activity, England in extent.
In this latter country, indeed, the question
is becoming very grave one. Agrarian-
ism there stalks upon the very heels OF
Aristocracy. Every year the mob grows
holder and more defiant, strikes become
more numerous, and pauperism increases
America, it is true, was ranked as Pro-
testant country, and cited AZ a marvellous
instance Of what mere equity in legislation
could do for the laboring classes. 1t was
their Elysium. There could be no oppres-
sion of the poor, NO tyranny of the rich,
no combination of capital or despotic con-
troll Of labor, where there was free ballot
| and where privileged classes aud entail
laws were unknown.
In q recent editorial of the London Iymes
that view is distinctly aud emphatically
| 1t will be seen that the National Labor
Union (of the United States), as it 10 called,
| is becoming moro ambitious with advancing
years. At first its leading members disclsimed
OF Tsey %
an announcement that they propose to remodel
| the American Government, as to bring it
into accord with the principles professed by its
md nj m nj
starting candidates of their own for the Presi-
dency and Vice Presidency in 1872, who shall
assist in establishing American society on its
true basis.
We eau well understand the reluctance that
many have felt to admit the existence of social
evils in the New World. They have fsttered
cation. no standing army, no hereditary honors,
no entails, and the ballot, all the disorders of
society would disappear. The United States
the workmen Of the Union assure us that the
diminishing among them. although the
beneath the product of human effort, the mass
of the people have no supply beyond their
daily wants, and are compelled in sickness and
The report Of the Census Commissioners
of the State of Massachusetts, shows that pow
erty and dependence prevail in that favored
land of the same kind almost to the same ex-
Political reforms and must be intellectual to
regenerate the world. They may assist in mproy
ingit; they may clear the way for the operation
more be added, the freest trade, the widest
suffrage, the closest ballot, the most thorough
going abolition of privileges viii! not avail to
prevent the recurrence of old evils, as at first.
The remedies proposed by the National Labor
Union of the States for arresting the pauper- |
plorably unwise, but we must be somewhat
checked in tho criticism we might otherwise !
pass upon them by the recollection of how lit |
tie we have done to show them q better way. |
We are content to take things as We find them, |
doing q little now and then to palliate the
worst circumstances of English social life,
effects of our benevolence, and are satisfied, |
on the whole. if We lea-e society no worse
than at the beginning. In America the phe- !
nomenon of o pauperized class, though indis-
putably existing and tending to increase
in magnitude, is q novelty which alarms the
older citizens of the Union, and has excited
We have noticed. Their proposals are wild,
but their motives are praiseworthy, aud might
induce us to reconsider our own attitude with
respect to the question which disturbs them,
and to make an effort to remove, or at least to
palliate, the worst blot upon our social system.
We agree thoroughly with the Times,
that political reforms cannot regenerate the
world; it requires religion to do that; but
we do not rank popular suffrage and the
impotent an agency as they seem to be in
the estimation of that journal. A society
without religion is miserable failure in
deed, but its condition may be rendered !
still worse by unjust, irrational and unna-
tural restrictions placed upon it by law.
Thus, however bad the condition of our
country may become, through the real inf
deity of Professionalism which calls itself
Christian, it would be bound still more
tightly and cast into still lower depths of
poverty and misery if cursed with privileged
classes and eutailed property.
We are pleased with the unusual candor
OF the London Times in thus bearing testi-
mony to the truth Of the situation in its
own country and in ours. Verify pauper-
ism is their curse, aud rapidly becoming
ours. Truly English craftsmanship must
fain limit it's efforts to palliation of the