The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-06-26
THE FUTURE OF CAPITAL.

I1e LONDON spectator SAID, the other day,
what we must all acknowledge, melancholy
as it is, to be true, that, if the performances
of the Commune do nothing else, they will
do a great deal to secure a more persistent
and earnest attention from the public at large
for the reconciliation of labor and capital.
The rising of June, 1S4S, caused Louis Ma
poleon to provide substitute for the national
workshops, by reconstructing a large portion
of Paris at the public expense. The Fenian
risings produced the state of mind in Eng
land which at last made it possible to discs
tablish the Irish Church and to amend
the Irish land-laws. 1t is very likely
now that the bloody work in Paris will
do much towards convincing people-not
that the theories of the Commune can
or ought ever to be embodied in
legislation-butt that the fact that large bodies
of men hold such theories is a serious fact
which it will not do to slight or ignore, and
with which intelligent and philanthropic men
must make some attempt to deal. There is
nothing of which the world is at this moment
so greatly in need as peace and harmony be-
tween classes; no great advance in civilization
beyond the point we have already reached is
possible till this is brought about in some
way. Two systems of industry have been
tried thus far, the protective and the COM
petitive, and neither of them has settled or
shows any sign of settling the relations be-
tween labor and capital on satisfactory basis.
Under both, the capitalist is growing very rich
and powerful under neither is the condition
of the workingman ceasing to be precarious
and uncomfortable, and under neither does
the contrast between his condition and
that of the employer become less striking and
exasperating If we take any of the great
branches of industry which the steam engine
has called into existence-coal, iron, cotton,
and wool-we find that taking the civilized
world as a whole, while very large number
of great fortunes have been made in them by
the capitalist class, and while the habits of
that class have grown very luxurious and
nearly all the good things of life, including
political power, have largely fallen or are fall
ing to it, the condition of the working people
engaged in them has not materially changed,
or, at all events, has not improved in anything
like the same degree. Their houses are per-
haps little better, their clothes a little
| cheaper, and their savings little larger than
they used to be, but the workingman's share
of the pleasures and graces and refnements
of life, and, above all, the distance which
! separates him and his family from want, has
| not much increased within fifty years under
| either the regime of free trade or protection.
In this country the contrast between the la
| borers condition and that of the capitalist is
not so striking, or to the workingman so
| offensive, as in Europe, because, partly owing
to the state of society here, and partly to the
| natural resources of the country, the passage
from the one class to the other is easy and
constantly made; but the tendencies which
people are deploring in Europe are at work
! here, though less actively. We have our
| trades unions, labor reformers, and so on,
lust as they have in Europe, but we have also
| fertile waste lands which they have not in
Europe; and this takes the fzz and sparkle
out OF the preachings of our demagogues and
blatherskites for the present; but the waste
lands will not last always or last long, and
we are almost as much concerned as any
people in having the labor question settled
out of hand.
We do not believe, as our readers know,
that anything is likely to be done towards
this desirable contamination by legislation;
we believe liberty to be the only sound and
safe and permanent basis for industry, the
liberty to buy and sell, and make and mend,
where when, and how we please. We believe,
too, that any attempt to provide by law any
other measure of mans deserts in the social
state than the amount of his own labor, or the
value put on the product of his labor by his
fellows in free and open market, would in the
long run be destructive to civilization, or al
least to our civilization. society in which
the majority decided what l was to do, anG
how much l was to get for it, and in wha
manner should expend my earnings, might
exist, and enjoy certain kind OF prosperity
we freely admit. But it would not be
healthy society, or a society through which
humanity at large would advance. 1t would
not be a society in which human characte
would gainin strength, or foresight, or persist
ence, or in which human intellect would gain il
power or fexibility, or in which the stores o
human experience would be enriched. l
would be dull, dead, monotonous, bald, an,
barren society, fat and we'll clothed, no doubt
bat with few aims or aspirations above thos
of a settlement of beavers or prairie-dogs
We hold, therefore, that any men, or body o
men, who seek to substitute such state o