The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-04-10

represented by the Legislature of Pennsyl- /
vania. These corporations claim. and what |
is more they have been Suffered TO exercise,
the right TO fix their relations both with the
persons whom they employ and with the per-
sons who employ them, by the standard !
of their own sweet will alone iStet
prordtt0ne VOluntas is equally the
explanation they vouchsafe of their
tariff sof wages in the mines and their
tariff of freights upon the roads. It is true
that clause in the charter of each of them
forbids il to charge more than q fixed sum
per mile per ton in freight upon coal. This
rate gives them in every case an ample
profit. But the clause which fixes it has been
rendered nugatory by the decision of
Pennsylvania judge. This magistrate, who
could not find God in the Constitution of
the United States and agitated to put him
there, had no difficulty in finding Mammon
in the cluster of Pennsylvanian mono
poly and deciding to Keep him there aud to
exalt him. BY his decision and Legislative
inaction the state of affairs has been brought
about which we have seen. BY a simple
union of three great mining and carrying
corporations the production of coal in all
mines could be stopped, as it has been
stopped, and the price of coal in all markets
put up, as it has been put up, to limit
which to the poorest class of consumers
means terrible suffering. BY virtually stop
q strike. BY putting up the freights upon
their several roads they made the strike
universal, since their action forced the
smaller operators not In their ring to stop
work, and prevented the miners who
are still at work from remaining in
condition to supply aid and comfort to
the miners who were already on strike As
last resort against this oppression, which,
considering its motive, its conduct the man
N n wi Vvaq ms ada ha
number and character of the sufferers by it,
| it is a temperate expression to call infamous,
| the Legislature was appealed to. The Legis-
lature has responded by a measure which is
not only denial of justice, but derision
and mockery of justice. What was left
for rude men with savage instincts,
| and arms in their hands, who
had looked forward to this as the only
hope of peaceable redress? To despair and
die quietly was the bidding of philosophy.
| But the miners are no more philosophers than
the Indians of the plains. Nhey felt them
selves wronged and though it was not in
their power to right their wrongs, it was in
their power to inhict some part of what they
| suffered upon the men at whose hands they
had suffered it. This, with the vindictive-
ness of unregenerate man, and with a coarse
ness and brutality peculiar to ignorant man,
is what they have done. Their conduct is
indefensible, and society must interfere to
put them down and punish them. But the
criminality of their conduct ought not to
| blind society to the fact that the real blame
of the quarrel is not upon their shoulders,
and that the real and permanent danger to
society is from INSCRIPTIONS use of the
enormous, overshadowing, and corrupt power
| of great corporations, and not from spas
modic outbreak on the part of few hundreds
| of riotous miners
|
From the Pail Mall Gazette.
The persons who of late have taken the
gloomiest view of the future of France are
those who have made up their minds that she
| is reserved for q destiny closely resembling
that of Spain. What, then, are the national
characteristics which have given its complex
ion to the miserable political history of the
Spain of our days? They are, first of all, an
extremely Il-educated population, divided
into the slaves of superstition and the dupes
of the newest and crudest of modern social
and political theories. Next, there is a
whole cluster of pretenders to the throne
competing with the vague aspirations of a
number of persons who give to their dreams
the name of democracy or republic. Then
there is an utterly demoralized army, con-
scious of military imbecility and ashamed
of it, but consoling itself to a certain
extent by sense of political Importance in
its own country, and accustomed to be
called in to help one side or other in civil
disputes. Lastly, there as vast amount of
national self-complacency, founded on an un-
questionably glorious history, but just serv-
ing to disguise the realities of the present and
to keep down the sobriety of temper through
which alone the cure for existing evils could
be discovered and provided. Is France
really free from any one of these political in
firmities? Some of them are more con-
spicuous in France than in Spain, few are
less distinct; some are of old date, while
others are the result of the recent caIamities
But which of them is absolutely wanting? Is
it then really true that the future of France
is to be future of pronunciamentos? Is a
riotous mob to share the Government with
the fractions of a soldiery faithess to its mill
tsry honor? 1t would be idle to deny that,
upon all discernible probabilities, these
questions must be answered in the afirma-
tive, and that there is little which points in
the opposite direction except the rarity of
perfect anslogies between the political con-
dition of any two communities.
We have very little doubt of the ultimate
suppression of the insurrection in Paris.
There is in the last resort that power to bring
to bear on it which the Journal des DebGts
names with the deepest shame, but vet names
the victorious German army. But the facts
remain that the new Government has at the
very outset to rely on military force, and that
the force first used has proved faithless to its
colors. The French army is evidently des-
tined TO be the stay of whatever civil power is
established in France, and the French army
is in a condition of spirit and morality which
is wholly new in its history. 1t is difficult to
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