The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1878-05-12
LaborS Rights.

out of the inequality in wealth which
characterizes and always has characterized
every society. We do not believe that this
commotion is likely to continue upon as
exaggerated scale as the present. There
are circumstances of an abnormal character
which give the problem an unnatural i'm
portance just now but which must coon
pass away. The panic of '73, followed by
a business stagnation of four or FIVE years,
has driven labor to misery and almost to
despair. But flush times will come again,
as they have come after such crises,
and the soreness of the issue will be no
longer felt. Laborers will be kept busy
and paid well, debt ard starvation will
disappear, discontent will slink back into
it's old quarters of cutlawry, and newspa
peIdom will for the time forget the topic
which is now eminenty the question of the
day.
Yet the seeds have been Gown, in fact
they are inherent in society. They are the
seeds of an ulcer, of a cancer. Sometimes
there is more pain and Inflammation and
fever, sometimes lees, but the disease is
always there, always gradually growing,
w Dcu RItdL ueIlOQ vi
stagnation comes, the disease will be
worse than it is this time, unless in the
meanwhile some remedy or palliative be
found. For there are palliatives and there
is a remedy for this moral disease. The dis
ease Is what we call ishness-selfshne
on both sides Of the con f1ict. The only cure
for this is the grace of God, bat the pallia-
tiuea in bn nd Of
Society can make laws to check the inhu-
manity of selfshness, but this class of
Legislation has been very much neglected.
The selfshness of capital grasps at all the
profits it can wiring from hired labor and
would leave it to starve when no longer
needed. But is that just 7 Are there no
obligations of farther reaching character
between the two classes, employers and
employed f-capitalists and laborers7 We
insist that there are such obligations, per-
manent and sacred. The laborer who works
upon his own farm is rot ono of the class of
the employed, as we nee the word. The
employed are those laborers who have no
material of their own whereon to work, but
hold themselves ready to work for others
who will furnish the material. They have
no ownerahip in the field, the house, the
vessel, the machinery, the shoes, the cali
co, upon which their labor is being exerted.
Consequently they cannot labor when they
will, as those can who work for themselves.
They are dependent on proprietors or mas
ters for the opportunity to labor. If they
cannot get it, they must starve-tbey and
their children.
Now, we say that proprietors or masters
are 10 equity bouEd to provide work for this
claes Of men. 1t is class that they them
selves have created and which they abso-
lutely need. No man would adopt the trade
| of hired laborer without the expectation of
always finding sufficient work. On the
other hand, there is an implied promise on
the part of the employer class to give such
man work if he adopts that trade, !0r they
know his expectation and his necessity.
We may then conclude that there is an
implied contract between employers and
lSboreEs that, if men will devote themsclve es
to the life of hired servants, they shall
always frd work enough to support them.
1t 10 certain that, if capitalists and
proprietors could get labor to carry on
their factories and vjtalize their capital
only on condition of always providing
employment for their laborcrs, they would
not hesitate to accept tEc condition.
1t seems to US perfectly clear that if the
country needs and desires to have class
of men who subsist by their daily labor as
birsd workmen, that class ought to be
assured OF euch subsistence. The very
calling which they are invited to embrace
implies an Absence of capital on their part
and total dependence on employment
for the means of support. 1t would be
inhumRn to encourage them to adopt kind
of voluntary servitude without securing to
them the protection Inherent in every
| system of servitude.
These rights and obligations are, of
course, more or lees indefinable and hard
to fix accurately, but, though strict justice
hn Of