Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1879-08-15
The Black Death" and the Summers,
Strike.

More and more it is becoming ex.
dent to the historian and philosopher
that the science Of history lies far deeper
than the quarrels of kings provoked by
lust. avarice and ambition. or even than
the great polite i movements of parlia.
ments and mobiles. Perhaps it is an ex.
aSgeration. but 1t is certainly a striking
example Of this method when Prof. IS or
Ihorold Rogers, of Oxford Univ, rsity
In an article in the Princeton Re- ieu on
Labor and Wages" argues IL q. the
great plague Of 1889 in England was
social revolution on the largest scale
No event, he says. had such permanent
effects III English life as this event has
had. 1t was far more important than
the conquest by the Normans, the wars
of the Roses and the civil wars between
the Puritans and cavaliers in the st ven.
teenth century. To that event is due
the peculiar position of the English
aristocrIcy, the position Of the English
agriculturist, the poor law and the
trades union.
The black death destroyed from one.
third to one-fourth of the population.
chiefly Of the laboring classes, which
Immediately doubled the wages of the
survivors. This destroyed the profits.
and within forty years almost all land
owners gave up agriculture and leased
their land. They began also war
against the rise In wages, which was
the first Of that struggle between capital
and labor of which trades unionism is
the modern outcome. On meeting, Par.
Lament enacted stringent law pre-.
scribing that the wages should be fixed
ut the rates prevailing few years be.
fore, and inticting penalties on those
who gave and those who received wagSk
in excess of the legal rate. These Isw$
were OF course imperative, but they
were re'enacted over and over again.
and were finally repealed only in 1924,
or AS years after they were first placed
on the statute books. But although
the laws were imperative they educated
the workmen into thinking that com.
bination of laborers to raise wages must
be possible, or it would not have kept
such law in existence for nearly five
centuries, nor called forth such pas
sionate and persistent opposition. AL
most Immediately upon its repeal mod
ern trades unionism sprang INTO exis-
tence. and within few years under the
leadership of Joseph Arch, has extended
to the agricultural class. In this coun.
try there has been little or no trades
unionism, partly because of the greater
natural prosperity, partly because there
has been no attempt to regulate wages
by law. Wherever great strikes have
been attempted in tins country, like the
present strike in the Fall River cotton
mills, they can be traced to the influence
of foreign laborers, to whom they are
familiar. and in which these laborers
are experienced. If Professor Rogers
theory be true, therefore, people living
ut distance Of 5000 miles in space
aud 800 years in time are feeling the in
iluence of calamity which then swept
over our English ancestry and kinsfolk,
but which seemed ut first to bring good
fortune to those who survived by giving
them for their labor twice the amount
of wages that they received before ,SSe
plague thinned their ranks so frigN
fully.-Detr0H Free Press.