The Labor enquirer., 1883-12-08
Judge Tilford Administers Singer
to the Money Kings and
Aristocrats.
Reform or Revolution Must.
Come Within Twenty
Years.
The Lecture Delivered in the First
Congregational Church No
vember ~.

The wealth of nation, as defined
by celebrated writer on political econ
omY, consists .sof all the useful or agree
able things which possess exchangable
value" In this comprehensive sense 1t
comprises not only treasures of gold and
silver, but lands, tenements and the
countless articles of use or ornament,
which the tastes of man desire or his
necessities demand Capital includes
any property set aside or invested for the
production of other commodities The
term Labor means the toll and skill
which may be employed to produce or
enhance the value of whatever consti-
tutes wealth.
With these definitions, nov ask your
attention to the mutual relations OF
capital and labor as they exist in the
United States.
A glance at history will assist to a
clearer understanding of the relative po-
sition of these two great forces of society.
1t is an undoubted fact that until times
comparatively recent, labor has been the
slave of capital. Legally and socially the
laboring classes in every age and country
were held in subsection to the few who
possessed the wealth of the nation. In
the states of antiquity
INVOLUNTARY PERSONAL sERvITuDE
was the condition of greater portion of
their inhabitants. Throughout the
Roman empire slavery was sanctioned by
law. Not only in Italy, but in Gaul
Britain, Spain, Greece, Egypt and Syria,
wherever, indeed, the Roman power was
established, an absolute claim to tile
earnings and to the person of another
was conceded as the right of the master.
Nearly all the useful labor of the world
was performed by the seryile classes; it
was their hands that cultivated the soil,
worked the quarry or mine, woye the
cloth, built the city walls, baved the
streets and highways, and erected the
pyramids and obelisks, the temples and
shrines of religion, the triunphal arches
and columns, to commemorate the VIC
tories of the warrior class, the palaces of
the rich, and the theaters and forums of
the free citizens of the state Il
In the course of time the word
slave disappeared from the pages of
European history, but the substance OF
slavery remained. 1t continued for cen
turies after the introduction of Christi
anity, and survived among nations the
most dissimilar, in origin and character.
Whether under the designation of
serf, or vassal, or without either name,
involuntary servitude, without wages, or
paid at such rates as law might arpl-
trarily ordain, was the lot Of the majority
of the people of Europe. In England the
course of legislation illustrates how
slowly civilization has advanced towards
the amelioration of the legal conditions,
or the recognition of the rights of the
laboring classes. The Magma Charta
which is claimed as the first and noblest
declaration of the liberties of the English
nation, contains not single provision
for the protection of labor. I.
The"Statute of Laborers, penacted in the
twenty-third year of the reign of Edward
LII, was the first distinct acknowledge
mont of the existence ofisuch being
as a free laborer, and this by forcing him
to work at fixed wages, under the penalty
of Imprisonment in Jail, from which he
was released only upon finding surety
that he would enter service.
) Through a period of more than five
centuries, repeated acts of parliament
were enacted in regard to employers and
laborers, but all more or less unjust to
the latter.
It was not until A. D. 1875 that the
British legislature passed an act, when
in the language of the prime minister OF
that day, for the first time in English
history placed the employer and en-
ploye under equal laws.
The situation of the industrial classes
among the continental nations of Europe
except in the free cities of Germany
Flanders, Italy, and a few towns Of
France, was no better than that OF thelr
brethren in England. ...,E *.
THE CROWN, THE NOBILITY OR THE CHURCH
owned the soil and the wealth OF the
empire, and held the toiling millions In
hopeless bondage, under tyranny, alike
remorseless and unsparing. 1t is true
that events occurred in the progress o
the world which tended toward the
amelioration of the social and pollhca
condition of the masses.
Among these beneficent agencies We
place the introduction of fire arms, the
invention of the art Of printing, the dis
coyery of America, and the Protestan
!, reformation. Whatever had tendency
to awaken the free thought and spirit o
the people, whatever struck at the hoary
superstitions of the age, whatever, dis
tributed wealth or encouraged the free ex
change of commodities, whatever opened
new avenues of employment TO the op
pressed multitudes, tended in SOM
measure to elevate and improve the con
dition of labor. Not, however, until tn
French revolution, near the close OF IN
eighteenth century, had inaug1rated tn
grand idea of the brotherhood OF men
and the natural, inalienable right OF tn
individual man to the enjoyment Q
liberty and property, was there any de
cided Improvement in the political statu
of the laboring classes Of Europe.
Thus we see how labor was degrade.
by its association with Involuntary servl
tude, and thus we may understand hoy
it is that SO many educated thousands
modern society, inheriting perhaps un
consciously, the prejudices OF the oal
barous past, regard labor, however use
full or even essential to the existence 9
thecommunity, as associated with SLAYER
and partaking of its degradation.
The common law of England and {