The Wilmingtonian., 1884-11-01
ADVERTISING RATES:
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1854.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE.

In the year 1900 statsticians tell us that
the population of this country will he 10O,-
900, 900! The natural rate of increase is the
authority for the assertion.
1t is in order to investigate as to what
preparation has been made, what foresight
has been indicated by our legislators in the
past score of years. in shaping the future OF
the industrial policy Of the country in the
presence of the fact of the doubling of the
population within the next generation.
Likening the country to business concern
with its assets and liabilities, having It's
managers and stockholders--the metaphor
further carried out would call for scrutiny
of the management, its balance-sheet or
financial statement, its future business pol
icy--what those, to whom the Engagement
of the concern has been entrusted have in
view for the enlarging Of its mercantile con-
nections, what the commercial standing
among its fellow business concerns, and last
of all what is the capital, and what can be
carried forward upon the credit side of the
new account to meet new demands. On
looking over the statement of liabilities the
figure that catches the eye is that of the
large augmentation in population to take
place within the next 10 years.
What assets do our managers show to
meet this demand? Are they of that mar
ketable, negotiable quality, not locked up
ready to hand, and Immediately applicable
to the nature of the impending demand?
Ninety-five per cent. of the coming 5O,-
100000 of increment of population are daily
workers, whose wages VIII be earned by the
day or the weel-they are the laborers, the
working men, the numerically representa-
tive class Of the country.
History repeats itself, Gibbon and
Macaulay tell us how that at certain
period of the Roman Republic, the specta,
Gle existed Of hordes of the lower classes
the plebeans, SO in name, though in theory
"Romans all, /" were daily seen, among the
larger communities, notably in Rome, saun.
tering about the market places, occupation,
less, with no means of support save as the
retainers of some patrcan family. Thi,
floating population, some hundreds of thou.
sands in the last mentioned city during
the days of its consular glory, eating the
bread Of idleness, with no pros lects in view
true parasites bred up to the theory OF class
legislation to the belief that the world was
made for their masters, these emasculated
Romans knew naught but the cry Of "a
Tarquin!", ga Cesar!' these were ulti-
mately, through the accident of their polt-
ical surroundings, the source from which
arose that canker that split the great repub-
lie asunder in nterneeine conflict. The
piebeians were the tool and the patricians
the latent power of that disruption. Rome S
tratricidal troubles were the opportunity fol
its enemies-The Goths marched in and the
Western Republic fell. Rome, in its prist-
inc state possessed illimitable field for col.
onzation. Its territory stretched from
Scythia, in the east, to Gaul and Britain in
the west, and from Suabia on its northern
confines to Carthage and Alexandria ON tho
shores Of Africa. Were the need foreseen in
its full measure and acted upon to greater
extent than history records, the myriad
idlers would not have afforded the spectacle
they portray in the domestic annals of those
days.
Whatever the main, underlying causes
that precipitated those results, it should be
the object Of the foresight of present legisla-
tion in our country-the second great
republic of the world, that no statutory
measures obtain inimcal to the condition OF
the ordinary citizen or refusing him, through
direct or indirect legislative action all and
full opportunity for exercising his natural
and inherent rights of barter and bargain,
buying and selling in any or all markets,
without restriction and entirely unhindered
by the smallest suspicion of class legisla-
tion. The complete absence Of legislative
iutenmeddling in the private economy Of the
individual is as strong bulwarll as its con-
verse is destructive of his political and
social individuality and consequently Of
that Of the state or nation.
In the general survey of conditions as
they exist here at this day, certain "out-
croppngs' reveal themselves, sure indica-
tions of the polItico-econonic state Of our
country. Through the action of current
legislation the great harvest of industrial
profits over the land is garnered into re-
stricted number Of Golfers In the place OF
innumerable minor sources of accumulation
and distribution Of wealth, the picture pre-
scnts itself Of a certain limited number of
chief reservoirs at which the gold is poured
in and heaped in millions, and there held
and locked up.
What should be looked for also, legiti-
mate asset, that of the right of the masses
to equal opportunity and advantage in any
business they may elect to follow, is blotted
out of the book by the managers of this con-