The Labor enquirer., 1884-10-04
Cs-relation OF he sacial Contract with
IS. Aeeoetafians.


Associations.
For The Enquirer.
Industries. more especially of construc-
ton, whether in manufactures or public
works, mining and transportation ON 4
large scale, whether by land or water,
require the combined employment of
numerous workmen, great development
OF machinery and division of labor, with
high intelligence in the concentration
and coordination of these forces.
Mutual dependency is necessitated, and
the producer is no longer, as he may be
+ li9,field or garden, the free and sovereign
head of family. There is choice be-
tween two modes of combination either
the workmen are hired by the proprietor
or contractor, or else share the chances
of gain and loss, consequently have .
voice in the deliberative council as as.
sociate members. In the first case, sub
ordinate and exploited, they are consigned
Ito perpetual obedience and poverty. In
the second case, they resume their civic
dignity, they may aspire to wealth.
Take the execution and
exploitation of railroads. They should
be. in free republic, the attributes o.
working societies equally untrammelled
BY the state and by capitalist companies
They should be for their workmen, what
the hive is for bees, their instrument
their domieile, property and terrltary
The degree of solidarity among laborers
should be proportional. to the economic
relation that invites them, hence more
powerful and more complete in mauu-
factures, than in ordinary farming o.
artisan trades. Association, however
beneficial IN these, under divers points
of view, is not a necessity.
Wherever associative solidar1ties are
imperative, from the nature of the enter
prise, as in manufactures, navigation, the
drama, architecture, ETC., for success in
which no amount of capital, without
associated labor, is available; the con.
tractor or manager can be properly but
an imitator or a captains. When the
combined Intervention Of many kinds Of
H'labor and scientific specalties is requisite
and when from such combination there
results a new industrial fact. impractic'
able to any and every individual as such
and where man. is linked with man like
wheel with wheel, where all the work.
men together form human machine as
| effectively as the pieces of clock or oi
locomotive !; who can justly arrogate to
himself the right of exploiting such a
seryitude?-To take man as a hammer
another as shovel, another as lever
1t is ayerred, although falsely, that the
capitalist alone runs the risks of the en-
| terprise. Is it the capitalist proprietor
who gets blown up or crushed in mines,
drowned in Ships crippled or killed in
railroad collisions, or who loses his
health IN the dusty or the poisoned air
of factories? Is it the capitalist who
starves, when the oscillations of the
market stop work or depress wages ?
There are few necessary combinations OF
capital with labor in which labor does
not risk more than capital.
To steer clear therefore, of tyranny
and fraud, joint stock association, in
which labor counts as capital Is in all
great public enterprises, a necessity OF
fright. The concession of mines, rail
roads, etc, to contractors exploiting soul
and body of their workmen, is treason
of government against society, violation
of public right, an outrage TO the dignity
and personality of man.
In the Social Revolution, which Liberty
inspires, on one side we see the farmer,
master, of the soil he tills and where his
will is to take root. On the other side,
the artisan, the small trader, volunteers
of industry and commerce, working
either alone or in groups. mobile, and
prefering a more personal independence
to the sovereignty of the soil, Beyond
these, appear the working companies, the
true armies Of the revolution, in which
the laborer, like the soldier of battalion,
maneuvers with the precision OF, ma
chinery; where thousands of wills, In
telligent and proud, blend in one, as the
arms which they animate engender by
their concert a collective force greater
than their multitude.
The soil, by rent and mortgage, has
been reconsigned to feudal servitude'
By labor exchange banks, and the right
of the cultivator to the field he tills, IA
right acquired either by primary settle
ment or by reimbursement of improve
ments on it, the soil becomes the basis
| of equal rights. So, by the true moral
appreciation of collective force, the wage
slave of its confscation by exploiting
capitalists will resume the power of his
right, and rise to prosperity. Great en-
terpnses, now the formidable agencies
of aristocracy and pauperism, become in
their turn the chief organs of liberty
and social welfare.
As for legislative authority; 1t remains
| for it only TO make its last'WlIl and tesla
nant in favor of the social contract.
/ Great industry is like new WORLD
r..tod in mid ocean by the genius b