The Labor enquirer., 1884-06-28
pyna.mit. and Despair
ice Gondon. England,

~
Dynamite is q very ugly factor In our
modern civilization. Like everything
else it has its uses, but more readily than
most things it lends itself to abuse.
With its subterranean employment by
the miner for the purpose OF blasting
rock, and with its use in the torpedo for
the purpose Of blowing up ship OF the
line and all its occupants, society as at
present constituted has the strongest
sympathy; allottlng, perhaps, the larger
share of appreciation to the perpetrator
of the outrage, rather than to the insig-
nificant toiler in the bowels of the earth.
But at this particular point sodety's
sympathy suddenly and decidedly comes
J to q full stop. And no wonder. For the
further uses to which dynamite has Of
late been put have been in the way Of
an d unorganized and irregular attack
upon the outworks of society itself, and
disorderly succession of desultory but
violent attempts to blow to pieces the
keystone of that arch of fancied security,
upon which for the time being the idle
classes are confidently enjoying such
convenient and comfortable conditions
of repose. And this has been planned
in such hardy and determined manner
by men who must have taken their lives
in the same hand with their dynamite,
and has been carried out with such
reckless contempt and defiance Of all
the possible pains and penalties that
panic-stricken parliament, legislating in
all the haste and hatred engendered by
fear, could devise, that it has become
evident to all reasoning men that no i'm
putation could be more ludicrously inap-
propriate than that of "dastardiy
cowardice," which the capitalist press
has cast with one accord upon the
authors of the attack. That dynamite
is force which cannot be ignored,
factor which may not be eliminated, in
any calculation of the chances of. success
of all future struggles between oppressed
an oppressors-this at least has been
rendered sufficiently clear by the light of
recent events. Dynamite, in fact, obsti-
nately takes up its position as an e1cee d.
ingly ugly customer that has to be
reckoned with at all hazards.
Spasmodlc explosions of irresponsible
anarchy-as being the worst manifesto
tions of the most extreme form of indi-
yiduallsm-can by none be more deeply
deplored or more strongly condemned
than by Socialists whose watchwordsare
order and organization Both in their
essence and in their results these at
tempts are entirely harmful. Number
less innocent sufferers may be sacrificed
on the altar of anarchy, but the slow
and steady march Of the economical evo-
luton of society remains unaffected in
its relentless advance, and refuses to be
hurried by aholocaust of such victims.
Now the useless indiction of suffering is
the worst of all the curses of capitalism,
the greatest of the many crimes which
may be laid to its charge by the advo-
Gates of revolution and nothing can be
more lamentable than the imitation and
repetition of the crime by those whose
forces are arrayed against the system.
For crime of the worst description 1t
unquestionably is but the sooner it is
acknowledged that it is after all crime
which is the symptom Of malady in
the system from which it results, the
better for all parties concerned. No
repressiye measures, no arbitrary enact
ments, can effectually abolish the svmp-
toms, 80 long as the disease itself re-
mains deep-rooted in the system. 1t is
natural, when no other apparent motive
exists, to ascribe the recent explosions
to the Irish-American Fenian party
For centuries the English government
has misgoverned the Irish people, and
suppressed all forms of liberty in Ireland.
For centuries it has reaped the inevitable
reward of tyranny and oppression in a
hateful harvest of retaliation, outrage,
and crime. In past times, however,
these outbreaks of revenge and wild
retributive justice were confined to the
neighboring island, and gave but little
concern to the comfortable English
middle class. But with the discovery Of
dynamite the tables are turned on the
oppressor. He can no longer sleep Sc
cure at home, and do his oppression by
proxy at distance, careless of its results
For the desperate enemy hides in his
own household, and starts up at his own
-freside. Englishmen may hang theil
assailants as high as Haman-when they
catch them-but their deeds are only
the symptoms of the social sore, anC
until that is cured they will perpetually
reappear.
The time for successful tyranny ha
gone by. We must grant complete self
government to this Poland at our elbow
or we must look forward. to seeing th'
outrages of the Nihihsts in Russia natur
alised by the new Nihilists at home
Between the free democracies of Eng
land and Ireland there can be no caus
of quarrel, but between the two coun
tries in their present attitude and condi
tions there can be little else. We VIII
believe in the identity of the interest
of all the workers of the world, and lool