Connecticut western news., 1886-05-05
WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 1886.
THE LABOR TROUBLES.
ser,k..-Capisal VI. Labor.


 Over 5O,OOO laborers in Chicago are dsmanding eight hours work with 10 hours' pay for the same, and yet they think their demand is reasonable. Try that boot on the other foot and see how is fits. If tho railroad managers. pack ing companies and other proprietors see 6t to require their employees to work 12 hours for 10 hours pay will the laborers think such a demand reasonable? And yet one demand is fully as equitable as tho othefs
 Let the farmers, merchants, postmas- ters, or even let the physicians strike for eight hours work and what 8 howl would be raised; 8 perfect torrent of Indignation would be poured upon them. There are several occupations where only eight hours work would be benefit to the community, but those fellows cannot be induced to go on a strike-viz: the liquor sellers, billiard sa2oon keepers, faro bank dealers, etc. Over production has been cited as the seAuse of the depression in business in this country. How to curtail the pro- duction has remained an unsolved prob lem. Doubtless the eight hour scheme will solve that problem, but perhaps the laborer will shortly discover that no pro- duction or an insufficient production raises the prices of necessities beyond his reach, and whereas he lived like a prince when over production was the order of the day and everything was cheap, he may possibly starye to death when the other extreme, no production, forces prices of food and raiment up to n exhorbitant figure.
 Forty-eight hours labor a week will not produce enough food or raiment to supply the inhabitants of this country The manufacturers in this country are not accumulating the wealth that many suppose. If fortunes could be made by operating our mills, factories, railroads and other industries only eight hours a day there are capitalists enough in this country who would erect mills and lease them to be run on the cooperative plan.
 The idea that money produces any thing IS 8 fallacy. Labor produces money. but money cannot produce hill of beans. Labor is the only agency that produces anything. It is fallacy to suppose this country is as we'll off with eight hours labor as with 10 hours la- bor, even if the laboring man gets 10 hours pay for eight hours work, for 1t immediately diminishes not only capi- tal, the accumulated product of labor, but diminishes the present product of labor, thus burning the candle at both ends by e1hausting the surplus and di- minishing the supply, consequently caus- ing . scarcity of the necessaries of life and forcing the price of them up to an exhorbitant figure and impoyerishing not only the capitalist but the laborer. Having the largest resources, the capi- tAlist will survive after the laborer has starved himself to death, when he (the capitalist) must also become laborsl and produce in order to maintain life When that period arrives possibly eight hours labor day will produce enough to support what few remain on earth.
 About 60 years ago the working hours were reduced from 13 to 10. Now it i proposed to reduce the hours to eight If SO much benefit is derived by the re duction why not reduce to one hour pc day? Even if the working hours wer' reduced to one there would be as man, loafers and communists as now and the, would be unwilling to work even on hour.
 Now let every farmers wife, ever. housekeeper, every servant girl, ever seamstress, in fact, every working VIC man in the land strike for eight hours work and 10 hours pay. That woul quickly bring the lords of creation t their senses and they would see the foll of the ''eight hour movement.
 The ''eight hour movement" woul fall by it's own weight if the blatar demagogues did not support it in orde to get votes on which to ride into office l.