Workmen's advocate., 1889-06-22


 when the people get access to the land.
 No one should be deceived; making jobs plenty and scahs scarce is not the way tu SD weaken trade societies that they will die natural death. It is a settled policy with the low order of people to get one thing and then ask for another, Oliver Twist made sure of one bowl of gruel, before he asked for more. If the common people are given an undivided interest in the land, they will want more. They will be in 8 po- oition to get it.
 "lt such q condition of affairs k brought about, that when working man is told "it he don't like it he can leave there will be somewhere else for him to Eo if discharge from worl, is made less near the equivalent of a death sentence than 1t Is now; in short. if wage working wi2hts are given access tu land, they will mot be kept from thinking by the fear lest an uug guarded uttorance of their thoughts endanger their chances for work and Tcfermcnt.
 "lt does not take much thought 10 en. able one to see that he who must use any of the means of production is at the mercy of him who controls them.
 "A job is a chance to work for ones own living and for someone else's profit The fact that there are more men want ing jobs than 1obS waiting for men shows that the great majority prefer working for master to being deprived of necessary subsistence Slavery is chosen rather than death. That is, if it can be called slaving it, to work and sweat under shop discipline for the money with which to pay the unearned lncrements, the rents, profits and inter- est which are included III the price of everything which workingmcn and workngwomcn buy.
 This desire to live even in a state of wage serVitude accounts for the favor with which any scheme, no matter how visionary, is received which promises more work. To this is due the dis trust which so large part of the work ing populace show for anything which they think would endanger their chance for employment
 Let these people once feel secure as to their own support, and they will make most vigorous effort to throw off the burden of supporting the non-pro- ducers.
 "The means of production controlled by the State and the State controlled by the lower orders, is the danger that is ahead of us.
 People whose ntellects are clouded with the superstition that the earth itself had maker. readily accept the dogma that all wealth is produced by labor Men of low order of ability, such as is required to make things rather than to take things, find in the imaginary maker of the universe an ob- Ject of reverence. It gratities their pride to feel that in laboring for the needs of men they are doing what he has done and what he has commanded them to do. They read that not only the earth but the fullness thereof is the Lords. Men of this moral and mental calibre are easily persuaded not only that labor produces all wealth, but that the product of labor belongs to the pro- duCer.
 Relieving that all men are com. manded to labor, they have feeling that supporting in idleness, as they do under our present industrial system, men who are able to work, is being partly done to avoid disobedience to what they are pleased to term divine in junction. Still, these downtrodden workmen seem to think, because they have submitted to the conditions i'm posed upon labor, that they are the meek who are to inherit the earth.
 'But they are mainly actuated by fpnIin of plus product or earnings of labor, the excess above the cost of subsistence of the labOrer is coveted by the avaricious working people. This excess, which so justly belongs to capital, they want be- cause they think it would be a fine thing to have, and because they think they can get it.
 "A defense of usury is of little use. As the receipt of rents, profits and in terest makes the few rich and their payment makes the many poor, the many are very ready to think it desir- able to avoid the payment of all they can Of tbem. The main question with these wage hirelings is not whether it is right to take unearned increments. but whether its profitable to pay them.
 ''lt is not best to preach to the masses that the capitalist is entitled to his usury on account of his abstinence. That word abstinence is too suggestive of total abstinence from revenue-paying drinks. It would be worse than useless to say anything about the great service rendered by capitalists by the appropria- tion and collection of the earnings of the people.
 Capitalists dispense with the services of workmen whenever they can do so, They displace them by the introduc- tion of labor-saving machinery. Some of the working people think that they have an equal right to displace capital ists by improved methods of co-opera-