Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1889-07-27

But the arraignment of the wage
system has so frequently and SO ably
been made that there is no need of en-
croaching further upon your time with
new presentation of its nature and
effects. No one to-day with the least
sense of justice denies that private
ownership Of the means of produc-
ton, unconditional in the use of them,
Is condemned by its results and can
not be restrained in its course. My
purpose was chiefly to show that it is in
essence contrary to the American theory
of democracy, and that the first duty of
those who lay claim to American citi-
zenship is to prevent its spread over the
public domain, as the only practical
method of permanently relieving the
growing numbers of unemployed pro-
letaires, and as first step to the com.
plete eradication of that system from
the whole country. | now come to
the second part of my subject.
HOW IT CAN BE DONE.
We have seen that in ordinary cir
cumstances Surplus Labor is of great
benefit to Capital in forcing down the
rate of wages. Hence the natural ten
dency of capitalism to keep out of work
constantly growing number of people.
But, while there is no minimum rate of
wages by which profits may be limited,
short of the meanest pittance laborer
can subsst upon, there is a maximum
of compulsory idleness beyond which
the public peace, and not only profits
but capital itself are in jeopardy.
Now, suppose that under the pressure
of great clamor, unsupported by in.
telligent demands-a clamor such AS
might be caused at this time by wide
spread suspension of industry Congress
found itself compelled to take some
steps for the immediate relief of the I'M
employed Our national legislators, who
never gave this possibility a thought,
would probably adopt one of the two
plans which, in previous circumstances
of the same character, have always and
everywhere enlisted the support of per
nicious demagogues.
They might, for instance, undertake
to employ the idle on public works es-
pecially and hastily contrived, ILL
planned and worse conducted; nav.
contrived, planned and conducted with
a special view to failure, just as the Pro-
visional Government of France in 184S
undertook to do-and was quite success
full in doing-thereby relieving only
the beneticiaries of social injustice from
the fear of change in the nature and
object of the social compact To the
capitalist class and its mouthpieces
throughout the world the fate of the So
called Ateliers NdtiOndur national shops(
iC or off l. l.
of arguments against any kind of State,
interference with industrial affairs,
other than the preservation of order at
any cost. 1t has, indeed, become a we'll
established rule of action that any
wage worker who cannot peaceably die
of hunger when the economic machine
breaks down should fercibly be made to
swallow his wrath with a dose of lead.
But in times of great popular efferves-
cence it is not practicable to thus dis
pose of the unemployed labor; and, in
the case we suppose, public works, con-
dltloned upon their management with a
view to failure, might be deemed by the
capitalist class itself an expedent mode
of relief.
Again, Congress might undertake to
promote an exodus from the disturbed
industrial centers to the blissful soil
tudes of distant territories by an appro-
priation of money, to be loaned in small
sums-not in its money FORM but in the
form of transportation, provisions, tools
and other supplies-to such individuals
and families as might thus be induced to
avail themselves of the Homestead Law.
Notwithstanding that State subsidies, or
national aid of any sort to other than
great corporations of capitalists, are
widely deprecated, this plan also might
meet with no greater opposition than
was necessary to reassert the non-inter-
ference principle of government while
subordinating it to the imperative neces-
sity of 'benevolence" in an exceptional
emergency. In fact, the encouragement
of emigration by government has been
recommended by the most orthodox
economists of the ldiSsez. fare school,
not only as an excellent mode of getting
rid of dangerous elements but as a safe,
cheap, and even profitable enterprise
England practised it on large scale,
and John Stuart Mill, her leading au-
thority on such matters, advocated it in
the following words, that need no COM
ment: Zone, of the principal reasons
why colonization should be a national
undertaking is, that in this manner
alone, save in highly exceptional cases,
can emigration be self-supporting. The
expectation of capital and labor to a
new country being one of the best of all
affairs of business, it is absurd that it
should not, like other affairs of bust
ness, repay its own expenses. OF the
great addition which it makes to the
produce of the world, there can be no
reason why sufficient portion should
not be intercepted, and employed in re,
imbursiDg the outlay incurred in effect
ing It," True, he lays great stress upon
the importance of 'making it necessary