Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-10-25
To Better Mans Condition.

The Socialist congress at Erfurt has had
the result of bringing Socialist politics TO
the front and politicians not only III Eng
land, but throughout the continent, are
eagerly discussing the best means OF max
ing the people better satisfied with their
station in life and thus lesseuing the field
for the agitation of the wilder spirits of So
cialiSm.
Sir William Harcourt, one of the leading
Liberal members of parliament III speak
ing on the subject to-day, said:
1t is Il matter of observation and subject
of common remark that apart from special
measures great change has come over the
political person within the past few years.
The change MAY not be so great rs IS
imagined, but at any rate 1t must be adj
Iuitted that IL new class of questions is put
in front and seems to command pre-
ponderatng share of popular sympathy.
The hours of work, the adequate re-
muneration of workmen. the means of pro
viding work for the unemployed, the claims
of those who. after using their utmost
efforts, cannot obtain work-these are
some of the matters which we are invited
to discuss and some regard them as proper
subjects for legislation.
Then there is the wide subject of the san
itation of towns and dwellings and work
shops. The interests of agriculture in
former times were considered mainly with
reference to the landlord and farmer.
These have almost disappeared and the la
borer has risen in1their stead. How is MS
condition to be improved How snail he
be enabled and persuaded to remain in his
native village, instead of emigrat!ng TO the
large towns and helping to swell the ranks
of the unemployed? This is one of the
questions of the hour. With respect to
those social problems, as they are called,
which are coming to the front and which
some propose that we should send to par
e, -la, t,..1l l,r,- 4
In the first place the mere fact that they
are sure to come up, and that consideration
of them can not possibly be avoided, should
teach US patience and liberation. In the
next place past experience gives US ab1n-
dant reasons for relying upon the common
sense of our countrymen, upon their APP
probation of what is practicable, and above
all upon their Unborn love of what IS fair
and just. The question which excites most
apprehension is the demand for an eight
hours working day for all trades to be i'm
posed by authority of parliament.
The expectations Of the advocates of this
measure may be chinerical, and many Will
think they are so, but let the question be
argued and threshed out until the element
airy facts are made plain. So with Tom
Mems proposal that shops or municipal
workshops shall be furnished for umem-
plOyed, and that persons engaged in trades
which give employment only for six or
eight months in the year shall be main
tanned for the rest of the year at the cost
of the public. Let it be discussed and let
US see what fate it meets with at the hands
of the workingmen generally. IL will prob
ably turn out to be one of those radiant
bubbles to which John Morley referred SO
pleasantly and indulgently in his speech at
Cambridge.
AS for the Socialist schemes out and out,
with which we are confronted, we are
bound to give them fair hearing and trust
to sober argument for their discontinue.
Socialism may have something TO teach US,
though there is but little probability that
its principles will meet with any wide &C
ceptanoe. Socialism is not nearly SO great
power with US as it was fifty ago years
when the benevolent Robert Owen shone as
the chief crusader