The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1892-02-23

The greater the liberty of people
the greater their production of the
necessaries and conveniences of life
of wealth.
This is the established fact of
human nature. 1t is not to be
questioned at all. History has made
it seIf-evident. But before it can
be understood in its possibilities,
there must be a definite idea OF
what liberty means.
AS factor in production liberty
is something more than being at
large, though that is one of its first
essentials. The chattel slave of
Europe and America was left at
large as a producer, yet all the net
profits from his production went to
hisowner. Hence he had no liberty.
The negroes of the tribes in The in
terror Of Africa have no owners;
they 60 at large, but they are not
as free as were our negro slaves,
because each tribe is surrounded by
hostile tribes, who are constantly
taking from it nos the net product
alone, but all she product of its
labor. Hence any advance in pro-
duction is impossible while such
conditions continue.
The worker is free when he is at
large. able to work as he pleases;
when the product of his labor is not
liable to be taken from him by fraud
or force; and when he can exchange
the surplus, or what he produces
above his need, for what others
produce above their need.
AS these conditions are absent
liberty is absent and production is
minimized. We havepassed through
tho stage of chattel slavery, and our
producers are now in the stage rep
resented in its primitive form by
that of the interior tribes of Africa,
where the worker has no master
who can forcibly control him, but
on account of the lack of liberty for
exchange has no assurance of real
izing the full benefits of his indus
try. In the African tribe the worker
can trade with his own tribesmen,
but his home market is overloaded
with his surplus, and as he has no
liberty beyond it he is kept in his
state of primitive poverty. He has,
however, one advantage over the
workers of more highly organized
tribes and nations whore similar
conditions prevail He is not near
~ so liable to be robbed by his own
tribesmen, and it is not their fault
that he can offer his surplus for ex-
change with them alone.
The worker as a chattel slave
the most primitive form of invoIuu-
tary servitude-is deprived of his
earnings by force or the threat of
force. He is always conscious of
this form of servitude. The next
stage of involuntary servitude is
that through which the civilized
world is now passing, and in it the
worker is deprived of his earnings
without knowing it. His servitude
is involuntary, but he is generally
unconscious oft. Not being locked
up, and having no master who can
order him to be whipped, he thinks
he is free. But by various devices
of legalized fraud the net profits of
his labor are so taken from him that
he cannot realize the benefits of his
industry. The chief of these de-
vices is the denial of the freedom of
exchange of surplus. While these
conditions continue production is
checked in proportion to the extent
of the denial of liberty.
As in the African tribe this denial
is due to the predatory and homi-
cidal instinct, SO it is with more civ
ilized countries. The fraudulent
devices by which the liberty of the
Garner is taken from him in taking
away his net earnings are all relics
of war. War debt, bearing interest
in peace, and war taxes perpetuated
in peace are the worst agencies in
effecting this denial of liberty.
Where the predatory and homi-
cidaI instinct prevails, the product
i've instinct is checked. This was
well illustrated in the history of
Germany for 300 years before the
Nineteenth Century. 1t was the
battle-ground of Europe. The mind
of the nation could not turn to pro-
duction or to the thought which re-
suits in the great productive inven-
tions. England. protected from vi