The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1892-11-01
An Adjustment Of the Labor Problem
Claimed in Profit Sharing.
Address by Principal Grant of Queens Uni.
VerSity, Canada, Before the Pan
Presbyterian Council,
From the Montreal Witness.

Christianity must concern itself
with social questions because it is a
religion. 1t must solve them because
it is perfect religion. He traced
the teachings of Moses, the pro-
phets, Christ and the New Tesla
ment and the later ages of Christi
anity upon the social betterment of
mankind = how one system gave
place to another until the feudal
system attempted to grapple with
the great problems presented.
Gradually the feudal system gave
way under the shocks of wars,
plaques and social revolts, and rents
for land and wages for labor took
the place of military service and
other exactions. Thus the modern
system was another advance, but it,
man by his fellows. And wise men
say that its doom is written, though
they are not agreed as to what shall
take its place.
There have been successive stages
in the evolution of the workingman
slavery and contract. Many con
slider this third stage final. In APP
pearance the worker is free. Unlike
the slave he is his own master; and
unlike the serf he is not bound to
the soil but can take his labor to
any market and sell it to the highest
bidder. Many good people are I'M
able to see why such a relation
should not be accepted as final by
oil ,>ort,ns ,nn1rl WIT Il
the fundamental principles of demo-
cracy and to be essentially just, es-
pecially when the worker is paid
good wages. Nothing seems to be
wanting. Notwithstanding, the con
tention is that the present system is
only a mitigated serfage or that it is
organized injustice, resulting in in
justice in all directions. Thousands
of the most intelligent workingmen
claim that under it they are not
free: that the necessity to live and
to provide for their families puts
them, wherever competition is free,
at the mercy of the capitalist; hence,
that there is continually seen in the
labor market the figure that Mr..
Morley says is more tragic than any
Hamlet, "the honest able-bodied
man who can get no work." that
even when work is constant and
wages good disproportionate
share of the profits is taken by the
capitalist, and that men who by
their skill and character built up a
factory and have given its goods a
reputation, may be dismissed or
forced to submit to unjust rules
whenever the employer or middle
man thinks fit. OF course these
men are free to go elsewhere. But
the skilled workman may be anchor
ed to the place. He has put nart
of himself into the factory; i.
vested his savings in house l.
can only be sold at great sacritic
He may have spent half lifetime
learning to be an expert, and may
know of no other place where he is
needed. The owner or the middle
man has made his ''pile," partly out
of his own capital, brains and enter
prise, but partly, also, out of his
mems labor, brains, enthusiasm,
honesty, personal interest, pride in
their machinery and in the finished
products of the factory. The men
have received the market rate of
wages; the law declares that they
have received all that they are en-
titled to. Does equity say so? The
question, then, is that the wage sys-
TEN, or as Carlyle calls it,-"The
cash nPauS between man and man."
is inadequate, and, therefore, unjust.
Now, society can only be held to-
gether on basis of justice. Men
will put up with any suffering, priva-
ton or inequality, but not with in
justice. If wisdom can find no
remedy, wrath will try to find one.
Better, too, that men should revolt
than be numbed into callosity; foI
even should they see no hope in
picketing and mad violence they in.
stinctively feel that scenes of wild
horror may convince the world oi
the necessity of finding remedy
lest tragedies worse than Home
stead, and on far wider scale, be
fall. AS Carlyle puts it: "a Crom
we'll rebellion; a French revolution
striking on the horologe of time to
tell all mortals what O'clock it is, are
too expensive, if we could help it,
Soldiers before now have thrown
themselves into deep ditch, studded
with iron spikes and sprinkled with
bombs simply that over their man
gled bodies comrades might rush to
the breach, and the nameless heroes
have been judged worthy of honor.
Is it wonderful that the ranks OF
labor should have men of like
SPIRIT
Now, the remarkable fact is that
the economists of France and Ger
many, of Britain and the United
States have lately been making open
acknowledgment that the conten-
tion of working men cannot be dis
puted. By the economists / do not