The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-02-20

surroundings which he calls mime he is
but q usefunctuary. q trustee. The ulti-
mate and inalienable ownership OF what
Aristotle called the bounty OF nature is
IN the human race. Each country belongs,
IN the last resort, to Its Inhabitants in gen.
eral; each country. with all that makes it
country-not merely its land. but all that
has been taken from the land, from time
immemorafal, and transformed into the
various instruments Of civilized life
Not only the soil of the country,
but Its entire accumulated wealth,
natural and fabricated, is, say, in the last
resort the property of the country. The
individual owner Of any portion of it's holds
subject to that higher title. It has been
well observed by Mr.. Mill, That the earth
belongs, first of ALL to the inhabitants of
1T; that every person alive ought to have
subsistence before any one has more;
that Whosoever works at any useful thing
ought to be properly fed and clothed be-
fore any one, able to work. is allowed to
receive the bread of idleness-these are
moral axioms.' Yes; these are moral
axfoms; and they carry us a long way
But further, property means exclusion.
But has anyone the right absolutely to
shut off others from the benfit of that
which is his? Assuredy not. Solidarity is
the law of the human race. No man liveth
to himself. The very constitution of civil
lized life gives rise to the duty that owner
community.
$50 much, assuredly, is involved in the
order OF reason, regarding this great Ques-
ton of property. And, as assuredly, moth
ing can be less reasonable than the regime
of competition and individualism, in sup
port of which many ponderous tones
of nonsense, dignified as political economy
have been inflicted upon long-suffering
world. The regime is passing away. So
cialism means so much. And the task
which lies before us is the reorganization
OF industry upon an ethical basis. The
abuses of the old world organza ton were
manifest They have disappeared. But the
organization has disappeared too. The old
fellowship of labor is a recollection of the
past; the new fellowship of labor
the hope Of the future. The era
IN surely approaching when, in Mr..
Herbert Spencer's happy words, One
man will not be suffered to enjoy
without working that which another pro-
duces without enjoying;;' when what Mr.
Mill justly calls, the great social evil of
non-laboring class will no longer be toll
Grated; when the true answer to Social
ism, with it's barbarous schemes for the
confscation Of capital, will be given by a
vast extension of cooperation which will
make every labOrer capitalist CO-Opera-
ton! That word is the key to the solution
of the great problem. Our Industrial sys-
TEN has been based upon competition
while it should have been based upon CO.
operation.
1.-THE present industrial chaos is due to
the lack of organic unity. The task which
lies before is the restoration of such
unity. And the question of the day is
whether, or rather how far, the state
should undertake that task. To represent
every regulation Of industry by public au-
thority as infringement of industrial
liberty, is absurd. The state may rightly
check monopolies, curb and restrain COM
petition, limit hours of labor, and in a
thousand other ways fulfill it's duty of
I promoting the prosperity of all it's mem
bers, and especially of the necessitous
Thus, to give one example only, the man
ual toiler serves not only himself and his
immediate employer, but his country. He
has, therefore, a right against his country
for a decent provision-not Imprisonment
in a workhouse-when he is past toll. And
In discharging it's duty in such respects,
the state really advances industrial liberty.
l believe the new industrial organization
which the world must have will be a ma
| tural growth, not artificial machine;
| 4 growth rooted in the essential needs of
human nature, which are ethical needs;
| in the regulative principles Of human ac-
| ton, which are ethical principles; in the
| mighty hopes which make US men, which
| are ethical hopes So much to me seems
! certain. So much, and no more.''