The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-10-02
and women were worked for long
hours in the mill, and the Arkwrights

and women were worked for long
hours in the mill. and the Arkwrights
and the Peels, and multitude more,
built up colossal fortunes on the mis-
cry Of labor. ANY attemnt of the
wOrkmen to combine for the purpOre
of selling their labor at better rates
was met by stern repression, any overt
act with sharp punishment. The
English wOrkingman earned all the
wealth and bore nearly all the cost
during that long war on which the
fortunes of manufacturers and land
owners. the glory of statesmen and
generals were founded. Rich profits
were extracted from the labor of lit
tie children, and the race was starved
and stunted, while mill owners. land
owners and stock jobbers collected
their millions from the toll Of those
whose wages they regulated and
whose strength they exhausted"
Mr.. Beadle went also into the his
tory of trade unionism in this century
and quoted largely from Mr.. Rogers
works. From his Political Economy
he quoted the following
II HI ave pointed out to you, from the
indisputable facts of economic his
tory, that the beggary Of the working
classes was the direct and deliberate
work of the Legislature, and that it is
extremely difficult to retrieve the for
tunes Of the people by the principles
Of free competition and by their own
dom must be given to their efforts;
the fullest sympathy should be ac-
corded to their errors and failures,
and, above all, they should be allowed
to witness no class privileges be-
slowed and fenced for their more I'M
fortunate fellow countrymen in the
struggle for life. n In the fif
tenth century, and in the teeth of
restraining statutes, the workmen Sc
cured an eight hour day. l am sure
an eight-hour day is worth more to
the employer than ten-hour day: it
is chea per at the same money
Mr. Rogers. page 523 of "Six Hun
dred Years of Work and Wages, gives
his most emphatic approval Of trades
unions, in which he is in line with
such writer's and statesmen as Fred
eric Harrison, Henry Champion, Sid
ney Webb and his estimable wife,
Beatrice Webb, nee Potter. He said:
''My readers will observe that set
great store by the reparative energy
of labor partnerships, or trades
unions, in improving the material
Those institutions were repressed
with passionate violence and malig-
nant watchfulness just as long as it
was possible to do SO. When it was
necessary to relax the seventies of the
older laws they were still prosecuted
by legal chicanery whenever oppres-
sion could on any pretense be Justi-
fed. AS they were slowly emanci-
pated SO they have constantly been
the object Of alarmist calumnies and
sinister predictions. l confess
to having at one time viewed them
suspiciously; but a long study Of the
history of labor has convinced me
that they are not only the best
friends Of the workman, but the best
agency for the employer and the pub
lie, and that to the extension of these
associations political economists and
statesmen must look for the solution
of some of the most diff cult problems
of our time"
Mr.. Beadle called attention to the
fact that Mr.. Rogers, who was a pro-
fessor in one of the colleges at OK
ford unive rSity, was removed from his
prOfeSsOrship, as Prof. Bemis, Of the
Chicago university, was short time
ago, for expressing his opinions upon
the labor questions at variance with
the heads of the university, but that
he went on with his Investigations
and published the results of his re-
searches to the world, and that he
was res tored to his professorship after
he had convinced the literary world of
England that he was correct. Mr..
Beadle argued from this fact that if
the facts in connection with trades