The times., 1898-01-09
BIBLE ECONOMICS AND CIVICS.
BY JOHN NJ. GREGoR LII. d.
LABOR PROBLEMS.

LABOR PROBLEMS.
The world is mans workshop and school
room. Labor is the business of the one,
the lesson and teacher in the other. AS
Hugh Miller wrote, Labor keeps the
noblest of all schools, save The Christian
A false view of la bor lies at the bottom
OF the widespread social unrest anu
discontent. 1t is complained that labor
produces the wealth, but that capital
takes the lions sha re- Labor tolls as
slave, lives in howell, wears coarse
clothing, and is looked down upon with
pity or contempt; while those VINO are
enriched by dts toll, live in luxury and
grow refined BY elegant sieisure ana
hence are envied nd honorel by mankind
Such is the picture which plying or
indignant world sees in modern society;
and such is the wrong which labor unions
and social reformers seekito cure.
To solve the problenf we must study
labor by itself separate4sfrom its wages,
and from its social conditions. The wage
question Will come later.
Labor in its bToauest sense is any ef-
fort of mind or muscle to accomplish a
useful purpose. Work is both an economic
and social or civic fact. II is the pri-
mary factor in all product ions; it is also
the principal factortin the foundation OF
government and society. Labor is mar
rowly treated by both ecpnonists and So
cialists as mere productive efforta hard
ship TO be avoided-a painful struggle, to
be endured only for it's results Ii is thus
branded from the outset with a stigma,
and condemned a curse. Reform must
begin here. We must change this false
and Injurious notion of work as a de-
grading drudgery, to which we are driven
by our needs, and which nuplies poverty
and degradation.
THE DIGNITY OF WORK.
Work is not siiuply a hard and tiresome
effort to produce desirable changes in
matter. 1t is the intelligent play OF the
human powers-the crowning application
of those powers to their destined mastery
over nature the divinely-aprointed condi-
ton of their highest development. Not
in a palace of ease and idleness did the
great Father place his first human chill
dren. but in the garden, to dress it and
keep it," and the grand comini ssion,
Have you do,ninion, was the divine
summons of mankind To their kingly task
of subduing nature by work. The SUBJ
lime declaration of our Lord: My Faith
er worketh hitherto and / work. settled
forever for every Christian mind the dig
nifty of labor. The command, which fell
from the same august lips, Work while
tis day, for the night coincth in which
no man can work. places labor in the
Of a
distinguishes it as with pencil OF light,
from the idleness of the night of death.
1t is the most stupid of our blunders
wi hich has fixed the stigma upon this
proud function of lire-this field on which
man's supremacy over nature has been
won.
I do not wish to idealize work or leave
out of sight its sterner and harsher features.
In much of physical labor there must be
dirt and sweat strain of muscle and of
mind nd-confinement to the task in hand, and
Subordination of the laborer's time and
strength to it's accomplishment. The same
may be said of the games In which the
rich engage for pleasure. True, there is
a point beyond which effort becomes pain
full and even destructive, but this point is
as frequently reached In sports as in common
labor.
But paint labor as dark as you Will;
surround it with the conditions of the
dreariest, dirtiest drudgery: only let me
keep in il the feeling of freedom and the
light of love and intelligence and above
ali let me keep ont of it the bitterness of
cowardly discomfort and the meanness of
petty envies and Jealousiess and this work
shall outweigh as a solace and joy all the
pleasures that idleness ever tasted-idle-
ness, not athletic anlusements. The active
games and diversions which men have de-
yisad to supply the place of work as an es-
cape from the tediutfl OF idleness, owe their
pie easure first and foremost to the work of
the body and brain swhicts is found in them.
Their fancied superiority over common
work is found In TIE s9fial conditions of
personal risk or danger attending them and
which lend excitement Ito the jaded or
faded sensibilities or oFerwearied idlers.
To him who has l,arned how to work and
has mastered the art oftskiilful touch and
the finer effects work is7a finer recreation
than any games. AS caHlyle said: ..Blessed
is he who has found his work: let him ask no
other blessedpess.'' The little child finds