The weekly examiner., 1901-05-11
SEEKING SALVATION IN
 TRADE-UNIONISM,

TRADE-UNIONISM.
 Organized labor in the cities of Con- necticut seem to have become inspired of late to do something besides merely exist. The trusts are credited with
 having inspired this new life. Since the consolidation business set in so strongly as we now see it, there has
 been quite a shaking up in some of the manufactures resulting in former owners and overseers being removed and more rigid rules introduced. This has had the effect of making many workmen feel - those who hitherto could not be induced within the pale of organization-as if there was noth- ing in store for them in future but obedience to a cold -blooded regime or machine domination, so they are driv- en to the resolve of making the best of it by meeting force with force. There fore, they are focking into the unions in hitherto unheard of numbers. Antl the unions encouraged by this are be- coming more aggressive. They are asking for concessions and conditions that hitherto they would fear to ask. In fact, they are demanding, and with nearly all the workmen in the unions there is no alternative left on the part of the employers but to grant the de- mandsror shut up shop
 AnsF why should not the employers be willing to grant any ordinary con- cession asked for? With a monopoly of the business. practically, there is nothing to prevent them from raising the prices of their commodities to the public to recoup themselves for what ever is lost to the employees. And the employee himself !, is called upon to pay his share of the advanced prices. This he does without a mur- mur so long as his wages have been advanced. In fact, the average work ingman hardly ever connects the one thing with the other He doesn't real ize, if carpenter, that when he se- cures shorter work-day and longer wage price from the capitalist who has him building tenement housesssfor instance, that the rent of the house must now De greater t0 the carpenter barber or tailor, who may occupy, 1t. He doesn't realize that this can go on ad minimum, with little or no advan. tage accruing to the wage worker, un- less what he receives in the more | hours of leisure accorded by the short CT work-day. True, he is relatively | at the lower limit and, his | working hours the same. But there is | no escaping the philosophy that gen. eral rise of wages to the workman l means general rise of prices to the people at large So higher wages to the workman on one end of the line is | taken from him in higher prices on the other end.
 And under our present industrial | and commercial systems this must be ever so. So the wage-working man must get beyond the stage of trade unionism to secure what belongs to him as a producer of wealth. He must study political economy if his trade unionism is to be of lasting benefit to him. And at the end of his educa- ton he will find that so long as laws are in existence that allow some peo- pie to control the land of the country and other people the means of produc- ton and transportation, so long must he remain what he is, regardless of the rate of wages he may commando the producer of wealth and power that another will enjoy.
 
 Edwin Barton, the prime minister of the new Australian commonwealth. is