Waterbury Democrat., 1902-12-27

and well fortified.
 The American Tin Plate association and the Amalgamatcd Association of Tin Workers recently entered into an agreement by which the latter body is to accept a 3 per cent reduction i'll wages. The reduction is made to en- able the tin plate company to make contract to supply the Standard Oil Co with cans for it's export trade. At the present time the cans are made in Wales. The reduction is not 1, large one and 1t Is the principles, not the de tails of the agreement that deserve public notice. Two important princi- pies are illustrated by this anlicable cooperation of capital and labor. The first is that the organization of labor affords basis for agreement between laborers and capitalists quite as eff fect1vely as for war between them. Under an individualistic system the employers in this case might have re- duced the wages of the workers and taken the contract, but the workers could hardly have understood the re- duction and certainly could not man by man agreed upon 1t i'll such a way as to have secured harmonious co-opcra-
 
 industrial agreement between employ CTS and employed. which is made pos siblc by the organization of both, the partnership can meet successfully the competition of foreign trade. which otherwise they might not be able to do.
 Edward King. in recent lecture on Labor and the Militia said: sTThe most striking feature of the new movement against workmen joining the militia is entirely lost sight of by those who are ready to work themselves into mysteries over imaginary outrages by organized labor, namely, that this seemingly unpatriotic and revolution ary policy has been instituted by those men and ill those localities hitherto sfgnalized by their conservatism and their faith in old party politics, and not. by the radicals and those openly seek ing to socialize the trade unions. These frenZied alarmists are equally blind as to the cause. It is the shameless per- versions of the law and the prostitu- ton of police and military forces by throwing them into the scales (already loaded heavily against the WOrkmen in civil and economic contest over the value of labor in the market that has reused. the most docile and sluggish unions and localities into this bitter, and. as I believe, mistaken line of tac- tics. It is not a policy unanimously adopted in any union or in any locality, but such as 1t is, 1t has been provoked by a profound and increasing convic- tion that in this republic of equal op- port1nities the power of certain grow ing classes to swing the legal and mili- l tary forces of government over into their camp in the struggles of working men against the downward tendency of wages has gone far enough, and l labor makes this blind but vigorous protest against it. Sober reflection might have shown what club they were putting in the hands of their enc mics, and, beyond doubt, more moderate policy will be adopted. But surely the thousands upon thousands of workmen who have built up the mar velous network of protective unions, the peaceful policy of the union label, and through years of insult and deris- ion have finally forced the policy of conciliation and arbitration to the front as a systematic method of pre- venting conflict between capital and labor, are not dragged into the court of public opinion at this late day to de fend their characters as friends of law and order."