The Irish standard., 1907-02-09

'9o lollS db d Iiiall SHutS HIS lntollecV
up into the study OF theories it may ba
possible to 'bolieve this. Tho minute he
looks upon the actual course Of affairs,
it is found Incredible. Economists and
Socialists made it basis of their
thoughts and even the means of con-
trolling and limiting what they saw,
for years; and many Of them do 50
still. But just as William r. Thorn
ton, among tho Economists, showed
tho actual falsity OF it in his book
"On Labor" so tho young Socialists
lave been asccrtaining and showing
that Marx blundered in accepting the
orthodox" Economists as his guide
in estimating the social movement, Mr..
Thornton brought forward the facts as
to tho conditions or English labor, as
affected by the action OF tho trades
unions, and showed IL great and steady
Improvement in tho condition of the
laboring men, and that this had been
achieved by their provings that they
were not domestic cattle, but human
beings, with a will and choice Of their
conditions of life. SO now the younger
Socialists, or some or them, have been
opening their own eyes Tn the facts.
and insisting that the party must rec
ognize that tho condition Of labor in
overy part OF western Europe, under
the wage system. is distinctly better
cratic party was launched upon. tho
sea- OF politics. They want to continue
Socialists, but they arc cutting tho
nervo Of its strength, which is the
contention that whilo tho rich grow
richer the poor grow poorer under the
wage system. Tho older Socialists are
wiser after their sort, when they re-
fuse to see these troublesome facts Of
popular progress, and not a bit mora
mists for forty years before Thornton's
book appeared.
oil 6lItl Will lIlS IIlLSllS3SLudk ulS~
sent of these younger men from Herr
Marx and his doleful teachings must
have gone a good deal Of practical dis
sent among the workers who do not
read books or discuss doctrines. They
found q big gap between what they
were told by their leaders and what
they saw with their own eyes. They
saw wages rising, tho conditions to
toll grow less crushing, and their class
teaching could account for They saw
IL slow but steady rise in the standard
Of living, and found their family life
distracted by the pressure of poverty.
The wretchedness or their class, be-
fore Bismarck gave up his Free Trade
guides and enacted the protective
tariff Of 1879, laid them open to the
pcrsuasons of the revoutionists. But
with the increase Of diversified iu-
lnent for all sorts of workers, the ex-
listing industrial order grew much moro
tolcrable to them. They have shareN
in the great advance which Germany
has made within a quarter Of q CEN
tury, just as sounder economists, like
Friedrich Stoepel told them they
would, and as Friedrich List and
Henry G. Carey predicted. ,.fs
AS Herr Schultz-Delitzsch told the
German workingmen fifty years ago,
Mr. Carey had already overthrown
every one of the supposed principles
which the Socialists We're copying from
the English economists. His claw Of
distribution that labor takes a con-
stantly increasing share of the joir1t-I
product of labor and capital. lies At
the root Of the matter. 1t is not All
assumption" such as English econoas
mists start from. 1t is a generaliza-
tion from the facts Of actual experi-S
ence, and bears testing by experi.nl.e
at every point. Mr.. Edward Atkinson,