Year: 1869

TRADES UNIOhS


The n Y Times-we cannot imagine why
renresents The TRIBUNE as hostile to Trades
Unions or organizations of Workers for Wages
to maintain or increase the price of their labor.
We can conceive no reason for opposing those
efforts which do not apply to all combinations
to regulate prices. 1t is notorious that Coal Is
ant to advance in price from % to 90 per cent.
in the Autumn of each year; and no one, we
presume, is so innocent as to fancy that such
advance occurs by accident, or without con-
cert and agreement among the owners and sell
ers of this necessary of life. SO with almost
every staple.


Now, if any one can discover or devise rea-
son why Labor should not look out for ITSELF
rs well as Commerce or Capital, we cannot
Labor is a commodity, as much as Coal, Cheese
or Chocolate; and those who sell it have just
the same right to get the best possible price
for it that sellers of other commodities have
no less, no more. And, since the combinations
to raise prices of dealers in other commodities
necessarily operate to the disadvantage OF
Labor it seems to MS that Trades Unions are,
in the actual condition of affairs, measures OF
naked self defense We are not aware that we
ever said apy thing in conflict with this. III
tbe associated coal dealers should mob or stone
A fiyal IN business who offered to sell coal at
81 per tun for which they had conspired to
exact 50, we might admonsh them to keep
within the law; and so of Trades UniOnists as
well but the right to combine for mutual ben
eft is clear; and labOrers must enjoy 1t IN COM
mon with and to as great extent as others.


Our difference with the Trades Unionists is
on another point altogether They seem to
seek q reprieve in case where we think just
ice requires an absolute pardon. They medl-
tate mitigations of the evils attendant upon
the Wages system we would gradually super
sede and permanently replace that system by
better. Believing a republic preferable to an
absolute monarchy, we would hasten the day
in which Industry shall be organized and La
Dor prosecuted OH republican principles. Now
despotism is by far the simplest form OF
government, and ignorance, incapacity, and
heedlessness ever tend TO relapse into 1t; yet
republics are demonstrated possibility, and
we cling to the hope of applying their essen
tal principles to the Organization of Labor.


The workers in certain trade refuse to ac-
cept or abide by the rates of wages which the
employers proffer them. Very well; they have
a clear righ TO refuse, and to combine Tor
mutual support in that refusal. We do not
decide that their employers are wrong in their
decsion we only insist that each party is its
own judge in the premises-that neither is
master of the other and that no one else, unless
mutually agreed on, can arbitrate between
them. 1t is like any other case, wherein, if
the buyer does not choose to give what the
seller demands there is simply no trade.


But when the sellers of Labor, refusing to
take what the wouldbe buyers offer for their
commodity, proceed TO destroy it. we are i'm
PEELED to protest. just rs we should if the
coal dealers, finding coal-consumers unwilling
to pay the prices asked for their commodity,
should set fire to their yards or heave whole
cargoes of Coal into the bay If the journey
men tailors and tailoresses decide that they
will not accept the wages offered them by the
bosses, we hold that they should not stand
idle and ask workers to support them in
so doing but that they should promptly
devise and put in operation some machinery
whereby they shall continue to convert cloths
into wearing apparel, thereby earning a sub
sstence while keeping the rest of mankind
decently comfortably clad. So of the workers
in other trades. We donOt assure them that they
would thus do better than they now do-prob-
ably they would not. at the outset do so well a:
but they would thus be trying to perform
their function, and would be steadily strug-
Cling toward better condition; while stand
ing still is confession of incapacity and de-
feat This is our idea The Times is welcome
to combat but not to misrepresent 1t.