Show CAPITAL AND LABOR yet a twelvemonth ago we could boa stingly affirm that in america there re comparatively far less libor strikes to record than in england germany or any other country with well developed manufacturing in dmitry even the great privations imposed upon abo working people by the hard times of the commercial depression beginning iu 1873 were suffered without that senseless opposition and resistance to the reduction of wages by which the workingmen of great britain had attempted to attain great things we were even not surprised when after the advent of better commercial number of strikes trebled because we know that in many cases the workman ia obliged to enforce an increase of wages but weihar notes pecked to gee the number of strikes daily increasing so that there are at the present moment in hundreds of localities thousands of workmen who are voluntarily idle and aliis mania for striking is yet on the in crease with many others wo have shared the opinion that the struggle between iron hearted capital and ironhanded labor draws a good deal f its animosity out of tha unfortunate situation of the time rendered a sensible reduction of wages necessary now however it appears to us PS it the connic were growing the more exasperated the bettor outlook becomes no doubt this phenomenon i highly declora ble and the situation deserves the more careful consideration as according to impartial observers both the conflicting parties will necca wily suffer damages if they persist in the present method of liquidating their difficulties tracts anions and other work ingmans ing mens associations have rapidly increased in the last few months and years we would not think for a moment f denying the workingmen the right to unite and combine for the protection of their interests the employers themselves have rendered such a measure necessary in a great many cases but we are inclined to doubt whether the means used for the accomplishment of their purposes be the correct ones leav ing aside subordinate question of the combinations mentioned has the chief aim and end of increasing the wages or cf them high and the for this purpose after all other lawful means are exhausted is the strike but wherein do these other lawful means consist th workingmen of n certain branch of industry agree amongst themselves to obtain an advance on other wage of 10 or 15 per they inform the employer of thi demand reject ail counter pro positions and if be does not comply within a stated time they strike this manner of accomplishing an in crease of wages is nothing more than an usurpation by the workmen of the right to fix the wages arbitrarily tra rily and the employers are excusable if they oppose the working mens irreconcilable hostility with a similar inexorable pertinacity let once the strike be in operation and the union necomes the most cruel and unscrupulous despot under the sounding device of one for all and all for cane all personal liberty is suppressed the individual workingman who would liberate himself of the serfdom of wages becomes the slav f his fellow workingmen and the few unprincipled selfish leader each man has to yield to the gen eral purpose to accomplish the great good individual little sufferings Buffe rings must be incurred this is the deceptive maxim of the acute agit igors wherewith they beguile the unsophisticated maesas but after the individual has sacrificed himself and sometimes hi family for his brethren what is the mull figures will give the appalling appal liag answer not to be contradicted of strikes commenced in 1879 ia the state of massachusetts there were only eighteen the other exploded or collapsed coll aped after fter a great deal of bitterness bick eringi sufferings and b thal thinking can draw the conclusion from this own edification yet it is true that tho employer are no iaan diee of fault they may and not without right point out the usurpation and presumptions of the workingmen the carelessness and purposed reckless neglect and waste of machinery material and manufactures which usually accompany tribes entailing great logics but on the other hand are all the employers as willing to give labor the benefit of th improved of capital aa they are to compel it to in the drawbacks wise employer will meet the jast demands of the workingmen hall way and thus avoid unjust demands made ly them both classes thoe who control capital and theise who have to buet como to a true and unprejudiced under landing of their own conditions and their mutual relation they learn that capital and labor are no more antagonistic in their nature and principle thin matter anil force in the uni Tenie than nerve and nuclei in the human frame or a celestial glob and lt and centripetal for es one without the other cannot ebitt capital un attended by labor ia like abo gold in the depths of the earth or the acarl at the bottom of the ocean labor by capital is like a rope of and vc and all our pursuits and aspiration are only more or less i more or kt in the wonderful mechanic mec hanim of the univ cree can achieve any work in solitary isolation all the leven wheels ac fiut work in ono another to produce an effect I week will be st ant rick day |