At no time in the world’s history have the relations between laborers
and employers of labor received so much attention as now. All men who
think are thinking of them, the meditation being quickened by the
importance of the interests involved, the sharp significance of some
of their observed phenomena and the conditions entailing them. Among
these last, one of the most important is overpopulation in civilized
countries; and it is only in such countries that any controversy has
arisen between—to speak in the current phrase—capital and labor.
Despite the magnitude and frequency of modern wars, the population of
all civilized countries increases in the most astonishing way. In the
six great nations of Europe the increase since the Napoleonic wars has
been between fifty and sixty per cent. In this country our progression
is geometrical—we double our population every twenty-five years!
Conquest and commerce have brought the whole world under contribution
to the strong nations. Inter-communication has reduced the areas of
privation and almost effaced those of famine. Railways and steamships
and banks and exchanges have diminished the friction between producer
and consumer. By sanitary and medical science the average length of
human life has been increased. Chemistry has taught us how to fertilize
the fields, forestry and engineering how to prevent both inundation
and drought, invention how to master the adverse forces of Nature and
make alliance with the friendly ones by labor-saving machinery, so that
the work of one man will now sustain many in idleness—with no lack of
persons who by birth, breeding, disposition and taste are eligible to
sustentation. The milder sway of modern government, the elimination
of the “gory tyrant” as a factor in the problem of existence and the
better protection of property and life have had, even directly, no
mean influence on the death rate. These and many other causes have
combined to make the conditions of life so comparatively easy that an
extraordinary impetus has been given to the business of living; mankind
may be said to have taken it up as a congenial pursuit. The cloud of
despair that shadowed the face of all Europe during those centuries
of misrule and ignorance fitly called the Dark Ages has lifted, and
multitudes are thronging into the sunshine. It is not a perfect beam,
but its warmth and lumination are incomparably superior to anything
of which the older generations ever dreamed. But the result is over
population, and the result of over population is war, pestilence,
famine, rapine, immorality, ignorance, anarchy, despotism, slavery,
decivilization—depopulation!
This is man’s eternal round; this is the course of “progress”; in this
circle moves the “march of mind.” The one goal of civilization is
barbarism; to the condition whence it emerged a nation must return, and
every invention, every discovery, every beneficent agency hastens the
inevitable end. An ancient civilization would last a thousand years;
confined to the same boundaries, a modern civilization would exhaust
itself in half that time; but by emigration and interchange we uphold
ourselves till all can go down together. One people cannot relapse till
all similar peoples are ready.
Already we discern ominous instances of the working of the universal
law. Consciously or unconsciously, all the modern statesmen of Europe
are contesting for “territorial aggrandizement.” They desire both
extension of boundaries and colonial possessions. They quarrel with the
statesmen of neighboring nations on this pretext and on that, and send
their armies of invasion to capture and hold provinces. They dispatch
their navies to distant seas to take possession of unconsidered
islands. They must have more of the earth’s surface upon which to
settle their surplus populations. All the wars of modern Europe have
that ultimate, underlying cause.
The battle knows not why it is fought. It is for standing room. If
it were not for the horrors of war the horrors of peace would be
appalling. Peace is more fatal than war, for all must die, and in peace
more are born. The bullet forestalls the pestilence by proffering a
cleaner and decenter death.
What has all this to do with the labor question? “Industrial
discontent” has many causes, but the chief is over-population. (In
this country it is as yet a “coming event,” but its approach is rapid,
and already it has “cast its shadow before.”) Where there are too many
producers they are thinned out to make an army, which serves the double
purpose of keeping the rest of them in subjection and resisting the
pressure from without. Armies are to fight with; no nation dares long
maintain one in idleness; it is too costly for a toy; the people burn
to see it put to practical use. They do not love it; they promise
themselves the advantage of seeing it killed; but when the killing
begins their blood is up and they want to go soldiering.
Our labor troubles—our strikes, boycotts, riots, dynamitation, can have
but one outcome. We are not exempt from the inexorable. We shall soon
hear a general clamor for increase of the army—to protect us against
aggression from the east and the west. We shall have the army.
That is as far as one cares to follow the current of events into the
dubious regions of prediction. What lies beyond is momentous enough
to be waited for; but any man who fails to discern the profound
significance of the events amongst which he is moving to-day may justly
boast himself impregnable to the light.