One of the great questions of the day, if not the greatest, is the true
relations that should exist between labor and capital. It is one fraught
with more direct benefit to a greater number of people than any other
question has even the external appearance of being. The real merits of
the question are of much greater significance than is generally
supposed, even by those who raise it. The welfare and the individual
rights of three-fourths of the people are at stake. The question assumes
this shape: Labor has, by its continuous efforts, produced a certain
amount of wealth, from the use of the materials nature presents, that
has not been required to support and sustain the general life of man. By
certain advantages, either of general policy or of individual acuteness,
certain individuals have accumulated more than their necessities
demanded they should expend, and this accumulation has become an added
power to that possessed by the individual previously, which power
endeavors to maintain itself partly at the expense of that which first
produced it, and to transfer just so much of the cost of its production
from itself.
That such conditions can exist and really increase in power and
importance, so that they can virtually control legislation, gives
evidence that principles are operative that do not promote the interests
of the entire people. There must be a fault somewhere, which fault it is
necessary to discover and expose, and then remedy. Now, where does this
fault really have beginning? It is in certain protections and guarantees
that law extends to individuals, which permit them to have an advantage
over those with whom they sustain the relations of society. These laws
arise out of false conceptions of the principles of common equality and
economy, which pertain to man as a common fraternity. In legislation,
which first allows and then fosters such departures, then, must the
point at which reform should begin be sought. Any attempt to teach the
general mind can have no practical effect, unless, finally, the result
of the teachings express themselves through legislation. Legislation
presupposes legislators, and to have the right kind of legislators
involves the necessity of the laboring classes giving sufficient time
and attention to the matter of nominations and elections to insure that
those who will represent their true interests shall be returned.
Although the remedy for all the laborer’s ills must be sought through
legislation, there are, nevertheless, many fallacies still received,
even by the laborer, that have the direct tendency to degrade labor and
to elevate the position of capital. One of the principal of these is a
false monetary basis, a false representative standard of values, which
is arbitrarily imposed upon the people, with no positive and absolute
value within itself, except that which such arbitrary law gives it.
Gold, as a standard of values, has been set up and worshiped so long,
that people submit to its decrees with about the same appreciation of
its real merits that they have of the mysteries of religion, as
expounded by their paid oracles, who have constituted themselves into
authorities to declare, “Thus saith the Lord.” The people have
surrendered their reason in these matters to these self-constituted
authorities, and so have they surrendered common sense to the god of
value.
Another, and almost as important fallacy, is that of interfering with
the natural ebb and flow of the products of the world by imposing upon
certain of them such tribute as makes it pretty nearly impracticable for
them to find their way to the locality of natural demand, in order that
a special few who inhabit that locality may produce the same at a
greatly increased cost, which the consumer must pay in order to obtain.
It does not matter how this plain statement may be twisted and bent by
the alluring sophistries and glittering generalities of the
protectionist; a plain statement, viewed with clear light, needs no
authoritative sanction to determine its truth. If it be any benefit for
a thousand men to pay one man ten per cent more for a desired article,
because it is of home production, than it could be purchased for from a
foreign producer, we should be most happy to have it demonstrated. The
argument used is, that by that one man being protected in its production
he is thereby enabled to give employment to a certain number of
laborers. But to make even this tenable upon their own statement, they
must at the same time prove that those laborers would not have been able
to apply themselves to any other labor during the time required to
produce the article in question. This at once leads to such an intricacy
of cause and effect that those who attempt to solve the mysticism prefer
to accept the declaration that protection is a good thing rather than
acknowledge that they are lost in the fog and obscurity they have been
sent to explore to find the required evidence.
Another extensive popular fallacy is that of the continuation of special
protection to monopolies after their existence as monopolies is assured,
which renders them perpetual taxes upon the labor that must make use of
them, and perpetual patents upon the industry of the country, by which a
few already plethoric capitalists become still more obese. The great
systems of internal improvements of the country belong to the country,
and the country should so arrange their conduct that the people could
make use of them at the least possible expense of support.
It is these and sundry like matters that the laborers of the country
should require their representatives to understand and act upon, and
they should cast their vote for no one that will not, at all times and
under all circumstances, advocate and vote for the greatest good of the
greatest number. In this way, labor may hope to arise from its present
position of degradation to sit side by side with capital in all public
and profitable positions and those of honor and trust.
NEW YORK, August 10, 1870.