their children to neighboring print-works, the children crying."1 The Mills in New England formerly ran from thirteen. to fifteen hours. The rules in Patterson, N.J., required women and children to be at work at half-past four in the morning.2 Modern legislation prohibiting this oppression of labor is due to the adoption of the socialistic principle of State interference. The waste of competition is a tremendous fact. Two parallel railroads are built and operated at vast expense, when one would do all the work as well. A small town supports a half-dozen grocery and dry goods stores, where one would accommodate the people. Socialism would do away with this enormous economic waste. Competition tolerates business practices offensive to morality. Professor J. B. Clark, in his valuable work on "The Philosophy of Wealth," says, "There is one code for the family, the social circle, and the church, and a different one for mercantile life. It is a common remark that . . . a sensitive conscience must be left at home when its possessor goes to the office or the shop. We helplessly deprecate the fact, we lament the forms of business depravity that come to our notice, but attack them with little confidence." Among laborers competition is fierce. Working men receiving just enough to keep their families respectably clad, housed, and fed are frequently displaced by men willing to work for wages sufficient only to maintain a semi.civilized standard of living. In the winter of 1886-87 the street-car drivers of Baltimore were working over seventeen hours per day. Why? Because other workmen stood ready to take their places. The drivers held a meeting and protested. Several ministers thought that the gospel of Christ had something to say against the outrage, and attended the meetings. There were two results: the first was the passage of a law for a twelve-hour day, the second 1 As quoted by Walker, "The Wages Question," p. 167. was that a certain minister, whose family held street a way stock, said petulantly of one of the ministers who had spoken at the meeting, "I wish he would confine himself to preaching the simple gospel of Christ."1 The present industrial life is pitched to the tune of free competition, but the conviction is becoming widespread that the Economical Harmonies not only fail to harmonize, but produce the discordant notes which threaten the whole social structure. What is the remedy? Socialism answers substitute public for private control of industry. Their opponents reply this would make a bad matter worse, that it is better to "Bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of." Many, taking counsel of their fears, dare not approve Socialism even when convinced of the soundness of its principles. It is worthy of note, however, that a policy of restricted competition is already inaugurated in Europe and in this country. This is a recognition of the demand of Socialism. When any class of citizens become so rich or so poor as to disturb the peace and hazard the existence of free institutions, then it is the duty of the State to interfere, and it is the duty of the press to raise its voice in behalf of reform and social justice, and it is the duty of the Christian church to cut the Gordian knot of mammonistic entanglements, take its pride of caste, its idolatry of respectability, its substitution of taste for conscience, and form for faith, and turn them over to their father, the devil, and go back to the New Testament and teach the doctrines of the primitive gospel, the chief of which are that all men are brethren; that they should love each other as themselves; that a man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. Let these truths, stripped of the superincumbent, theological, dogmatic, æsthetic, literary, and mammonistic rubbish which the centuries have piled upon them, be preached in purity and simplicity, and competition will give way to Christian Socialism. 1 Ely. "Congregationalist," March 1, 1888. "Whenever a part of society possesses the monopoly of the means of production, the laborer, free or not free, must add to the working time necessary to his own maintenance an extra working time in order to produce the means of subsistence for the owners of the means of production, whether the proprietor be the Athenian kalòs, kayalős Etruscan theocrat, civis Romanus, Norman baron, American slave-owner, Wallachian boyard, modern landlord, or capitalist." - KARL MARX. "The spirit of monopolists is barren, lazy, and oppressive." - GIBBON. Monopolies constitute another cause of Socialism. One of the statutes of the International Workingmen's Association says, "That the economic dependence of the laboring man upon the monopolist of the implements of work and sources of life forms the basis of every kind of servitude, of social misery, of spiritual degradation, and political dependence." A monopoly is the exclusive power to engage in a particular business. The State may grant it, as in the case of a patent right, which is a monopoly to encourage ingenuity, or persons may create it, as when a powerful corporation practically controls an industry, or a corner is formed which consists in buying up the articles in market, in order to sell at an advance price. Monopoly thus precludes competition. Laborers combine to control the labor market. They seek exclusive power to work as against scabs. Here again monopoly precludes competition. It is the excrescence of competition. When the struggle of competition ends, the victors have a monopoly, and dictate terms of unconditional surrender to the vanquished competitors. Monopoly thus forces small industries out of business and small traders and manufacturers into the ranks of laborers. Monopoly is therefore the industrial "Slaughter of the innocents." Against these powerful combinations the complaint is widespread and bitter. Labor is oppressed. When a poor man seeks employment in a great cotton-mill or railroad corporation, he has absolutely nothing to say in the matter: the work is fixed, the wages are fixed, the hours are fixed, the time of pay ment is fixed by the more powerful party, and he must accept them or starve. All talk about "freedom of contract" to such a man is exasperating. Helpless as a child, he might as well undertake to negotiate with a cyclone. What then? Is the corporation at fault? No; but the capitalistic system. If the great mill can produce cheaper than the small one, it will and ought to survive. Socialism says this principle of combination or co-operation is sound; the greater the plant, the less the cost of production. Let the principle, therefore, be extended to the whole social body. Put the mill and the railroad into the hands of the State, and then we shall have industrial freedom. It is difficult to answer Socialism on this point. The land monopolies, which in our country consist in taking up immense tracts of land in the West, whether by railroads, foreigners, or Americans, should be at once prohibited. Private monopoly in any trade or industry is the enemy of industrial freedom and of the public good. Public monopolies, such as the post service, highways, etc., benefit all people, and are a public good. The tendency at the present time is toward monopolies in the shape of syndicates, corporations, and trusts, all of which defy opposition, buy up or kill off weaker parties, control production, and fix prices in the most arbitrary manner, and are thus more objectionable than competition. So-called natural monopolies are such as in themselves naturally exclude competition, as water-works in cities, railroads, canals, etc. Artificial monopolies are those created and existing under circumstances that would naturally call for competition. Trusts, for example, are artificial monopolies, and are controlling nearly all the necessaries of life. Large dividends and low wages furnish the condition for social disturbances. They are too ill-matched to work together in a free country. They involve a species of industrial tyranny and social injustice particularly offensive to a free people and to the Christian religion which says, "Loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke."1 VII. Over-production. "Until all men are well clothed, housed, and fed, and furnished with material appliances for their higher life, like books, pictures, musical instruments, church buildings, etc., it will be a manifest absurdity to talk about a general over-production. A glut in the market always means under-consumption. This is one of the sad and curious features of the life of the modern socio-economic organism." - PROFESSOR R. T. ELY. ... Over-production is another cause of industrial disturb ance. When in the normal condition of business operations the supply of commodities greatly exceeds the demand, the surplus goods constitute an over-production. Industries are brought to a standstill, wages reduced, laborers discharged, and their families plunged into economical and moral disaster. "Government appoints a committee in Prussia to inquire into the cause of the late depression, and they report over-production; in England committees also investigate and report likewise; in America, business. companies and factory owners explain their distress by over-production, and are obliged to enter into mutual agreements to produce less." 2 But why this evil of over-production? Why has demand failed to regulate supply? The answer is found in the anarchy of private enterprise. Capital has sought investment; competition has stimulated production; prosperity has made men careless and extravagant. Again, producers have no way of calculating future needs; they do not work in concert; they hope that each dull season will be followed by a brisk trade. To stop and start manufactories involves expense. Customers must be retained and the acquired momentum of great producing plants carries them forward even when the demand for their products slackens. Socialism declares that this result is inevitable under the present system, while in the socialistic state it would be impossible. 1 Isa. lviii. 6 2 "French and German Socialism" (Ely), p. 208. |