'
,
Conservative *
Wages arc gov-
THE LAW OF erncd by the rolu-
WAGES. ( iou of the supply
of labor to the de
mand for labor. When ono hundred
men are seeking a job , at a given place ,
and there is only capital enough to em
ploy fifty men , wages are low. But
when capital calls for a hundred men
and only fifty can be found wanting
employment wages are high. All the
sophisms of socialists and communists
who declare it a duty of the state to
furnish compensatory employment , and
that the right to work at living wages
should bo guaranteed by the govern
ment , were exposed and refuted by
actual failure when put into practice by
France.
In 1545 edicts had been issued estab
lishing public workshops and in 1685 ,
1699 and 1709 de-
First Attempt. crees were made
regulating the gov
ernment workshops of France , which
had been established to give employment
to idle men and women. Louis XVI did
all in his power to make such shops a
success. The French people in their
constitution of 1798 explicitly affirmed
that society , the government , owed sub
sistence to its citizens by furnishing
them work.
Fourier enumerated the doctrines of
the droit au travail saying :
"God condemned the first man and
his posterity to work with the sweat oi
their brow ; but he has not condemned
us to be deprived of that work on which
our subsistence depends. We can then ,
in accordance with the rights of man ,
request philosophers and civilization no !
to deprive us of that resource which
God has left us at the worst and as a
chastisement : and to guarantee us the
right and the kind of labor to which we
have been brought up. "
"We have now passed the timetocavl
at the rights of man without thinking
of recognizing the
The Rights of Man. most important of
all , without which
the others are nothing. What a shame
to the nations who think they under
stand social politics ; ought no one to
dwell upon such a shameful error , to
study the human mind and the mechan
ism of society which gives to man all his
natural rights , of which society cannot
guarantee or admit the principal one
' that is the to
the droit-au-travail' , right
work remuneratively. "
Such doctrines finally permeated the
minds of the masses of France and in
1848 the Revolution furnished a modern
opportunity for putting them , into prac
tice.
tice.On
On the twenty-sixth day of the month
of February in that year the provisional
government of the
February 26 , 1848. French people pro
g a mulgated a decree
guaranteeing the existence of the laborer
by-work and guaranteeing work tool
: $ & &
citizens. Then a committee was created
vith Louis Blanc at its head to carry
out the scheme. Ho established himself
at the Luxembourg , to give work and
wages to everybody. He issued as many
declarations and as much inflammatory
iteraturo as a state committee of fused
discontent and greed for office issued for
Nebraska in 1900. Blanc's utterances
destroyed all relations between labor
and capital , between employers and
employees. They forbade contracts be
tween those wishing to work and those
desiring to hire workmen. They at
tempted by decree to fix the rates of
wages for each kind of service to be
rendered. They declared ten hours a
day. They sundered labor from capital
and paralyzed both. They threatened
to appropriate and run all manufacture
and commerce by the government ,
for the government. Thus social
order was endangered , and , con
sequently , the French government or
ganized the Ateliers Nationaux work
shops of the nation. The state was to
be the universal employer. All the ideas
of communism were to be enacted. All
paupers and all men out of employment
rushed into these workshops of the
state and it was soon demonstrated that ,
though the right to labor was admitted ,
the duty to labor was not. And in June ,
1848 , there were one hundred and ten
thousand persons on the pay rolls of the
government eating up the national sub
stance. State employment thus abolished
admits insurrection , rapine and riot.
Is there not a trend now to the same
doctrines ? Is not state ownership for
railroads a pre-
"
Then and Now. monitory symptom
of acute paternal
ism in this republic ? Are not the bills
in state and national legislation , defining
the relation of labor to capital , constant
ly warning us of our descent towards
French experimentation , and failed eco
nomics ? Is not the cry against capita
and the inflammatory exhortation o !
peerless demagogy a mere repetition in
English of the fallacies which in French
called down upon that people innumer
able and immeasurable woes ?
Mr. OrenF. Mor
UNDER THE ton has written
COTTON WOODS. and the Acme Pub
lishing Company
of Morgantown , West Virginia , has pub
lished a very realistic story of an early
settlement in Cass county , Nebraska
It is entitled "Under the Oottonwoods'
and is in whole and in part , in genera
and in detail , a correct and accurate
picture of pioneer life on the prairies o
the Tree Planter's state. Every schoo
district library in Nebraska should con
tain a copy of this story of the hard
ships , the persistent self-denial and
efficient industry of those brave men
and noble women who first made homes
upon the vast alluvial plains whicl
stretch from the Missouri river west
word to the foot-hills of the Rocky
Mountains.
The American
CUBAN FINANCES. congress demands
the privilege of
upervising the finances of the Cuban
government. A congress that spends
icarly a billion dollars in a single session
s not in a position to complain of the
extravagance of somebody else. The
Cubans could , with as much propriety ,
tender their services to chock the prodi
gality of American lawmakers.
According to
RAILROADS. oious peerlessness ,
now itinerating in
: he East , the railroads of Nebraska out
number the United States senatorships
: o bo bestowed , and that is the reason no
election takes place at Lincoln. If the
railroads are numerous and useful and
prosperous in Nebraska it is not because
of Bryanarchy or its teachings. No ono
lias ever accused the calamityites and
sixteen-to-ono prophets of building a
railroad , causing any ono else to build
one , or of inducing capital to invest in
anything in this state.
THE BROADENING OF THE PRESI
DENT.
We have watched with deep * interest
and have advised our readers of the
notable broadening of President Me-
Kinley's views upon the subject of our
trade with foreign countries. The tariff
act that bore his name and the Dingley
act now in force were drawn with the
deliberate purpose of discouraging im
portations , which is the same thing as
discouraging foreign trade. But in his
address of recent date the President
said :
"Our diversified productions , however ,
are increasing in such unprecedented
volume as to admonish us of the neces
sity of still further enlarging our foreign
markets by broader commercial rela
tions. For this purpose reciprocal trade
arrangements with other nations should
in liberal spirit be carefully cultivated
and promoted. "
When the free traders used to say
that , they were roundly denounced as
enemies of American industries. It was
the fashion to say that they were on the
pay roll of the Cobden Club. If not
quite free trade , it is much freer trade
that the President advocates. Reciprocal
trade arrangements made in a liberal
spirit with other nations , the same na
tions that we shut out from our markets
four years ago , would fundamentally
change our tariff policy. It is , in fact ,
an abandonment of the policy of pro
tection and exclusion that the President
recommends. He has good reason for
his change of view. Our increasing pro
ductiveness , he says admonishes us "of
the necessity of still further enlarging
our foreign markets by broader com
mercial relations. " This was abom
inable heresy a few years ago. It is
sound doctrine now. It is more jthan
doctrine it is prophecy , and fulfillment
is not far off. New York Times. >