266 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



LABOR TROUBLES. 

 TTTHATEVER we may fail to see 

 VV nowadays when we take up a 

 newspaper, there is one thing certain 

 to meet onr eyes on the first page, 

 with a continuation probably on other 

 pages. We refer, of course, to the per- 

 petually recurring accounts of strikes 

 and other labor troubles. If we do 

 not see our way out of these difficul- 

 ties, it is not for want of having our 

 attention repeatedly and powerfully di- 

 rected to them ; nor is it because our 

 interests are not seriously concerned 

 in the matter. Yet we are not aware 

 that recent discussion has thrown any 

 important light either upon the cause 

 of the troubles or upon the method of 

 their cure. In this there is room for 

 the application of scientific principles. 

 All the facts that have any bearing on 

 the case require to be carefully gath- 

 ered. We should ask not only what 

 are the open pretensions of the parties 

 to the struggle, but what are their se- 

 cret thoughts and purposes. "We fear 

 that there is a great deal of working in 

 the dark, simply from lack of informa- 

 tion as to "bottom facts. 1 ' Platforms 

 and manifestoes never tell the whole 

 truth. They may formulate a tempo- 

 rary modus vivendi; but they never 

 state ultimate intentions. Consequent- 

 ly, as long as we confine our attention 

 to these, we are liable to continual mis- 

 understandings. For example, some 

 are disposed to think that the legal es- 

 tablishment of boards of arbitration 

 would meet the present difficulties. 

 The idea appears to us, on the other 

 hand, absurd. Those who adopt it do 

 so, no doubt, on the strength of the 

 declarations made on either side of a 

 desire for a reasonable settlement of 

 disputes. We reject the idea, because 

 we suspect that no definite sense can 



be attached to the word u reasonable " 

 or the word " equitable," as used in the 

 public statements either of labor unions 

 or of the great employers of labor. 

 Each side has its own secret tendency, 

 and until we get at that we are all in 

 the dark. Meanwhile it seems certain 

 that neither capitalist nor workman 

 would consent to have a course dic- 

 tated to him by any form of official 

 authority. There is no getting over 

 the homely maxim that everybody 

 knows his own business best; and we 

 can hardly understand how any rational 

 man can bring himself to believe that 

 any large business could be run, against 

 the judgment of its head, upon lines 

 laid down by outsiders. Still more 

 difficult is it to understand how, if the 

 workmen were dissatisfied with the de- 

 cision of an official board, they could 

 be forced to respect that decision. 



The proposition simply affords an- 

 other example of the readiness with 

 which in these days government or 

 legislative interference is invoked for 

 the settlement of difficulties. What 

 common sense or the instinct of justice 

 between man and man can not, or ap- 

 parently can not, effect, that the Legis- 

 lature, in its infinite justice and wis- 

 dom, is asked to undertake. Such 

 efforts tend only to obscure the real 

 elements of the situation. We may be 

 mistaken, but it seems to us that the 

 position taken to-day by the laboring 

 classes (to use the common expression) 

 involves the principle that free com- 

 petition for wealth between man and 

 man in society should not be allowed. 

 Every intelligent man, whatever his 

 status in society, would allow that were 

 all the wealth in the world to be redis- 

 tributed equally to-day, a year would 

 not elapse, under the regime of free 

 competition, before there would again 



