The Relations of Lahor and Cafpital. 61 



ating currency. The control of that whole matter has been in 

 the hands of capitalists. They profit by it, not through its 

 relations to legitimate productive industry, but through the 

 chances and stimulus such a currency gives to speculation. 

 Capital invested in real production, and labor both suffer from 

 it, but labor most of all ; for in the ever recurring fluctua- 

 tions wages are slowest to rise and quickest to fall, and all the 

 mischiefs of deranged industry touch the very seat of life with 

 laborers. Honest capitalists and laborers are alike interested 

 in urging by all practical measures the correction of this cry- 

 ing evil. Freedom to work and honest pay for honest work 

 well done is the universal maxim of wisdom for genuine thrift. 

 The mischief is that thousands are studying and struggling all 

 the time to thrive by the opposite rule, reaching on the one 

 hand after the fruits of honest work without rendering honest 

 pay, and on the other reaching after dishonest pay for dishon- 

 est work. The grand correction for this condition of things 

 is a more sacred regard on all hands to that great command 

 uttered by Jehovah at Sinai some few thousand years ago, 

 " Thou shall not steals 



