WHAT SHALL WE DO? ;;.V.) 



land. England is to-day preeminently the country, 

 above all others, thai manufactures for the world - 

 that depends upon the markets of tin- world 1'nr tin- 

 disposition and consumption of her products. That 

 country is the great apostle of "Free Trud<\" which, 

 if it has any blessings, should have gilded tin- whole- 

 land and made it a very paradise, in the full century 

 it has occupied that position. There, also, the desire 

 for " cheapness " pervades the whole kingdom, and is 

 all that many live for ; and competition is their life- 

 blood. But here we have, in the case of England, the 

 indisputable evidence that, for the people, the only 

 fruits of manufacturing for the world, foreign markets, 

 free trade, cheapness, and competition, are slavery for 

 men, women, and children, with want, misery, starva- 

 tion, and death in all its most horrible forms. These 

 things have made that country an industrial hell. 



We, also, have been struggling for the world's mar- 

 kets and for the remainder of those imaginary bless- 

 ings that England possesses in so eminent a degree, 

 and find our industries and people rapidly following 

 those of the mother country. Indeed, in some things 

 we have already passed them. Mr. Porter reports 

 " fifty-six hours of steady, confining, dusty, tedious 

 work," in a week, as the lot of the mill workers. In 

 our blessed land, in Massachusetts, it is sixty hours, 

 and in Connecticut and all of the other States, it is 

 sixty-six or more. He also reports the excessive labor 

 of railroad employes in Scotland, even to one hundred 

 hours a week. In our country a common and regular 

 time for conductors and drivers on our street railroads 

 is from fifteen to eighteen hours a day. A long list 



