A SIGNIFICANT SYMPATHY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 21, 13 September 1889, Page 17

A SIGNIFICANT SYMPATHY.

f? HE sympathy generally shown with the men en* t. gaged in the London Btrikes, and the efforts £ made or proposed to give them assistance, are * particularly significant. Something of all this fcj no doubt may be due to sympathy with the parHi ticular case, with the hardships endured by the men and their families, and also to a sense of admiration and approval of the moderation of their demands and the orderliness of their conduct. There can be no question, however, that a wider feeling has also been called into play, and that the case appeals to broader principles than those concerned merely with any local matter of the kind. These strikes are but an additional manifestation of an evil that is as broad as the world itself, and which, as the civilisation of mankind extends and grows more elevated, also becomes graver and more widely spread. The problem to be solved is not one regarding only the condition of any particular bodies of labourers, let them be as large and as deserving of consideiation as they can possibly be. It concerns the whole labouring classes — at least of the civilised world, and also narrowly affects the privileges and position of the capitalist. There is a certain school of philosophers, or economists, at the present day who teach that the whole product of labour belongs to the labourers alone. They who have personally aided in the construction, or brought forth the produce, are they only who can rightfully claim to divide the profits. Such a school, however, apparently forgets that society is separated by many centuries from a primitive condition — if, indeed, such a condition as that implied ever existed, and is not Utopian only and many things enter into its present state to render such claims as those they make impracticable and unjust. Capital, which also in a great degree must be taken as representing intellect, has certainly its rights, and an infringement of them can only be attended with evil consequences. But capital has its obligations as well, failure to observe which must result in evil as the experience of the world is that it has so resulted most abundantly. What these obligations are has been not only the deduction of reason, but also the plain subject of revelation. Under the law of Moses, for example, even the rights of the dumb animal, as against the human owner, were provided for. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that tread«th out the corn— lowly as was the creature for whose

protection it was uttered — was a precept as full of meaning as it was sublime. But if even the beast; of whose services the owner availed himself in preparing for use the fruits of his expenditure and forethought was worthy of something better than a mere sufficiency of food, how much more is the human being— more accountable and tuore valuable to his employer than the ox was to the ancient hosbandman— worthy of obtaining from his employer a suffie'ency of the necessaries of life— as represented by their equi«a'eat, wages ? The labourer is worthy of his hire; So, for instance, does the New Testament repeat and renew what was commanded under the Old. Bnt this hire should be no mere pittance, hardly keeping body and soul together ; not enabling the labourer to maintain his family in decency; and making abject misery a cordition of hard work. Were this so, the more merciful dispensation of the Gospel would be less careful in its provisions for men than was the law in providing, for the brute beast. Does God take thought for oxen? Bat the unmuzzled ox among the com enjoyed a plenty unknown to the labourer working on starvation wages. It is plain, then, from the revelation of God, no less than from the deductions of reason and common sense, that the working-man has an inalienable right in the produce of his labour. It is not lawful for the capitalist to grind him down to the uttermost farthing, and himself seize on all the profits that his position enables him to grasp. The legislation, moreover, that sanctions or promotes such a state of things is legislation at variance alike with the law of God and with the clearer perceptions and better feelings of mankind.

While, therefore, the particular circumstarces of the London strikes may have contributed in some special degree to the sympathy felt and manifested, we a.c warranted in the belief expressed by us that a wider principle lies at the bottom of the matter. The strikes in question appear to the world at large as the outcome of an evil system that calls for reform, and which, as we hare said, is as broad as the world itself. If England is concerned, so is Continental Europe, bo is America, so are the Colonies. The question is a vital and pressing one, and if the circumstances of the present case, and particularly the sympathy to which we have alluded, call the practical attention to it of statesmen in whose hands are the fortanes of the world, and fruitfully impress upon them its importance, an end, necessary to check the growth of an infinite evil with its inevitable results, will be gained. Should po such end follow the evil, however removed for a time from sight, must still increase.