THE GERMAN LABOUR MOVEMENT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 2, 9 May 1890, Page 20

THE GERMAN LABOUR MOVEMENT.

(From the American Manufacturer.)

Among the most remarkable and significant signs of the times are the recent atterances of the German Emperor on the labour question. In his rescripts to two of his Ministers, the Emperor declares that " it is the duty of the State to so regulate the duration and nature of labonr as to insure the health, the morality, and the supply of aU the economic wants of the working man." This utterance is the most stinging and staggaring blow that laissez faire has ever received in Europe. It is in complete opposition to every precept of the Adam Smith and Manchester school of philosophy ; it is the announcement of the adherence of the most absolute, with the exception of the Czar, of the civilised monarchs of Enrope to the new gospel of labour and its relation to the State. The theory of the English school of philosophers concerning the functions and actions of the State, not only in relation, to labour, but to all other conditions, that it was assumed were purely personal, has been absolutely non-interference — laissez faire. They have condemned direct interference of tbe State with labour as an interference in the industrial freedom of its citizens. This for years was the spirit of the laws not only of the Continent of Europe but of England as well. But England has gradually, in the face of its theoretical adoption of the doctrine of laissez faire, been placing upon its statute books a body of legislation that is in direct opposition to this theoretical idea. How great has been this movement Stanley Jevons shows in his remarkable little book, "The State in Relation to Labour," and there lays down what it seams to us is the true limit of legislation io this matter, viz., that " no laws, no custom", no lights of property are so sacred that they may not be made away with if it can be clearly shown that they stand in the way of the greaest happiness." In the place of that metaphysical incubus, laissez faire, English legislation, and American legislation too, has been following the higher principle, salus populi, regarding this aa the lex svprema — higher even than the so-called universal and nnalterable rule of laissez faire.

In this country, so far as concerns the individual labourer, we have not yet plac»d upon our statute books as many nor so modern provisions for their health and morality f.s has been done in England or in some of the continental nations ; but in a broader and better sense we have placed among our laws provisions that bo concern the welfare of the labourer as to place him in a position of such independence as to demand and enforce methods that shall ensure his health and safety. This we have done in the system of protection that gives our woiking men such wag^s and such a degree of independence tb'it they cm insist upon those provisions in connection with their work tLit shall provide for their safety and their health.

" Your picture of Balfour is a caricature,' 1 writes an esteemed London correspondent ; ''^ive the devil his due." We shomld like to; but unfortunately, thj disposal of Mr. Balfour is not in our bauds. — Pilot.

The new iifle with which the German army is now being armed is the third which has been adopted by the sages at Berlin since the summer of 1871, and each change has involvei an expenditure of one hundred and ten million marks.

Monsignor Fallicjes, the new Bishop of Saint Brieux, who is prepaiing for his approaching consecration, has chosen for his arms a gold chalice upon azure, with the inscription, " Til es sacerdos hi aiternum " The following anecdote throws light upon the choice. When the present Bishop was a young man and undecided as to his vocatioj, he happened to listen to a sermon that strongly moved him. Opening a book directly afterwards, tha first words that met his eye were — " Tv es sacerdos in mternum "

A correspondent states that the Empress of Austria has caused her wedding dress to be cut up and made into a set of vestments for the clergy at the Church of St. Matthew, in Pesth. The dress was of white brocade with silver threads, embroidered all over with beautiful garlands of roses in silver.

Recently at Sainte-Clotilde, Paris, a sermon was preached by the well-known pulpit orator, Pere Ollivier, in behalf of the memorial church to be raised in Ireland on the Bite of O'Connell's birthplace. The eloquent rominican was not going over quite new ground. Others, including Lacordaire and Pere Ventura, had been before him in sounding from French pulpits the praises of the great Irish emancipator. Pere Ollivier drew in vigorous lines O'Oonnell's life and work, and the theme appealed to the sympathies of a large and fashionable congregation. Mr. F. Meenan, King Btreet, reports:— Wholesale prices: — Oatp, Is 2d to Is sd, bags extra. Wheat : Milling, 2s 6d to 3s Id ; fowls', 2s to 2s 6d, sucks included. Chaff : New, £2 10s for best ; inferior, 30s to 40s, unsaleable. Hay : Oaten, £3 ; ryegrass, £3. Bran, £3 os. Pollard, £4. scare . Potatoes : KidDeyp, £1 10 bto£2 ; derwents, £3 to £3 10s —sample of Oamaru to hand, small. Flour : Stone, £7 15s ; sacks, fifties, £8 ss ; roller, £8 10s ; fifties, £9 ss; Butter, tresh, 9d to Is— rather easier ; salt, 6d to Bd— demand moderate. Eggs, Is 6d. The Jews are just now taking a very remarkable step. A petition has been drawn up and submitted for signature to all the Rabbins of Europe and America, and its object is to beg the Pope to put an end, by means of a public document, to the charge often made against the Jews of offering up a sacrifice of Christian Blood in their religious observances. The petition appeals to the testimony of Popes and leading Catholic authorities who have from the earliest* times denounced the charge as an atrocious calumny, and expresses • the hope that Leo XIII. will accede to the demand addressed to him '• in the name of truth, justice, and humanity." The Jowb have not forgotton the prosection which throughout the course of their sad history they have always found at the Papal court.— Liverpool Catholic Times, _ M "