STUDY VII
THE NATIONS ASSEMBLED AND THE
PREPARATION OF THE ELEMENTS FOR
THE GREAT FIRE OF GOD'S
INDIGNATION

How and Why the Nations are Assembled--The Social Elements Preparing for the Fire--The Heaping of Treasures--The Increase of Poverty --Social Friction Nearing Combustion--A Word from the President of the American Federation of Labor--The Rich sometimes too Severely Condemned--Selfishness and Liberty in Combination--Independence as Viewed by the Rich and by the Poor--Why Present Conditions Cannot Continue--Machinery an Important Factor in Preparing for the Great Fire--Female Competition--Labor's View of the Situation, Reasonable and Unreasonable--The Law of Supply and Demand Inexorable upon all--The Outlook for Foreign Industrial Competition apalling--Mr. Justin McCarthy's Fears for England--Kier Hardie, M.P., on the Labor Outlook in England--Hon. Jos. Chamberlain's Prophetic Words to British Workmen--National Aggression as Related to Industrial Interests--Herr Liebknecht on the Social and Industrial War in Germany--Resolutions of the International Trades Union Congress--Giants in These Days--List of Trusts and Combines-- Barbaric Slavery vs. Civilized Bondage--The Masses Between the Upper and Nether Millstones--The Conditions Universal and Beyond Human Power to Regulate.

The gathering of the nations in these last days, in fulfilment of the above prophecy, is very notable. Modern discovery and invention have indeed made the remotest ends of the earth neighbors to each other. Travel, mailing facilities, the telegraph, the telephone, commerce, the multiplication of books and newspapers, etc., have brought all the world to a considerable extent into a community of thought and action hitherto unknown. This condition of things has already made necessary international laws and regulations that each of the nations must respect. Their representatives meet in Councils, and each nation has in every other nation its ministers or representatives. International Exhibitions have also been called forth as results of this neighboring of nations. There can no more be that exclusiveness on the part of any nation which would bar every other nation from its ports. The gates of all are necessarily thrown open, and must remain so; and even the barriers of diverse languages are being easily surmounted.

The civilized peoples are no longer strangers in any part of the earth. Their splendid sea equipments carry their business representatives, their political envoys and their curious pleasure-seekers to the remotest quarters with ease and comfort. Magnificent railway coaches introduce them to the interior lands, and they return home laden with information, and with new ideas, and awakened to new projects and enterprises. Even the dull heathen nations are arousing themselves from the dreams of centuries and looking with wonder and amazement at their visitors from abroad and learning of their marvelous achievements. And they in turn are now sending their representatives abroad that they may profit by their new acquaintances.

The Prophet tells us why the Lord thus gathers the nations, saying--"That I may pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger; for the whole earth [the entire social fabric] shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy." This message would bring us sorrow and anguish only, were it not for the assurance that the results shall work good to the world, overthrowing the reign of selfishness and establishing, through Christ's Millennial Kingdom, the reign of righteousness referred to in the words of the prophet--"Then will I turn unto the people a pure language [Their communications with each other shall no longer be selfish, but pure, truthful and loving, to the intent] that they may all call upon the name of the Lord to serve him with one consent."

"There are in New York City, at a conservative calculation, the surprising number of 1,157 individuals and estates that are each worth $1,000,000. There are in Brooklyn 162 individuals and estates each worth at least $1,000,000. In the two cities there are then 1,319 millionaires, but many of these are worth much more than $1,000,000--they are multi-millionaires, and the nature of these great fortunes is different, and they therefore yield different incomes. The rates of interest which some of the more conspicuous ones draw are reckoned in round numbers, thus: John D. Rockefeller's 6 per cent; William Waldorf Astor's, 7 per cent; Jay Gould's estate, which, being wrapped up in corporations, is still practically undivided, 4 per cent; Cornelius Vanderbilt's, 5 per cent and William K. Vanderbilt's, 5 per cent.

"Calculating at the foregoing rates and compounding interest semi-annually, to allow for reinvestment, the yearly and daily incomes of the four individuals and of the estates named are as follows:

Yearly Daily
William Waldorf Astor.................$8,900,000 $23,277
John D. Rockefeller................... 7,611,250 20,853
Jay Gould's Estate.................... 4,040,000 11,068
Cornelius Vanderbilt.................. 4,048,000 11,090
William K. Vanderbilt................. 3,795,000 10,397

The above is evidently a conservative estimate, for even sixteen years ago it was noted that Mr. Rockefeller's quarterly dividend on Standard Oil Company's stock, of which he is one of the principal holders, was represented by a check for four millions of dollars; and the same holdings today yield a far greater income.

The Niagara Falls Review even before the dawn of the present century sounded the following warning note:

"One of the greatest dangers which now menace the stability of American institutions is the increase of individual millionaires, and the consequent concentration of property and money in single hands. A recent article in a prominent paper of New York State gives figures which must serve to draw general attention to the evolution of this difficulty. The following are said to be the nine greatest fortunes in the United States:

William Waldorf Astor.............................$150,000,000
Jay Gould......................................... 100,000,000
John D. Rockefeller............................... 90,000,000
Cornelius Vanderbilt.............................. 90,000,000
William K. Vanderbilt............................. 80,000,000
Henry M. Flagler.................................. 60,000,000
John L. Blair..................................... 50,000,000
Russell Sage...................................... 50,000,000
Collis P. Huntington.............................. 50,000,000
------------
Total...............................$720,000,000

"Estimating the yield from these immense sums in accordance with the average interest obtained upon other similar investments, the following would be the proceeds:

Yearly Daily
Astor.....................................$9,135,000 $25,027
Rockefeller............................... 5,481,000 16,003
Gould..................................... 4,040,000 11,068
Vanderbilt, C. ........................... 4,554,000 12,477
Vanderbilt, W. K. ........................ 4,048,000 11,090
Flagler................................... 3,036,000 8,318
Blair..................................... 3,045,000 8,342
Sage...................................... 3,045,000 8,342
Huntington................................ 1,510,000 4,137

"Nearly all these men live in a comparatively simple style, and it is obviously impossible for them to spend more than a portion of their immense daily and yearly revenues. The surplus consequently becomes capital, and helps to build still higher the fortunes of these individuals. Now the Vanderbilt family possess the following immense sums:

(The past few years have increased some of these figures greatly.)

Cornelius Vanderbilt..........................$90,000,000
William K. Vanderbilt......................... 80,000,000
Frederick W. Vanderbilt....................... 17,000,000
George W. Vanderbilt.......................... 15,000,000
Mrs. Elliot F. Sheppard....................... 13,000,000
Mrs. William D. Sloane........................ 13,000,000
Mrs. Hamilton McK. Twombly.................... 13,000,000
Mrs. W. Seward Webb........................... 13,000,000
------------
Total..............$254,000,000

"Still more wonderful are the accumulations made through the great Standard Oil trust, which has just been dissolved--succeeded by the Standard Oil Company. The fortunes from it were as follows:

John D. Rockefeller...........................$90,000,000
Henry M. Flagler.............................. 60,000,000
William Rockefeller........................... 40,000,000
Benjamin Brewster............................. 25,000,000
Henry H. Rogers............................... 25,000,000
Oliver H. Payne (Cleveland)................... 25,000,000
Wm. G. Warden (Philadelphia).................. 25,000,000
Chas. Pratt estate (Brooklyn)................. 25,000,000
John D. Archbold.............................. 10,000,000
------------
Total...........................$325,000,000

"It took just twenty years to combine this wealth in the hands of eight or nine men. Here, then, is the danger. In the hands of Gould, the Vanderbilts and Huntington are the great railroads of the United States. In the possession of Sage, the Astors and others, rest great blocks of New York land, which are constantly increasing in value. United and by natural accumulation, the fortunes of these nine families would amount in twenty-five years to $2,754,000,000. William Waldorf Astor himself, by pure force of accumulation, will probably be worth a thousand millions before he dies; and this money, like that of the Vanderbilts, will descend in his family as in others, and create an aristocracy of wealth extremely dangerous to the commonwealth, and forming a curious commentary upon that aristocracy of birth or talent which Americans consider to be so injurious in Great Britain.

"Other great fortunes are in existence or rising, a few only of which may be given:

William Astor..................................$40,000,000
Leland Stanford................................ 30,000,000
Mrs. Hetty Green............................... 30,000,000
Philip D. Armour............................... 30,000,000
Edward F. Searles.............................. 25,000,000
J. Pierpont Morgan............................. 25,000,000
Charles Crocker estate......................... 25,000,000
Darius O. Mills................................ 25,000,000
Andrew Carnegie................................ 25,000,000
E. S. Higgins estate........................... 20,000,000
George M. Pullman.............................. 20,000,000
------------
Total............................$295,000,000

"Thus we see capital in almost inconceivable sums being vested in a few, and necessarily taken from [the opportunity of] the many. There is no power in man to peaceably settle this vexed question. It will go on from bad to worse."

Some American Millionaires
and How They Got Their Millions

The Editor of the Review of Reviews gives what he terms "a few excerpts from a most instructive and entertaining paper, the one fault of which is its optimistic view of the plutocratic octopus," in these words:

"An American who writes from intimate personal knowledge, but who prefers to remain anonymous, tells in Cornhill Magazine with much sympathy the story of several of the millionaires of the giant Republic. He claims that even if the four thousand millionaires own among them forty billion dollars out of the seventy-six billions which form the total national wealth, still the balance leaves every citizen $500 per head as against $330 per head forty-five years ago. He argues that millionaires have grown by making other classes not poorer but richer.

"'Commodore Vanderbilt, who made the first Vanderbilt millions, was born just a century ago. His capital was the traditional bare feet, empty pocket and belief in his luck--the foundation of so many American fortunes. Hard work, from six years of age to sixteen, furnished him with a second and more tangible capital, namely, one hundred dollars in cash. This money he invested in a small boat; and with that boat he opened a business of his own--the transportation of vegetables to New York. At twenty years of age he married, and man and wife both turned money-makers. He ran his boat. She kept a hotel. Three years later he was worth ten thousand dollars. After that his money came rapidly --so rapidly that when the civil war broke out, the boy, who had started with one boat, worth one hundred dollars, was able to present to the nation one of his boats, value eight hundred thousand dollars, and yet feel easy about his finances and his fleet. At seventy years of age he was credited with a fortune of seventy millions.

"'Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins and Collis P. Huntington went to California in the gold fever of 1849. When the trans-continental railway was mooted these four 'saw millions in it,' and contracted to make the Union Pacific. The four men, penniless in 1850, are today credited with a combined fortune of $200,000,000.

"'One of them, Leland Stanford, had designed to found a family; but ten years ago his only son died, and he then decided to establish a university in memory of that son. And he did it in princely fashion, for while yet 'in the flesh' he 'deeded' to trustees three farms containing 86,000 acres, and, owing to their splendid vineyards, worth $6,000,000. To this he added $14,000,000 worth of securities, and at his death left the university a legacy of $2,500,000--a total gift by one man, to one institution of learning of $22,500,000, which is said to be a 'world's record.' His wife has announced her intention to leave her fortune, some $10,000,000, to the university.'

"The most remarkable instance of money-making shown in the history of American millions is that furnished by the Standard Oil Trust:

In an article in the Forum Mr. Thomas G. Shearman, a New York statistician, gave the names of seventy Americans whose aggregate wealth is $2,700,000,000, an average of $38,500,000 each; and declares that a list of ten persons could be made whose wealth would average $100,000,000 each; and another list of one hundred persons whose wealth would average $25,000,000 each; and that "the average annual income of the richest hundred Americans cannot be less [each] than $1,200,000, and probably exceeds $1,500,000."

Commenting on this last statement, an able writer (Rev. Josiah Strong) says:

"If one hundred workmen could earn each $1,000 a year, they would have to work twelve hundred or fifteen hundred years to earn as much as the annual income of these one hundred richest Americans. And if a workman could earn $100 a day he would have to work until he would be five hundred and forty-seven years old, and never take a day off, before he could earn as much as some Americans are worth."

The following table compares the wealth of the four richest nations of the world in 1830 and 1893; and shows how riches are being "heaped together" nationally in these "last days" of this age of almost fabulous accumulation.

1830 1893
Great Britain's total wealth $16,890,000,000 $50,000,000,000
France's total wealth 10,645,000,000 40,000,000,000
Germany's total wealth 10,700,000,000 35,000,000,000
United States' total wealth 5,000,000,000 72,000,000,000

That the reader may have an idea as to how statisticians arrive at their conclusions on so vast a subject, we give the following as an approximate classified estimate of the wealth of the United States:

Real estate in cities and towns.................$15,500,000,000
Real estate other than of cities and towns...... 12,500,000,000
Personal property (not hereafter specified)..... 8,200,000,000
Railroads and their equipments.................. 8,000,000,000
Capital invested in manufactures................ 5,300,000,000
Manufactured goods.............................. 5,000,000,000
Productions (including wool).................... 3,500,000,000
Property owned and money invested in
foreign countries............................. 3,100,000,000
Public buildings,
arsenals, warships, etc....................... 3,000,000,000
Domestic animals on farms....................... 2,480,000,000
Domestic animals in cities and towns............ 1,700,000,000
Money, foreign and domestic coin,
bank notes, etc. ............................... 2,130,000,000
Public lands (at $1.25 per acre)................ 1,000,000,000
Mineral products (all descriptions)............. 590,000,000
---------------
Total..............................$72,000,000,000

It was noted some years ago that the wealth of the United States was increasing at the rate of forty million dollars per week, or two billion dollars per year.

(The total indebtedness of the people of the United States, public and private, was then estimated to be twenty billion dollars.)

This heaping together of treasures for the last days, here noted, relates specially to these United States, but the same is true of the whole civilized world. Great Britain is per capita richer than the United States--the richest nation on earth. And even in China and Japan there are millionaires of recent development. The defeat of China in 1894 by the Japanese is charged as chiefly due to the avarice of the government officers, who are said to have supplied inferior and even imitation cannon and cannon-balls, although paid a large price for the genuine.

When special depressions come, as in 1893-6, many of these out of work are thrown upon the charity of their friends who are illy able to sustain this additional pressure; and those who have no friends are forced upon public charities, which at such times are wholly inadequate.

"The assembling of the unemployed masses in our great cities in multitudinous thousands is a most gruesome spectacle, and their piteous cry for work or bread is being heard all over the land. It is the old unsolved problem of poverty, intensified by the unprecedented depression of business. Involuntary idleness is a constantly growing evil coincident with civilization. It is the dark shadow that steadily creeps after civilization, increasing in dimensions and intensity as civilization advances. Things are certainly in an abnormal condition when men are willing to work, want to work, and yet cannot find work to do, while their very life depends upon work. There is no truth in the old saw that 'the world owes every man a living.' But it is true that the world owes every man a chance to earn his living. Many theories have been advanced and many efforts have been made to secure inalienable 'right to work' to every one willing to work; but all such attempts have hitherto ended in gloomy failure. He will indeed be a benefactor to mankind who shall successfully solve the problem how to secure to every willing worker some work to do, and thus rid mankind of the curse of involuntary idleness."

Another account describes how, in Chicago, a crowd of over four hundred unemployed men marched through the downtown streets, headed by one of their number carrying a pasteboard sign on which was scrawled the grim legend, "We Want Work." The next day they marched with many banners bearing the following inscriptions: "Live and Let Live," "We Want a Chance to Support Our Families." "Work or Bread," etc. An army of unemployed marched through San Francisco with banners on which were inscribed, "Thousands of Houses to Rent, and Thousands of People Homeless," "Hungry and Destitute," "Driven by the Lash of Hunger to Beg," "Get Off Our Backs and We Will Help Ourselves," etc.

Another clipping read:

"NEWARK, N.J., August 21--Unemployed workingmen held a large parade today. At the head of the line marched a man with a large black flag, upon which in white letters were the words: 'Signs of the Times--I Am Starving Because He is Fat.' Beneath was a picture of a large, well-fed man with a high hat, and beside him a starving workman."

Another journal, referring to the English coal-miners' strike, said:

"The stories of actual distress, and even of starvation, are multiplying painfully throughout England, and the cessation of industries and the derangement of railways are assuming proportions of grave national calamity....As might be expected, the real cause consists in the huge royalties that lessees have to pay for the ground to the landlords from whom they lease the mines. A considerable number of millionaires, whose coal royalties hang like millstones around the neck of the mining industries, are also prominent peers, and angry public consciousness puts the two things together with a snap....Radical papers are compiling portentous lists of lords not unlike the lists of trusts in America, showing in their figures their monstrous levies on the earnings of the property of the country.

"The cry for bread goes up from the city. It is deeper, hoarser, broader than it has ever been. It comes from gnawing stomachs and weakened frames. It comes from men who tramp the streets searching for work. It comes from women sitting hopeless in bare rooms. It comes from children.

"In the city of New York the poor have reached straits of destitution that have never before been known. Probably no living person understands how awful is the suffering, how terrible the poverty. No one person can see it all. No one's imagination can grasp it.

An editorial in the San Francisco Examiner said:

"How is this? We have so much to eat that the farmers are complaining that they can get nothing for it. We have so much to wear that cotton and woolen mills are closing down because there is nobody to buy their products. We have so much coal that the railroads that carry it are going into the hands of receivers. We have so many houses that the builders are out of work. All the necessities and comforts of life are as plentiful as ever they were in the most prosperous years of our history. When the country has enough food, clothing, fuel and shelter for everybody, why are times hard? Evidently nature is not to blame. Who or what, then, is?

"The problem of the unemployed is one of the most serious that face the United States. According to the statistics collected by Bradstreet's there were at the opening of the year something over 801,000 wage-earners out of employment in the first 119 cities of the United States, and the number of persons dependent upon these for support was over 2,000,000. If the 119 cities gave a fair average for the country the total of wage-earners wanting employment on the first of the year would run above 4,000,000 persons, representing a dependent population of 10,000,000. As the unemployed seek the cities it is safe to deduct one-fourth from these figures. But even with this deduction the number of wage-workers out of employment is an enormous, heart-rending total.

The editor of The Arena says in his CIVILIZATION INFERNO:

"The Dead Sea of want is enlarging its borders in every populous centre. The mutterings of angry discontent grow more ominous with each succeeding year. Justice denied the weak through the power of avarice has brought us face to face with a formidable crisis which may yet be averted if we have the wisdom to be just and humane; but the problem cannot longer be sneered at as inconsequential. It is no longer local; it affects and threatens the entire body politic. A few years ago one of the most eminent divines in America declared that there was no poverty to speak of in this Republic. Today no thoughtful person denies that this problem is of great magnitude. A short time since I employed a gentleman in New York to personally investigate the court records of the city that he might ascertain the exact number of warrants for evictions issued in twelve months. What was the result? The records showed the appalling fact that during the twelve months ending September 1, 1892, twenty-nine thousand seven hundred and twenty warrants for eviction were issued in the city of New York.

"In a paper in the Forum of December, 1892, by Mr. Jacob Riis, on the special needs of the poor in New York, he says: 'For many years it has been true of New York that one-tenth of all who die in this great and wealthy city are buried in the pottersfield. Of the 382,530 interments recorded in the past decade, 37,966 were in the pottersfield,' and Mr. Riis proceeds to hint at the fact known to all students of social conditions who personally investigate poverty in the great cities, that this pottersfield gauge, terribly significant though it be, is no adequate measure by which to estimate the poverty problem of a great city. On this point he continues:

"In 1890 there were two hundred and thirty-nine suicides officially reported in New York City. The court records are burdened as never before with cases of attempted self-slaughter. 'You,' said Recorder Smyth, addressing a poor creature who had sought death by leaping into the East River, 'are the second case of attempted suicide that has been up in this court this morning; and,' he continued, 'I have never known so many attempted suicides as during the past few months.'

"I recently visited more than a score of tenement houses where life was battling with death; where, with a patient heroism far grander than deeds of daring won amid the exulting shouts of the battlefield, mothers and daughters were ceaselessly plying the needle. In several homes I noticed bedridden invalids whose sunken eyes and emaciated faces told plainly the story of months, and perhaps years, of slow starvation amid the squalor, the sickening odor, and the almost universal filth of the social cellar. Here one becomes painfully conscious of specters of hunger and fear ever present. A lifelong dread presses upon the hearts of these exiles with crushing weight. The landlord, standing with a writ of dispossession, is continually before their mind's eye. Dread of sickness haunts every waking moment, for to them sickness means inability to provide the scant nourishment which life demands. The despair of the probable future not infrequently torments their rest. Such is the common lot of the patient toiler in the slums of our great cities today. On most of their faces one notes an expression of gloomy sadness and dumb resignation.

"In London alone there are more than three hundred thousand persons on the very brink of the abyss, whose every heart-beat thrills with fear, whose life-long nightmare is the dread that the little den they call home may be taken from them. Beneath them, at the door of starvation, are over two hundred thousand lives; still further down we find three hundred thousand in the stratum of the starving, in the realm where hunger gnaws night and day, where every second of every minute, of every hour of every day, is crowded with agony. Below the starving are the homeless -- they who have nothing with which to procure a lodging even in the worst quarters; they who sleep without shelter the year round, hundreds of whom may be found any night on the cold stone slabs along the Thames embankment. Some have a newspaper between themselves and the damp stones, but the majority do not even enjoy this luxury! This army of absolutely homeless in London numbers thirty-three thousand."

Does some one say, This is an overdrawn picture? Let him investigate. If it is but one-half true, it is deplorable!

Discontent, Hatred, Friction Preparing Rapidly
for Social Combustion

However it may be explained to the poor that the wealthy never were so charitable as now, that society has more ample provision now than ever before for the poor, the blind, the sick and the helpless, and that immense revenues are raised annually by taxation, for the maintenance of these benefactions, this will surely not satisfy the workingman. As a self-respecting, intelligent citizen it is not alms that he wants; he has no desire to avail himself of the privileges of the poorhouse or when sick to become a charity patient in a hospital; but he does want a chance honestly and decently to earn his bread by the sweat of his face and with the dignity of an honest toiler to maintain his family. But, while he sees himself and his neighbor workmen more dependent than ever upon favor and influence to get and keep a job of work, and the small storekeepers, small builders and small manufacturers struggling harder than ever for an honest living, he reads of the prosperity of the rich, the growing number of millionaires, the combines of capital to control the various industries--the copper business, the steel business, the glass business, the oil business, the match business, the paper business, the coal business, the paint business, the cutlery business, the telegraph business, and every other business. He sees also that these combinations control the machinery of the world, and that thus, while his labor is depreciating by reason of competition, goods and necessities may be advanced, or at least hindered from declining in proportion to the reduced cost of labor represented in improved machinery displacing human brain and muscle.

"We would wish to bid you welcome to a prosperous city, but truth will not justify the assertion. Things are here as they are, but not as they should be. We bid you welcome in the name of a hundred monopolists, and of fifty thousand tramps, here where mammon holds high carnival in palaces, while mothers are heartbroken, children are starving, and men are looking in vain for work. We bid you welcome in the name of a hundred thousand idle men, in the name of those edifices dedicated to the glory of God, but whose doors are closed at night to the starving and poor; in the name of the ministers who fatten from the vineyards of God, forgetting that God's children are hungry and have no place to lay their heads; in the name of the pillars of the sweating system, of the millionaires and deacons, whose souls are endangered by their appetite for gold; in the name of the wage-workers who sweat blood which is coined into golden ducats; in the name of the insane asylums and poorhouses, packed by people crazed by care in this land of plenty.

"We will show you exhibits of Chicago that were not shown at the fair ground--of her greatness and her weakness. Tonight we will show you hundreds of men lying on the rough stones in the corridors of this very building--no home, no food--men able and willing to work, but for whom there is no work. It is a time for alarm--alarm for the continuation of a government whose sovereign rights are delivered to railway magnates, coal barons and speculators; alarm for the continuation of a federal government whose financial policies are manufactured in Wall Street at the dictation of money barons of Europe. We expect you to take measures to utilize the franchise and to hurl from power the unfaithful servants of the people who are responsible for existing conditions."

In harmony with this thought, George E. McNeill, in an address before the World's Labor Congress, said:

"The labor movement is born of hunger--hunger for food, for shelter, warmth, clothing and pleasure. In the movement of humanity toward happiness each individual seeks his ideal, often with stoical disregard of others. The industrial system rests upon the devil's iron rule of every man for himself. Is it an unexplainable phenomenon that those who suffer most under this rule of selfishness and greed should organize for the overthrow of the devil's system of government?"

Can we wonder that many are envious, and some angry and embittered, when they contrast such wastefulness with their own family's penury, or at least enforced economy? Knowing that not many are "new creatures" who set their affections on things above and not on earthly things, and who have learned that "godliness with contentment is great gain" while they wait until the Lord shall vindicate their cause, we cannot wonder that such matters awaken in the hearts of the masses feelings of envy, hatred, malice, strife; and these feelings will ripen into open revolt which will ultimately work all the works of the flesh and the devil, during the great trouble-time impending.

Messiah's Herald commented as follows:

"One hundred and forty-four social autocrats, headed by an aristocrat, held a great ball. Royalty never eclipsed it. It was intensely exclusive. Wine flowed like water. Beauty lent her charms. Neither Mark Antony nor Cleopatra ever rolled in such gorgeousness. It was a collection of millionaires. The wealth of the world was drained for pearls and diamonds. Necklaces of gems costing $200,000 and downward emblazoned scores of necks. The dance went on amid Aladdin splendors. Joy was unconfined. While it was going on, says a journal, 100,000 starving miners in Pennsylvania were scouring the roads like cattle in search of forage, some of them living on cats, and not a few committing suicide to avoid seeing their children starve. Yet one necklace from the Metropolitan ball would have rescued all these from hunger. It was one of the 'great social events' of a nation called Christian; but what a contrast! And there is no remedy for it. Thus it will be 'til he come.'"

J. R. Buchanan in the Arena, speaking of the heartless extravagance of the wealthy, said:

"Its criminality is not so much in the heartless motive as in its wanton destruction of happiness and life to achieve a selfish purpose. That squandering wealth in ostentation and luxury is a crime becomes very apparent by a close examination of the act. There would be no harm in building a $700,000 stable for his horses, like a Syracuse millionaire, or in placing a $50,000 service on the dinner table, like a New York Astor, if money were as free as air and water; but every dollar represents an average day's labor. Hence the $700,000 stable represents the labor of 1,000 men for two years and four months. It also represents 700 lives; for $1,000 would meet the cost of the first ten years of a child, and the cost of the second ten years would be fully repaid by his labor. The fancy stable, therefore, represents the physical basis of 700 lives, and affirms that the owner values it more highly, or is willing that 700 should die that his vanity might be gratified."

The Literary Digest said editorially:

While we thus note public opinion in condemnation of the rich as a class, and while we note also the Lord's condemnation and foretold penalty of this class as a whole, it is but reasonable that God's people should exercise moderation in their judgment or opinions of the rich as individuals. The Lord, whose judgment against the class is so severe, will nevertheless be merciful to them as individuals; and when in his wisdom he has destroyed their idols of silver and gold, and brought down their high looks, and humbled their pride, he will then be gracious to comfort and to heal such as renounce their selfishness and pride. It will be noted also, that we have quoted only the reasonable and moderate expressions of sensible writers and not the extreme and often nonsensical diatribes of anarchists and visionaries.

It is well to remember that many of the rich not only justly pay heavy taxes for public free schools, for the support of the government, for the support of public charities, etc., but also cheerfully contribute otherwise to the relief of the poor, and are heartily benevolent to asylums, colleges, hospitals, etc., and to the churches they esteem most worthy. And those who do these things out of good and honest hearts, and not (as we must admit is sometimes the case) for show and praise of men, will not lose their reward. And all such should be justly esteemed.

Then they no doubt reason that having the wealth it is their duty not to hoard it all, but to spend some of it. They perhaps question whether it would be better to dispense it as charity or to let it circulate through the avenues of trade, and wages for labor. They properly conclude that the latter would be the better plan. Balls, banquets, weddings, yachts, etc., may strike them as being pleasures to themselves and their friends and an assistance to their less fortunate neighbors. And is there not some truth in that view? The ten thousand dollar banquet, for instance, starts probably fifteen thousand dollars into circulation--through butchers, bakers, florists, tailors, dressmakers, jewelers, etc., etc. The $800,000 yacht, while a great personal extravagance, caused a circulation of that amount of money amongst workingmen somewhere; and more, it will mean an annual expenditure of at the very least twenty and quite possibly one hundred thousand dollars for officers, engineers, sailors, victuals, etc., and other running expenses.

Under present wrong conditions, therefore, it is extremely fortunate for the middle and poorest classes that the wealthy are "foolishly extravagant," rather than miserly; spending lavishly a portion of the flood of wealth rolling into their coffers; for diamonds, for instance, which require "digging," polishing and mounting and thus give employment to thousands who would only add to the number out of work if the wealthy had no foibles or extravagances, but hoarded all they got possession of. Reasoning thus, the rich may actually consider their extravagances as "charities." And if they do, they but follow the same course of false reasoning taken by some of the middle class, when they get up "church sociables" and fairs and festivals "for sweet charity's sake."

We are not justifying their course: we are merely seeking to point out that the extravagances of the rich in times of financial distress do not of necessity imply that they are devoid of feeling for the poor. And when they think of doing charity on any other than "business principles," no doubt they reflect that it would require a small army of men and women to superintend the distribution of their daily increase and that they could not feel sure that it would reach the most needy anyway; because selfishness is so general that few could be trusted to dispense large quantities honestly. A millionairess remarked that she never looked from the windows of her carriage when passing through the poorer quarters, because it offended her eye. We wonder if it was not also because her conscience was pricked by the contrast between her condition and that of the poor. As for seeing to charities themselves--the men are too busy attending their investments and the women are too refined for such things: they would see unpleasant sights, hear unpleasant sounds and sense unpleasant odors. When poorer they may have coveted such opportunities for good as they now possess: but selfishness and pride and social engagements and ethics offset the nobler sentiments and prevent much fruit. As some one has said, It was because our Lord went about doing good that he was touched with a feeling of man's infirmities.

But although we may find pleas upon which to base some apologies for present augmentations of wealth in the hands of the few; although we may realize that some of the rich, especially of the moderately rich, are very benevolent; and although the contention may be true that they gain their wealth under the operation of the very same laws that govern all, and that some of the poor are less generous naturally, and less disposed to be just than some of the rich, and that if places were changed they would often prove more exacting and tyrannical than the rich, yet, nevertheless, the Lord declares that the possessors of wealth are about to be called into judgment on this score, because, when they discerned the tendency of affairs, they did not seek at their own cost a plan more equitable, more generous, than the usage of today; as, for instance, along the lines of Socialism.

As showing the views of increasingly large numbers of people in reference to the duty of society to either leave free to all the opportunities and riches of nature (earth, air and water) or else if these be monopolized to provide opportunity for daily labor for those who have no share in the monopolies, we quote the following from an exchange. It says:

"A more pathetic incident in real life is seldom told in print than the following, which is vouched for by a kindergarten teacher who resides in Brooklyn, N. Y.

"A little girl who attends a kindergarten on the east side, the poorest district in New York City, came to the school one morning recently, thinly clad and looking pinched and cold. After being in the warm kindergarten a while the child looked up into the teacher's face and said earnestly:

"'Miss C------, Do you love God?'

"'Why, yes,' said the teacher.

"'Well, I don't,' quickly responded the child with great earnestness and vehemence, 'I hate him.'

"The teacher, thinking this a strange expression to come from a child whom she had tried hard to teach that it was right to love God asked for an explanation.

"'Well,' said the child, 'he makes the wind blow, and I haven't any warm clothes; and he makes it snow, and my shoes have holes in them, and he makes it cold, and we haven't any fire at home, and he makes us hungry, and mamma hadn't any bread for our breakfast.'"

Commenting it says: "If we consider the perfection of God's material bounties to the children of earth, it is hard, after reading this story, to regard with patience the complacency of rich blasphemers who, like the innocent little girl, charge the miseries of poverty to God."

But to expect such a use of wealth is unreasonable; because, although many rich men profess Christianity, they, like the remainder of the world, know nothing about true Christianity--faith in Christ as a personal Redeemer, and full consecration of every talent to his service. They wish to be classed as "Christians," because they do not wish to be classed as "heathen" or "Jews"; because the name of Christ is popular now, even if his real teachings are no more popular than when he was crucified.

But why cannot conditions be so altered as gradually to bring the equalization of wealth and comfort? Because the world is governed not by the royal law of love but by the law of depravity--selfishness.

Selfishness in Combination with Liberty

All in civilized lands--rich and poor, learned and unlearned, wise and foolish, male and female--(with rare exceptions) are moved to almost every act of life by this powerful combination. They beget in all their subjects a frenzy for place, power and advantage, for self-aggrandizement. The few saints, whose aims are for the present and future good of others, constitute so small a minority as to be scarcely worthy of consideration as a factor in the present time. They will be powerless to effect the good they long for until, glorified with their Lord and Master, they shall be both qualified and empowered to bless the world as God's Kingdom. And while they are in the flesh they will still have need to watch and pray lest even their higher knowledge and higher liberty become evils by coming under the domination of selfishness.

Independence As Viewed by the Rich and
by the Poor

This has become so largely the public view that the old custom for those of superior education, talents and other advantages to visit the poor and assist them with advice or substantials has died out; and now each attends to his own concerns and leaves the others, independent, to take care of themselves, or often to the generous public provisions--asylums, hospitals, "homes," etc. This may be favorable to some and in some respects, but it is apt to bring difficulties to others and in other respects--through inexperience, improvidence, wastefulness, indolence, imbecility and misfortune.

Why Recent Favorable Conditions Cannot
Continue

It may be suggested that the rich and poor have lived together for six thousand years, and that there is no more danger of calamity resulting now than in the past; no more danger that the rich will crush the poor and let them starve, nor that the poor will destroy the rich through anarchy. But this is a mistake; there is greater danger than ever before from both sides.

Conditions have greatly changed with the masses since the days of serfdom; not only the physical, but also the mental conditions; and now, after a taste of civilization and education, it would require centuries of gradual oppression to make them again submit to the old order of things, in which they were the vassals of the landed nobility. It could not be done in one century--sooner would they die! The very suspicion of a tendency toward such a future for their children would lead to a revolution, and it is this fear which is helping to goad the poor to stronger protests than ever before attempted.

But it may be asked, Why should we contemplate such a tendency? Why not suppose a continuance, and even an increase, of the general prosperity of the past century, and particularly of the past fifty years?

Invention was stimulated by the demand, and it has pushed one labor-saving device upon another into the factory, the home, onto the farm, everywhere, until now it is difficult for any to earn a bare living independent of modern machinery. All of this, together with commerce with outside nations, waking up similarly, but later, has kept things going prosperously for the laboring classes, while making the merchants and manufacturers of Christendom fabulously rich.

But now we are nearing the end of the lane of prosperity. Already in many directions the world's supply exceeds the world's demands, or rather exceeds its financial ability to gratify its desires. China, India and Japan, after being excellent customers for the manufactures of Europe and the United States, are now generally utilizing their own labor (at six to twelve cents per day) in duplicating what they have already purchased; and therefore they will demand less and less proportionately hereafter. The countries of South America have been pushed faster than their intelligence warranted, and some of them are already bankrupt and must economize until they get into better financial condition.

Evidently, therefore, a crisis is approaching; a crisis which would have culminated sooner than this in Europe had it not been for the unprecedented prosperity of this Great Republic, under a protective tariff, which brought hither for investment millions of European capital, as well as drew millions of Europe's population to share the benefits of that prosperity, and which incidentally has produced giant corporations and trusts which now threaten the public weal.

If, notwithstanding all these conditions so favorable to prosperity and demand for labor at good wages, we now find that the climax has been reached, and that wages are now rather tending downward, we are warranted in asserting, from a human standpoint, as well as from the standpoint of God's revelation, that a crisis is approaching--the crisis of this world's history.

It is worthy of note also that while wages have reached an unprecedented height in recent years, the rise in the prices of the necessaries of life has more than kept pace with the increase, thus exercising more than a counter-balancing influence. What will be the result? and how long must we wait for it?

The collapse will come with a rush. Just as the sailor who has toiled slowly to the top of the mast can fall suddenly, just as a great piece of machinery lifted slowly by cogs and pulleys, if it slips their hold, will come down again with crushing and damaging force, worse off by far than if it had never been lifted, so humanity, lifted high above any former level, by the cogs and levers of invention and improvement, and by the block and tackle of general education and enlightenment, has reached a place where (by reason of selfishness) these can lift no more--where something is giving way. It will catch and steady for a moment (a few years) on a lower level, before the cogs and levers which can go no farther will break under the strain, and utter wreck will result.

When machinery was first introduced the results in competition with human labor and skill were feared; but the contrary agencies, already referred to (general awakening, in Christendom and outside, the manufacture of machinery, wars, armies, etc.), have until now more than counteracted the natural tendency: so much so that many people have concluded that this matter acts contrary to reason, and that labor-saving machinery is not at war with human labor. But not so: the world still operates under the law of supply and demand; and the operation of that law is sure, and can be made plain to any reasonable mind. The demand for human labor and skill was only temporarily increased in preparing the yet more abundant supply of machinery to take labor's place, and, the climax once reached, the reaction cannot be otherwise than sudden, and crushing to those upon whom the displaced weight falls.

The workmen of the world are not blind. They see, dimly at least, to what the present system of selfishness, which they must admit they themselves have helped to foster, and under which they, as well as all others, are still operating, must lead. They do not yet see clearly its inevitableness, nor the abjectness of the servitude to which, unless turned aside, it will surely and speedily bring them. But they do see that competition amongst themselves to be the servants of the machine-slaves (as machinists, engineers, firemen, etc.) is becoming sharper every year.

Machinery as a Factor in Preparing for the "Fire."
The Past Few Years but a Foretaste of What Is to Come

We quote from some of the people who are getting awake, and who realize the possibilities of the future. An unknown writer says:

"The brilliancy of the ancient Greek city democracies, sparkling like points of light against the dark background of the surrounding barbarism, has been a source of contention among the modern advocates of different forms of government. The opponents of popular rule have maintained that the ancient cities were not true democracies at all, but aristocracies, since they rested on the labor of slaves, which alone gave the free citizens the leisure to apply themselves to politics. There must be a mudsill class, according to these thinkers, to do the drudgery of the community, and a polity which allows the common laborers a share in the government is one which cannot endure.

"This plausible reasoning was ingeniously met by Mr. Charles H. Loring in his Presidential address before the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1892, when he allowed that modern civilization had all the advantages of ancient slavery without its cruelty. 'The disgrace of the ancient civilization,' he said, 'was its utter want of humanity. Justice, benevolence and mercy held but little sway; force, fraud and cruelty supplanted them. Nor could anything better be expected of an organization based upon the worst system of slavery that ever shocked the sensibilities of man. As long as human slavery was the origin and support of civilization, the latter had to be brutal, for the stream could not rise higher than its source. Such a civilization, after a rapid culmination, had to decay, and history, though vague, shows its lapse into a barbarism as dark as that from which it had emerged.'

"It is literally true that modern machinery is a slave with hundreds of times the productive power of the ancient human slaves, and hence that we have now the material basis for a civilization in which the entire population would constitute a leisure class, corresponding to the free citizens of Athens--a class not free, indeed, to spend its time in indolent dissipation, but relieved of the hardest drudgery, and able to support itself in comfort with no more manual labor than is consistent with good health, mental cultivation and reasonable amusement. In Great Britain alone it is estimated that steam does the work of 156,000,000 men, which is at least five times as many as there were in the entire civilized world in ancient times, counting slaves and freemen together. In the United States steam does the work of 230,000,000 men, representing almost the entire present population of the globe, and we are harnessing waterfalls to electric motors at a rate that seems likely to leave even that aggregation out of sight.

"But unfortunately, while we have a material basis for a civilization of universally diffused comfort, leisure and intelligence, we have not yet learned how to take advantage of it. We are improving, but we still have citizens who think themselves fortunate if they can find the opportunity to spend all their waking hours in exhaustive labor--citizens who by our political theory are the equals of any other men in deciding the policy of the government, but who have no opportunity to acquire ideas on any subject beyond that of the outlook for their next meals.

A coal-trade journal, The Black Diamond, says:

"We have only to glance at the rapidity of transportation and communication which it has developed to appreciate the fact that it has indeed secured a position with the aid of which it is difficult to comprehend how modern business could now be conducted. One point about mechanical mining, and which is a matter of grave importance, is that the mechanic can be depended upon to render steady labor. The prospects of strikes are therefore greatly diminished, and it is a noticeable fact that wherever a strike occurs now it is often followed by an extension of the machine sway to new territory. The increased application of mechanical methods on all sides is gradually lining up the relations of cognate trade on a basis of adjustment that will continue to tend towards a point where strikes may become almost impossible.

"Electricity is yet in its infancy, but where it once takes possession of a field it appears to be permanent, and delvers of the dusky diamonds will soon have to face the stern fact that where they have not been driven out by the cheap labor of Europe they have a more invincible foe to meet, and that in a few years, where thousands are engaged in mining, hundreds will do an equal amount of work by the aid of electrical mining machinery."

The Olyphant Gazette says:

"The wonderful strides of science, and innumerable devices of this inventive age, are fast driving manual labor out of many industries, and thousands of workingmen who found remunerative employment a few years ago are vainly seeking for something to do. Where hundreds of men were engaged in a mill or factory, now a score will do a greater amount of work, aided by mechanical contrivance. The linotype has thrown thousands of printers idle, and so on throughout the various trades, machinery does the work more expeditiously, with less expense, and more satisfactorily than hand-work.

Another writer notes the following as facts:

"One man and two boys can do the work which it required 1,100 spinners to do but a few years ago.

"One man now does the work of fifty weavers at the time of his grandfather.

"Cotton printing machines have displaced fifteen hundred laborers to each one retained.

"One machine with one man as attendant manufactures as many horse shoes in one day as it would take 500 men to make in the same time.

"Out of 500 men formerly employed at the log sawing business, 499 have lost their jobs through the introduction of modern machinery.

"One nail machine takes the place of 1,100 men.

"In the manufacture of paper 95 per cent of hand labor has been replaced.

"One man can now make as much pottery ware in the same time as 1,000 could do before machinery was applied.

"By the use of machinery in loading and unloading ships one man can perform the labor of 2,000 men.

"An expert watchmaker can turn out from 250 to 300 watches each year with the aid of machinery, 85 per cent of former hand labor being thus displaced."

The Pittsburgh Post, noting years ago the remarkable progress of crude iron manufacture during two decades by improved furnaces, said:

"Twenty years ago, in 1876, the production of pig iron in the United States was 2,093,236 tons. In the year 1895 the production of pig iron in the County of Allegheny was 2,054,585 tons. In 1885 the total production of the country was 4,144,000 tons of pig iron, while in 1895 we led the world with 9,446,000 tons."

Canadians notice the same conditions and the same effects. The Montreal Times says:

The Topeka State Journal said:

"Prof. Hertzka, an Austrian economist and statesman, has discovered that to run the various departments of industry to supply the 22,000,000 Austrians with all the necessaries of life, by modern methods and machinery, would take the labor of only 615,000 men, working the customary number of hours. To supply all with luxuries would take but 315,000 more workers. He further calculates that the present working population of Austria, including all females, and all males between the ages of 16 and 50, is 5,000,000 in round numbers. His calculations further led him to assert that this number of workers, all employed and provided with modern machinery and methods, could supply all the population with necessaries and luxuries by working thirty-seven days a year, with the present hours. If they chose to work 300 days a year, they would only have to do so during one hour and twenty minutes per day.

"Prof. Hertzka's figures regarding Austria, if correct, are applicable with little variation to every other country, not excepting the United States. There is a steam harvester at work in California that reaps and binds ninety acres a day, with the attention of three men. With gang-plows attached, the steam apparatus of this machine can plow eighty-eight acres a day. A baker in Brooklyn employs 350 men and turns out 70,000 loaves a day, or at the rate of 200 loaves for each man employed. In making shoes with the McKay machine, one man can handle 300 pairs in the same time it would take to handle five pairs by hand. In the agricultural implement factory 500 men now do the work of 2,500 men.

"Here is presented the problem of the age that is awaiting solution: how to so connect our powers and our necessities that there shall be no waste of energy and no want. With this problem properly solved, it is plain that there need be no tired, overworked people; no poverty, no hunger, no deprivation, no tramps. Solutions innumerable have been proposed, but so far none seems applicable without doing somebody an injustice, real or apparent. The man who shall lead the people to the light in this matter will be the greatest hero and the greatest benefactor of his race the world has ever known."

Female Competition a Factor

The competition daily grows more intense, and every valuable invention only adds to the difficulty. Men and women are relieved indeed from much drudgery, but who will maintain them and their families while idle?

Labor's Views and Methods,
Reasonable and Unreasonable

We can but confess that every indication speaks of a greater press for work, by a yet larger army of unemployed, and consequently lower and yet lower wages. To avert this Labor Unions have been formed, which surely have helped somewhat to maintain dignity and pay and manhood, and to preserve many from the crushing power of monopoly. But these have had their bad as well as their good effects. They have led men to trust in themselves and their Unions for counsel and relief from the dilemma, instead of looking to God and seeking to learn from his Word what is his way, that they might walk therein and not stumble. Had they followed the latter course, the Lord would have given them, as his children, "the spirit of a sound mind," and would have guided them with his counsel. But such has not been the result; rather the contrary; unbelief in God, unbelief in man, general discontent and restless, chafing selfishness have become intensified. Unions have cultivated the feeling of selfish independence and boastfulness, and have made workmen more arbitrary, and alienated from them the sympathies of good-hearted and benevolent men amongst the employers, who are fast coming to the conclusion that it is useless to attempt conciliatory dealing with the Unions, and that the workmen must learn by severe experience to be less arbitrary.

The theory of labor is correct, when it claims that the blessings and inventions incident to the dawning of the Millennial morning should inure to the benefit of all mankind, and not merely to the wealth of those whose avarice, keen judgments, foresight and positions of advantage have secured to themselves and their children the ownership of machinery and land, and the extra wealth which these daily roll up. They feel that these fortunate ones should not selfishly take all they can get, but should generously share all advantages with them; not as a gift, but as a right; not under the law of selfish competition, but under the divine law of love for the neighbor. They support their claims by the teachings of the Lord Jesus, and frequently quote his precepts.

But they seem to forget that they are asking the fortunate ones to live by the rule of love, for the benefit of those less fortunate, who still wish to live by the law of selfishness. Is it reasonable to ask of others what they are unwilling to accord to others? And however desirable and commendable this may be, is it wise to expect it, if asked? Surely not. The very men who demand most loudly that those more fortunate than they should share with them are quite unwilling to share their measure of prosperity with those less fortunate than themselves.

The Law of Supply and Demand Inexorable upon All

The present basis of business, with small and great, rich and poor, as we have seen, is love-less, crushing, selfish. Manufactured goods are sold at as high prices as the manufacturers and merchants can get for them: they are bought by the public at as low prices as will secure them. The question of actual value is seldom even considered, except from the selfish side. Grain and farm produce are sold at as high prices as the farmer can get, and are bought by the consumers at as low prices as will procure them. Labor and skill, likewise, are sold at as high prices as their owners can command, and are bought by farmers, merchants and manufacturers, at as low prices as will secure what they need.

The operations of this "Law of Supply and Demand" are absolute: no one can alter them; no one can ignore them entirely and live under present social arrangements. Suppose, for instance, that the farmer were to say, "I will defy this law which now governs the world. The price of wheat is sixty cents per bushel; but it should be one dollar per bushel in order to properly pay for my own labor and that which I employ: I will not sell my wheat under one dollar per bushel." The result would be that his wheat would rot, his family would be needy for clothing, his hired help would be deprived of their wages by his whim, and the man of whom he borrowed money would become impatient at his failure to meet his engagements and would sell his farm, and wheat, and all, for his debt.

Or suppose the matter the other way. Suppose the farmer should say, "I am now paying my farm helpers thirty dollars per month; but I learn that in a nearby town mechanics who work no harder, and for shorter hours, are paid from fifty to a hundred dollars per month: I am resolved that hereafter I will make eight hours a day's work and sixty dollars a month's pay the year round." What would be the result of such an attempt to defy the law of supply and demand? He would probably soon find himself in debt. True, if all farmers in the United States paid the same wages, and if all sold at fair prices, it could be done; but at the close of the season the elevators would be full of wheat, for Europe would buy elsewhere. And what then? Why, the news would be telegraphed to India, Russia and South America, and the wheat growers there would ship their wheat here, and break what would be termed the Farmer's Combine, and supply the poor with cheap bread. Evidently such an arrangement, if it could be effected, could not last more than one year.

And this same law of the present social order--the Law of Supply and Demand--equally controls every other product of human labor or skill, varying according to circumstances.

Others are seeking to legislate a remedy--to vote that manufacturers shall pay large wages and sell their products at a small margin above cost. They forget that Capital, if made unprofitable here, will go elsewhere to build, employ and manufacture--where conditions are favorable, where wages are lower or prices more profitable.

But the outlook for the immediate future under present conditions appears yet darker, when we take a still wider view of the subject. The Law of Supply and Demand governs Capital as well as Labor. Capital is as alert as Labor to seek profitable employment. It, too, keeps posted, and is called hither and thither throughout the world. But Capital and Labor follow opposite routes and are governed by opposite conditions. Skilled Labor seeks the localities where wages are highest; Capital seeks the regions where wages are lowest, that thus it may secure the larger profits.

Machinery has served Capital graciously, and still serves faithfully; but as Capital increases and machinery multiplies "overproduction" follows; that is, more is produced than can be sold at a profit; and competition, lower prices and smaller profits follow. This naturally leads to combinations for maintaining prices and profits, called Trusts; but it is doubtful if these can long be maintained except in connection with patented articles, or commodities whose supply is very limited, or fostered by legislation which sooner or later will be corrected.

Outlook for Foreign Industrial Competition Appalling

The German Emperor evidently saw this "industrial war" approaching; he symbolically represented it in the celebrated picture drawn by an artist under his guidance and presented to the Czar of Russia. The picture represents the nations of Europe by female figures clad in armor standing in the light shining from a cross in the sky above them, and at the direction of an angelic figure representing Michael looking to a black cloud arising from China and floating toward them, from which hideous forms and faces are developed by the flashing lightning. Under the picture are the words: "Nations of Europe! Join in the defense of your Faith and your Homes."

The Yellow Man with White Money

The following was extracted from an able paper in the Journal of the Imperial Colonial Institute (English), by Mr. Whitehead, a member of the Legislative Council, Hong Kong, China. He said:

"So far, the Chinese have made but a beginning in the construction of spinning and weaving factories. On the river Yang Tsze and in the neighborhood of Shanghai, some five mills are already working, and others are in course of construction. It is estimated that they will contain about 200,000 spindles; and some of them have commenced work. The capital employed is entirely native, and with peace restored in these regions, there is, with honest, capable management, while our present monetary system continues, really no limit to the expansion and development of industries in Oriental countries."

Here we notice along the same lines a Washington, D.C., dispatch as early as 1896, announcing a report to the Government by Consul General Jernigan, stationed at Shanghai, China, to the effect that the cotton industry there is receiving great attention; that since 1890 cotton mills are being introduced and prospering; that a cotton-seed-oil plant was being started; and that as in China the area suitable for the cultivation of cotton is almost as limitless as the supply of very cheap labor, "there can be no doubt that China will soon be one of the greatest cotton producing countries in the world."

Mr. Whitehead discussing the 1894 war between China and Japan, declares that in it rested the chief hope of China's industrial resurrection. He continues:

Mr. Whitehead's view is purely capitalistic when he speaks of "defeat"--really the "defeat" will fall still heavier upon English labor. Continuing, he glances at Japan, as follows:

"The neighborhood of Osaka and Kioto is now a surprising spectacle of industrial activity. In a very brief period of time no less than fifty-nine cotton spinning and weaving mills have sprung into existence there, with the aid of upwards of twenty millions of dollars, entirely native capital. They now have 770,874 spindles, and in May last competent authorities estimated the annual output of these mills at over 500,000 bales of yarn, valued roughly at forty millions of dollars, or at the present exchange, say, four million pounds sterling. In short, Japanese industries, not only spinning and weaving, but of all classes, have increased by leaps and bounds. They have already carried their success to a point from which they may to a considerable extent disregard British industrial competition."

Mr. Whitehead proceeds to show that the capitalists of Europe and the United States, having demonetized silver, have nearly doubled the value of gold, and that this nearly doubles the advantage of China and Japan. He says:

"In Oriental countries silver will still pay for the same quantity of labor as formerly. Yet, as now measured in gold, silver is worth less than half of the gold it formerly equalled. For example, a certain quantity of labor could have been engaged in England twenty years ago for, say, eight shillings. Eight shillings in England now will pay for no more labor than formerly, wages being about the same, and they have still by our law exactly the same monetary value as formerly, though their metallic value has, by the appreciation of gold, been reduced to less than sixpence each. The two dollars exactly similar to the old ones, can employ the same quantity of labor as before, but no more, yet at the present gold price they are only equal to four shillings. Therefore it is possible now to employ as much labor in Asia for four shillings of our money, or the equivalent thereof in silver, as could have been employed twenty years ago for eight shillings, or its then equivalent in silver. The value of Oriental labor having thus been reduced by upwards of fifty-five per cent in gold money compared with what it was formerly, it will be able to produce manufactures and commodities just so much cheaper than the labor in gold-standard countries. Therefore, unless our monetary law is amended, or unless British labor is prepared to accept a large reduction of wages, British industrial trades must inevitably leave British shores, because their products will be superseded by the establishment of industries in silver-standard countries."

Commenting upon Mr. Whitehead's lecture, the Daily Chronicle (London) calls attention to the fact that India has already largely supplanted much of England's trade in cotton manufactures. It said:

"The Hon. T. H. Whitehead's lecture last night at the Colonial Institute drew attention to some astonishing figures in relation to our eastern trade. The fact that during the last four years our exports show a decrease of #54,000,000 has unfortunately nothing disputable about it. The returns of the sixty-seven spinning companies of Lancashire for 1894 show an aggregate adverse balance of #411,000. Against this the increase in the export of Indian yarns and piece goods to Japan has been simply colossal, and the cotton mills at Hiogo, in Japan, for 1891, showed an average profit of seventeen per cent. Sir Thomas Sutherland has said that before long the Peninsular and Oriental Company may be building its ships on the Yangtze, and Mr. Whitehead believes that Oriental countries will soon be competing in European markets. However much we may differ about proposed remedies, statements like these from the mouths of experts afford matter for serious reflection."

A German newspaper, Tageblatt (Berlin), carefully looked into the matter of Japan's decided victory over China, and was surprised at the intelligence it found. It pronounced Count Ito, the Japanese Prime Minister, another Bismarck; and the Japanese in general quite civilized. It concluded with a very significant remark respecting the industrial war which we are considering, saying:

"Count Ito shows much interest in the industrial development of his fatherland. He believes that most foreigners underrate the chances of Japan in the international struggle for industrial supremacy. The Japanese women, he thinks, are equal to the men in every field of labor, and double the capacity for work of the nation."

The Editor of the Economiste Francais (Paris), commenting upon Japan and its affairs, says, significantly:

"The world has entered upon a new stage. Europeans must reckon with the new factors of civilization. The Powers must cease to quarrel among themselves, and must show a combined front, and they must remember that henceforth the hundreds of millions in the far East--sober, hardworking and nimble workmen--will be our rivals."

Mr. George Jamison, British Consul General at Shanghai, China, wrote on the subject of Oriental Competition, showing that the demonetization and hence depreciation of silver, leaving gold the standard money in civilized lands, is another item which depresses Labor and profits Capital. He said:

"The continual rise in the value of gold, as compared with that of silver, has changed everything. British goods got so dear in their silver value that the Orient was forced to make for himself, and the decline in the value of the white metal has so helped him in his work that he cannot only make sufficient for himself but is able to export them to advantage. The rise in the value of gold has doubled the silver price of British goods in the East and has made their use almost prohibitive, while the fall in the value of silver has brought down by over a half the gold price of Oriental goods in gold using countries, and is continually increasing the demand for them. The conditions are so unequal that it seems impossible to continue the struggle long. It is like handicapping the champion by giving to his opponent half the distance of the race.

"All Japan is always on the move in this way, and change is the genius of Japanese civilization. In the great industrial competition of the world, fluidity is the secret of Japanese strength. The worker shifts his habitation without a regret to the place where he is most wanted. The factory can be moved at a week's notice, the artisan at half-a-day's. There are no impedimenta to transport, there is practically nothing to build, there is no expense except in coppers to hinder travel.

"The Japanese man of the people--the skilled laborer able to underbid without effort any Western artisan in the same line of industry--remains happily independent of both shoemaker and tailor. His feet are good to look at, his body is healthy and his heart is free. If he desires to travel a thousand miles, he can get ready for his journey in five minutes. His whole outfit need not cost seventy-five cents; and all his baggage can be put into a handkerchief. On ten dollars he can travel a year without work, or he can travel simply on his ability to work, or he can travel as a pilgrim. You may reply that any savage can do the same thing. Yes, but any civilized man cannot; and the Japanese has been a highly civilized man for at least a thousand years. Hence his present capacity to threaten Western manufacturers."

Commenting on the above the London Spectator says:

The character of the competition to be expected from this quarter will be seen from the following, from the Literary Digest on

"The Condition of Labor in Japan."

"Japan has made astonishing progress in the development of her industries. This is in no small measure due to the intelligence and the diligence of her laborers, who will often work fourteen hours per day without complaining. Unfortunately, their complaisance is abused to a great extent by their employers, whose only object seems to be to overcome foreign competition. This is specially the case in the cotton manufacture, which employs large numbers of hands. An article in the Echo, Berlin, describes the manner in which Japanese factories are run as follows:

"The usual time to begin work is 6 A.M., but the workmen are willing to come at any time, and do not complain if they are ordered to appear at 4 A.M. Wages are surprisingly low; even in the largest industrial centers weavers and spinners average only fifteen cents a day; women receive only six cents. The first factories were built by the government, which afterward turned them over to joint stock companies. The most prosperous industry is the manufacture of cotton goods. A single establishment, that of Kanegafuchi, employs 2,100 men and 3,700 women. They are divided into day and night shifts and interrupt their twelve hours' work only once for forty minutes, to take a meal. Near the establishment are lodgings, where the workers can also obtain a meal at the price of not quite one and a half cents. The Osaka spinneries are similar. All these establishments possess excellent English machines, work is kept going day and night, and large dividends are realized. Many of the factories are opening branch works, or increasing their original plant, for the production is not yet up to the consumption.

"That the manufacturers have learned quickly to employ women as cheap competitors to male laborers is proved by the statistics, which show that thirty-five spinneries give work to 16,879 women and only 5,730 men. The employers form a powerful syndicate and often abuse the leniency of the authorities, who do not wish to cripple the industries. Little girls eight and nine years of age are forced to work from nine to twelve hours. The law requires that these children should be in school, and the teachers complain; but the officials close their eyes to these abuses. The great obedience and humility of the workmen have led to another practice, which places them completely in the power of their employers. No mill will employ a workman from another establishment unless he produces a written permit from his late employer. This rule is enforced so strictly that a new hand is closely watched, and if it is proved that he already knows something of the trade, but has no permit, he is immediately discharged."

The British Trade Journal also published an account of the industries of Osaka, from a letter of a correspondent of the Adelaide (Australia) Observer. This correspondent, writing directly from Osaka, is so impressed with the variety and vitality of the industries of the city that he calls it "the Manchester of the Far East":

"Some idea of the magnitude of the manufacturing industry of Osaka will be formed when it is known that there are scores of factories with a capital of over 50,000 yen and under, more than thirty each with a capital of over 100,000 yen, four with more than 1,000,000 yen, and one with 2,000,000 yen. These include silk, wool, cotton, hemp, jute, spinning and weaving, carpets, matches, paper, leather, glass, bricks, cement, cutlery, furniture, umbrellas, tea, sugar, iron, copper, brass, sake, soap, brushes, combs, fancy ware, etc. It is, in fact, a great hive of activity and enterprise, in which the imitative genius and the unflagging pertinacity of the Japanese have set themselves to equal, and, if possible, excel, the workers and artisans of the old civilized nations of the West.

"There are ten cotton mills running in Osaka, the combined capital of which is about $9,000,000 in gold, all fitted up with the latest machinery, and completely lighted by electricity. They are all under Japanese management, and, it is said, all paying handsome dividends--some as much as eighteen per cent on the invested capital. Out of $19,000,000 worth of cotton imported into Japan in one year the mills of Kobe and Osaka took and worked up about seventy-nine per cent."

A silver "yen" is now worth about 50 cents in gold.

Note also the following telegram to the public press:

"SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., June 6--The Hon. Robert P. Porter, editor of the Cleveland World and ex-superintendent of 1890 U.S. Census, returned from Japan on the steamer Peru, yesterday. Mr. Porter's visit to the empire of the Mikado was for the purpose of investigating the industrial conditions of that country with regard to the effect of Japanese competition upon American prosperity. After thorough investigation of the actual conditions in Japan, he expresses the belief that this is one of the most momentous problems which the United States will be obliged to solve. The danger is close at hand as evinced by the enormous increase of Japanese manufactures within the past five years, and its wonderful resources in the way of cheap and skillful labor. Japanese exports of textiles alone have increased from $511,000 to $23,000,000 in the last ten years; and their total exports increased from $78,000,000 to $300,000,000 in the same period, said Mr. Porter. Last year they purchased $2,500,000 worth of our raw cotton, but we purchased of Japan various goods to the amount of $54,000,000.

"In view of the growing demand for our cotton and the growth of their exports of manufactured goods to us, a Japanese syndicate was formed while I was there, with a capital stock of $5,000,000 to build and operate three new lines of steamships between Japan and this country, the American ports designated being Portland, Oregon Philadelphia and New York."

The reporter saw and interviewed Mr. S. Asam, of Tokyo, Japan, a representative of the above mentioned steamship syndicate, who arrived on the same steamer with Mr. Porter, to make contracts for building said steamers. He explained that the Japanese government had recently offered a large subsidy for vessels of over 6,000 tons burden, between the United States and Japan, and that their syndicate had formed to take advantage of the same, and would build all of its vessels still larger--of about 9,000 tons capacity. The syndicate proposed to do a very heavy business, and to this end would cut freight and passenger rates very low. A $9 passenger rate between Japan and our Pacific coast is contemplated.

U.S. Congress Investigates Japanese Competition

The following, taken from a report of a U.S. Congressional Committee, should be considered reliable beyond question, and it fully confirms the foregoing.

"WASHINGTON, June 9, '96--Chairman Dingley, of the House ways and means committee, today made a report on the menace to American manufacturers by the threatened invasion of the cheap products of Oriental labor and the effect of the difference of exchange between gold and silver standard countries upon United States' manufacturing and agricultural interests, these questions having been investigated by the committee.

"The report continues: Europeans and Americans are recognizing the profitable field afforded for investment and factories. Sixty-one cotton mills controlled ostensibly by Japanese companies, but promoted by Europeans, and several small silk factories are in operation, with something over half a million spindles. Japan is making most of the cotton goods required to supply the narrow wants of her own people, and is beginning to export cheap silk fabrics and handkerchiefs.

"Recently, a watch factory with American machinery was established by Americans, although the stock is held in the names of Japanese, as foreigners will not be permitted to carry on manufacturing in their own names until 1899. The progress made indicates that the enterprise will prove a success.

"It is probable the rapid introduction of machinery into Japan will, within a few years, make fine cottons, silks and other articles in which the labor cost here is an important element in production, a more serious competitor in our markets than the products of Great Britain, France and Germany have been.

The Japanese government gives no protection to foreign patents. The civilized world's most valuable labor-saving machinery is purchased and duplicated cheaply by her cheap craftsmen who, though not "original," are, like the Chinese, wonderful imitators. Thus her machinery will cost less than one-half what it costs elsewhere; and Japan will soon be prepared to sell Christendom either its own patented machinery or its manufactured products.

Under the caption, "Japanese Competition," the San Francisco Chronicle wrote:

"Another straw showing which way the wind of Japanese competition blows is the transfer of a great straw matting manufactory from Milford, Ct., to Kobe, one of the industrial centers of Japan. Those who affect to pooh-pooh the subject of Japanese competition and airily speak of the superiority of Western intellect, entirely overlook the fact that the mobility of capital is such that it can easily be transferred to countries where cheap labor can be had, so that all that is necessary is for the superior intellects of America and Europe to invent machines, and the owners of capital can buy them and transfer them to countries where they can be operated most cheaply."

We give some extracts from the article in question as follows:

"The Japanese have, metaphorically speaking, thrown their hats into the American market, and challenged our labor and capital with goods which, for excellence and cheapness, seem for the moment to defy competition, even with the latest labor-saving appliances at hand."

After giving a statistical table of various Japanese articles imported into the United States, he says:

"Within the last few months I have visited the districts in Japan and inspected the industries reported in the above table. The increase in the exports of textiles, which was over forty-fold in ten years, is due to the fact that Japan is a nation of weavers."

The Japanese, it seems, are sending large quantities of cheap silks and all kinds of cheap goods into America, but what they have done is as nothing to what they are about to do:

"The Japanese are making every preparation, by the formation of guilds and associations, to improve the quality and increase the uniformity of their goods."

Incidentally Mr. Porter intimated that the cotton mills of Lancashire, England, which have no protection, are doomed. In Japan, he says:

"Should Japan take up the manufacture of woolen and worsted goods as she has done cotton, her weavers could give Europe and America some surprises and dumbfound those who claim there is nothing in Japanese competition. A constant supply of cheap wool from Australia makes it possible, while the samples of Japanese woolen and worsted cloth and dress goods which I examined while there indicate that in this branch of textiles the Japanese are as much at home as in silk and cotton. They are also doing good work in fine linens, though so far the quantities produced are small.

"The sudden influx of the Japanese umbrella, something like 2,000,000 exported a year, has caused anxiety among umbrella makers in the United States."

The Japanese themselves do not hesitate to boast of their approaching triumph in the "industrial war." Mr. Porter said:

"When in Japan I had the pleasure of meeting, among other statesmen and officials, Mr. Kaneko, Vice-Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. I found him a man with intelligence and foresight, and of wide experience in economical and statistical matters. Educated in one of the great European universities, he is up to the spirit of the age in all that relates to Japan and her industrial and commercial future."

Mr. Kaneko afterwards made a speech to a Chamber of Commerce, in which he said:

"The cotton spinners of Manchester [England] are known to have said that while the Anglo-Saxons had passed through three generations before they became clever and apt hands for the spinning of cotton, the Japanese have acquired the necessary skill in this industry in ten years' time, and have now advanced to a stage where they surpass the Manchester people in skill."

A dispatch from San Francisco we quote as follows:

"Mr. Oshima said: 'We want to put our nation where it properly belongs, in the van, as a manufacturing nation. We will need a vast amount of steel and do not want to depend on any other country for it.'"

Marching closely behind Japan comes India, with its population of 250,000,000, and its rapidly growing industries; and next comes the new Chinese Republic, with its 400,000,000, awakened by its recent rebellion to a recognition of Western civilization, which enabled Japan with only 40,000,000 to conquer it. China's late Prime Minister, Li Hung Chang, some years ago toured the world, negotiating for American and European instructors for his people, and freely expressed his intention to inaugurate reforms in every department. This is the man who so impressed General U.S. Grant on his tour of the world, and whom he declared, in his judgment, one of the most able statesmen in the world.

But it cannot be checked. It is a part of the inevitable, for it operates under the law of Supply and Demand which says, Buy the best you can obtain at the lowest possible price--labor as well as merchandise. The only thing that can and will cut short and stop the pressure now begun, and which must grow more severe so long as the law of selfishness continues, is the remedy which God has provided--the Kingdom of God with its new law and complete reorganization of society on the basis of love and equity.

If the people of Europe and America have had the whole world for customers, not only for fabrics but also for machinery, and yet have gotten to a place where the supply is greater than the demand, and where millions of their population seek employment in vain, even at low wages, what is their prospect for the near future when more than double the present number will be competitors? The natural increase will also add to the dilemma. Nor would this outlook be so unfavorable, so hopelessly dark, were it not for the fact that these nearly seven hundred millions of new competitors are the most tractable, patient and economical people to be found in the world. If European and American workmen can be controlled by Capital, much more can these who have never known anything else than obedience to masters.

The Labor Outlook in England

Mr. Justin McCarthy, well-known English writer, in an article in Cosmopolis, once declared:

Keir Hardie (Member of Parliament and Labor Leader) in an interview some years ago is reported to have said:

"Trades-unionism is in a bad way in England. I sometimes fear that it is practically dead. We workingmen are learning that capital can use its money in organization, and by using it beat us. Manufacturers have learned a way of beating the men and the men are helpless. Trades unions have not won an important strike in London in a long time. Many of the once big unions are powerless. This is especially true of the dockers. You remember the great dock strike? Well, it killed the union that made it, and did not help the men at all. The trades-union situation in London is distressing.

"The Independent Labor Party is socialistic. We shall be satisfied with nothing but Socialism, municipal Socialism, national Socialism, industrial Socialism. We know what we want, and we all want it. We do not want to fight for it, but if we cannot get it in any other way we will fight for it, and when we fight we shall fight with determination. The avowed object of the Independent Labor Party is to bring about an industrial commonwealth, founded on the socialization of land and industrial capital. We believe that the natural political divisions must be on economical lines.

"The average wage of unskilled labor in London, even when it keeps up to the trades-union standard, is only 6 pence an hour. In the provinces it is less. Careful study has shown that nothing under 3 quineas a week will enable the average family (two adults and three children) to enjoy common comfort, not to mention luxuries. Very few workers in England receive this sum or anything like it. That skilled workman is fortunate who gets 2 guineas a week the year round, and that laborer is lucky who manages to earn 24 shillings ($5.84) in the course of each seven days, one-third of which must go for rent. So in the best-paid classes of workers the family can only keep itself at the poverty line. A very short period of enforced idleness is invariably sufficient to drag them below it. Hence our vast number of paupers.

The foregoing statistics show that a few years would be ample allowance for the development of this competition. Thus the Almighty is bringing the masses of all nations, gradually, to a realization of the fact that soon or later the interests of one must be the interests of the other--that each must be his brother's keeper if he would preserve his own welfare.

Nor is it wise or just to denounce Capital for doing the very same thing that Labor does and has always done -- seeking its own advantage. Indeed, we can all see that some of the poor are equally as selfish at heart as some of the rich; we can even imagine that if some now poor were given the positions of the wealthy, they would be more severely exacting and less generous than their present masters. Let us not, therefore, hate and denounce the rich, but instead hate and denounce the selfishness general and particular which is responsible for present conditions and evils. And, thoroughly abhorring selfishness, let each resolve that by the Lord's grace he will mortify (kill) his own inherent selfishness, daily, and more and more cultivate the opposite quality of love, and thus be conformed to the image of God's dear Son, our Redeemer and Lord.

Hon. Joseph Chamberlain's Prophetic Words
to British Workmen

Here we have the secret of British aggression and empire-expansion. It is not prompted merely by a desire to give other nations wiser rulers and better governments, nor merely by a love of acreage and power: it is done as a part of the war of trade, the "industrial war." Nations are conquered, not to pillage them as of old, but to serve them--to secure their trade. In this warfare Great Britain has been most successful; and, in consequence, her wealth is enormous, and is invested far and near. The first nation to have an oversupply, she first sought foreign markets, and for a long time was the cotton and iron factory of the world outside of Europe. The mechanical awakening which followed the United States civil war in 1865 made this land for a time the center of the world's attention and business. The mechanical awakening spread to all civilized nations turned their attention to finding outside demand. This is the foreign competition to which Mr. Chamberlain refers. All statesmen see what he points out; namely, that the markets of the world are fast being stocked, and that machinery and civilization are rapidly hastening the time when there will be no more outside markets. And as he wisely declared, "grave as are the evils now, we shall have at no distant time to meet much more serious consequences."

The conquests of France, Italy and Great Britain in Africa meant the same thing; that they feel the commercial warfare severely, and see it increasing and would, perforce, have some markets under their control. The following press dispatch is in evidence on this subject:

"WASHINGTON, June 9, 1896--Taking as his starting point the official announcement of the annexation by France of Timbuctoo, the principal place in the Djallon country, a district larger than the state of Pennsylvania and quite as fertile, United States' Consul Strickland, at Goree-Dakar, has made a most interesting report to the State Department upon the dangers threatening United States' trade with Africa, owing to the rapid extension of the colonial possessions of the European nations. He shows how the French, by the imposition of a discriminating duty of 7 per cent against foreign goods, have monopolized the markets of the French colonies, and have thus crushed out the lucrative and growing trade which the United States already enjoyed in that part of the world. He says that the process has now begun of fortifying perhaps the whole continent of Africa against us by protective tariffs; for, if one nation can even now do it with effect, the remainder will in time have to in order to equalize things among them."

Truly, men's hearts are failing them for fear and for looking forward to those things coming upon the earth [society]; and they are preparing, as best they can, for what they see coming.

"'Then you look for great changes before long?'

"'I do. The present system in Germany is causing such discontent that they must come.'

"'And now can you tell me anything about the economic position of Germany? You have an agrarian question there, as we have here.'

"'We have in Germany five million peasant proprietors, and they are all going to ruin as fast as they can. Every one of them--and I use the word advisedly--is mortgaged up to and beyond the full value of his holding. Our peasantry live on bread made from a mixture of rye and oats. In fact, food of all kinds is cheaper in England than in Germany.'

"'And your manufactures?'

"'As a manufacturing country we are only just beginning. Our present industrial system only dates from 1850, but already its results are becoming far greater than in your country. We are being rapidly divided into two classes--the proletarians, and the capitalists and land-owners. Our middle classes are being literally wiped out by the economic conditions that obtain. They are being driven down into the working classes, and to that more than to anything else I attribute the extraordinary success of our party.

"'You must remember that we have not two sharply-defined parties, as you have in England. We Social Democrats work with any party, if we can get anything for ourselves. We have only three great parties: the others may be disregarded. There is our party, the Conservatives and the Catholic Center party. Our Conservatives are very different from yours. They want to go back to feudalism and reaction of the worst type. Economic conditions are splitting up the Center party, and part will come over to us and the rest go to the Conservatives. And then we shall see what will happen.'

"Herr Liebknecht gave the history of the Socialist movement. The rapidity of the growth of Social Democracy in Germany was caused by the newness of industrial commercialism in that country, and the fierce competition which Germany had had to face to keep pace with England and France in the struggle for commercial supremacy."

It will be noticed that the questions recognized by this able man as those which press upon the people and are causing the distress and the division of the people into two classes--the poor and the rich--are thus clearly stated as being (1) the Agrarian or land question, especially affecting agriculturalists; (2) the Economic question, or the money question, including the relationship between Capital and Labor; (3) the Industrial question, or question of finding profitable employment for mechanics--related to foreign and home competition, supply and demand, etc. These are the same questions which are perplexing every civilized nation, and preparing for the approaching world-wide trouble--revolution, anarchy--preparatory for the Millennial Kingdom.

Herr Liebknecht was a delegate to the Trades Union Congress (London, July, 1896). At that Convention the following resolution was passed:

Humanity Attacked from Still Another Quarter
Giants in These Days

Another result of competition has been the organization of large corporations for commerce and manufacturing. These are important elements in preparation for the coming "fire." Before these giant corporations the small shops and stores are being rapidly crowded out, because they can neither buy nor sell as profitably as can the large concerns. These large concerns, in turn, being able to do more business than there is for them, are forming combinations, called Trusts. These, originally organized to prevent competition from destroying all but the largest of its kind, are found to work very satisfactorily to those whose capital and management they represent; and the plan is spreading--the Great Republic leading the world in this direction. Notice the following list published in the New York World, Sept. 2, 1896, under the caption--"The Growth of Trusts."

"List of 139 Combinations to Regulate Production,
Fix Prices, Monopolize Trade and Rob the People
in Defiance of Law."

Title Capital

Dressed Beef and Provision Trust...........$100,000,000
Sugar Trust, New York...................... 75,000,000
Lead Trust................................. 30,000,000
Rubber Trust, New Jersey................... 50,000,000
Gossamer Rubber Trust...................... 12,000,000
Anthracite Coal Combine, Pennsylvania...... *85,000,000
Axe Trust.................................. 15,000,000
Barbed Wire Trust, Chicago................. *10,000,000
Biscuit and Cracker Trust.................. 12,000,000
Bolt and Nut Trust......................... *10,000,000
Boiler Trust, Pittsburgh, Pa............... *15,000,000
Borax Trust, Pennsylvania.................. *2,000,000
Broom Trust, Chicago....................... *2,500,000
Brush Trust, Ohio.......................... *2,000,000
Button Trust............................... *3,000,000
Carbon Candle Trust, Cleveland............. *3,000,000
Cartridge Trust............................ *10,000,000
Casket and Burial Goods Trust.............. *1,000,000
Castor Oil Trust, St. Louis................ 500,000
Celluloid Trust............................ 8,000,000
Cigarette Trust, New York.................. 25,000,000
Condensed Milk Trust, Illinois............. 15,000,000
Copper Ingot Trust......................... *20,000,000
Sheet Copper Trust......................... *40,000,000
Cordage Trust, New Jersey.................. 35,000,000
Crockery Trust............................. *15,000,000
Cotton Duck Trust.......................... 10,000,000
Cotton-Seed Oil Trust...................... 20,000,000
Cotton Thread Combine, New Jersey.......... 7,000,000
Electric Supply Trust...................... *10,000,000
Flint Glass Trust, Pennsylvania............ 8,000,000
Fruit Jar Trust............................ *1,000,000
Galvanized Iron Steel Trust, Pennsylvania.. *2,000,000
Glove Trust, New York...................... *2,000,000

*Estimated.

Title Capital
Harvester Trust............................ *$1,500,000
Hinge Trust................................ 1,000,000
Indurated Fibre Trust...................... 500,000
Leather Board Trust........................ *500,000
Lime Trust................................. *3,000,000
Linseed Oil Trust.......................... 18,000,000
Lithograph Trust, New Jersey............... 11,500,000
Locomotive Tire Trust...................... *2,000,000
Marble Combine............................. *20,000,000
Match Trust, Chicago....................... 8,000,000
Morocco Leather Trust...................... *2,000,000
Oatmeal Trust, Ohio........................ *3,500,000
Oilcloth Trust............................. *3,500,000
Paper Bag Trust............................ 2,500,000
Pitch Trust................................ *10,000,000
Plate Glass Trust, Pittsburgh, Pa.......... *8,000,000
Pocket Cutlery Trust....................... *2,000,000
Powder Trust............................... 1,500,000
Preservers' Trust, West Virginia........... *8,000,000
Pulp Trust................................. *5,000,000
Rice Trust, Chicago........................ 2,500,000
Safe Trust................................. 2,500,000
Salt Trust................................. *1,000,000
Sandstone Trust, New York.................. *1,000,000
Sanitary Ware Trust, Trenton, N.J.......... 3,000,000
Sandpaper Trust............................ *250,000
Sash, Door and Blind Trust................. *1,500,000
Saw Trust, Pennsylvania.................... 5,000,000
School Book Trust, New York................ *2,000,000
School Furniture Trust, Chicago............ 15,000,000
Sewer Pipe Trust........................... 2,000,000
Skewer Trust............................... 60,000
Smelters' Trust, Chicago................... 25,000,000
Smith Trust, Michigan...................... *500,000
Soap Trust................................. *500,000
Soda-Water Apparatus Trust, Trenton, N.J... 3,750,000
Spool, Bobbin and Shuttle Trust............ 2,500,000
Sponge Trust............................... *500,000

*Estimated.

Title Capital
Starch Trust, Kentucky..................... $10,000,000
Merchants' Steel Trust..................... 25,000,000
Steel Rail Trust........................... *60,000,000
Stove Board Trust, Grand Rapids, Mich...... 200,000
Straw Board Trust, Cleveland, Ohio......... *8,000,000
Structural Steel Trust..................... *5,000,000
Teazle Trust............................... *200,000
Sheet Steel Trust.......................... *2,000,000
Tombstone Trust............................ 100,000
Trunk Trust................................ 2,500,000
Tube Trust, New Jersey..................... 11,500,000
Type Trust................................. 6,000,000
Umbrella Trust............................. *8,000,000
Vapor Stove Trust.......................... *1,000,000
Wall Paper Trust, New York................. 20,000,000
Watch Trust................................ 30,000,000
Wheel Trust................................ *1,000,000
Whip Trust................................. *500,000
Window Glass Trust......................... *20,000,000
Wire Trust................................. *10,000,000
Wood Screw Trust........................... *10,000,000
Wool Hat Trust, New Jersey................. *1,500,000
Wrapping Paper Trust....................... *1,000,000
Yellow Pine Trust.......................... *2,000,000
Patent Leather Trust....................... 5,000,000
Dye and Chemical Combine................... *2,000,000
Lumber Trust............................... *2,000,000
Rock Salt Combination...................... 5,000,000
Naval Stores Combine....................... *1,000,000
Green Glass Trust.......................... *4,000,000
Locomotive Trust........................... *5,000,000
Envelope Combine........................... 5,000,000
Ribbon Trust............................... *18,000,000
Iron and Coal Trust........................ 10,000,000
Cotton Press Trust......................... *6,000,000
Tack Trust................................. *3,000,000
Clothes-Wringer Trust...................... *2,000,000
Snow Shovel Trust.......................... *200,000

*Estimated.

Title Capital
The Iron League (Trust)....................*$60,000,000
Paper Box Trust............................ *5,000,000
Bituminous Coal Trust...................... *15,000,000
Alcohol Trust.............................. *5,000,000
Confectioners' Trust....................... *2,000,000
Gas Trust.................................. *7,000,000
Acid Trust................................. *2,000,000
Manilla Tissue Trust....................... *2,000,000
Carnegie Trust............................. 25,000,000
Illinois Steel Trust....................... *50,000,000
Brass Trust................................ 10,000,000
Hop Combine................................ *500,000
Flour Trust, New York...................... 7,500,000
American Corn Harvesters' Trust............ *50,000,000
Pork Combine, Missouri..................... *20,000,000
Colorado Coal Combine...................... 20,000,000
Bleachery Combine.......................... *10,000,000
Paint Combine, New York.................... *2,000,000
Buckwheat Trust, New Jersey................ 5,000,000
Fur Combine, New Jersey.................... 10,000,000
Tissue Paper Trust......................... *10,000,000
Cash Register Trust........................ *10,000,000
Western Flour Trust........................ 10,000,000
Steel and Iron Combine..................... 4,000,000
Electrical Combine No. 2................... 1,800,000
Rubber Trust No. 2......................... 7,000,000
Tobacco Combination........................ 2,500,000
-------------
Total Capital.................$1,507,060,000

*Estimated.

The same issue of the same journal notes the power and tendency of one of these trusts in the following editorial, under the caption, "What the Coal Advance means:"

"The addition of $1.50 to the price of every ton of anthracite coal means that the eleven members of the Coal Trust will pocket not less than fifty and perhaps more than sixty millions of dollars. On the basis of last fall's competition and resulting fair prices, this money rightfully belongs to those who use coal.

"The enormous addition to the cost of coal means that many manufacturers who were going to start again this fall cannot do so because they cannot add such a large item to the cost of their product and still compete with those who get coal at natural prices. It means that many manufacturers will cut wages to make up for this increase in the cost of production. It means that every householder of moderate means will pinch on some modest luxury or comfort. He must buy coal, and as the officers he has helped to elect will not enforce the law, he must pay the trust's prices. It means finally that the poor will have to buy less coal. The old prices were hard enough. The new prices are sharply restrictive. And so the poor must shiver in the coming winter.

"On the one side is more luxury for a few. On the other side is discomfort, and in thousands of cases positive misery, for the many. Between the two is the broken and dishonored law."

Take another illustration of the power of trusts. In the Spring of 1895 the Cotton Tie Trust was formed. (The cotton tie is a plain band of iron used in baling cotton.) The price at that time was seventy cents a hundred. The following year the trust concluded that it would make a little extra profit, and advanced the price to $1.40 per hundred--so near the time for baling cotton that foreign ties could not be imported in season.

All trusts have not similarly abused their power; possibly favorable opportunities have not yet been offered to all; but no one will dispute that "the common people," the masses, are in serious danger of injury at the hands of such giant corporations. All know what to fear from power and selfishness in an individual, and these "giant" trusts not only have immensely more power and influence than individuals, but in addition, they have no consciences. It has become a proverb that "Corporations have no souls."

We clip the following dispatch to the Pittsburgh Post in illustration of --

The Profits of Trusts

"NEW YORK, Nov. 5, 1896--The liquidating trustees of the Standard Oil Trust met today and declared the regular quarterly dividend of $3 per share and $2 per share additional, payable December 15. The total original issue of Standard Oil Trust certificates was $97,250,000. During the fiscal year just closing there has been 31 per cent in dividends declared, making a total distribution of earnings amounting to $30,149,500. During the same period the American Sugar Refining Company, known as the sugar trust, has paid $7,023,920 in dividends. In addition to these payments of earnings to stockholders, the trust is said to have a surplus in raw sugar, bills receivable and cash amounting to about $30,000,000."

The same journal, subsequently, said editorially as follows:

"The Wire Nail Trust was probably one of the most rascally combinations to plunder and extort money from the people that was ever gotten up in this country. It defied the laws, bribed, bullied and ruined competitors, and ruled the trade with autocratic powers. Having done this, and advanced prices from two hundred to three hundred per cent, it divided millions among its members. No anarchy here, of course. In fact, it is the anarchists who protest against such robbery and defiance of law. So at least thinks Mr. A. C. Faust, of New Jersey, of the nail trust, who writes the World that its exposures of the enormities of the trust 'feed the flame of popular discontent.' This is getting things down to a fine point. The illegal and plundering trusts are to be allowed free sway, and attempts to hold them in check are not to be tolerated because 'they feed the flame of popular discontent.' On one side we have the people of the country, and on the other the licensed robbers--the trusts. But there must be no exposures or protest, or the 'flame of popular discontent' will make it hard for the trusts. Could impudence and arrogance go further?

Possessed of the Demon of Theft and Murder.

And this is no more applicable to dealers in coal than to the dealers in any other commodity.'

"While Rev. Dr. Parkhurst was denouncing them as 'possessed by the demon of theft and murder,' another New York preacher, Rev. Dr. Heber Newton, to velvet pews and a millionaire flock, praised the trusts as a necessary and beneficent part of our advancing civilization."

Anent the sudden drop in the price of steel rails from $25 to $17 per ton the Allegheny Evening Record said:

"The great 'Steel Pool,' formed to keep up prices, is practically smashed. This gigantic combination of capital and power, made to control the output of one of the greatest industries of America, to run prices up or down by its simple mandate, to tax consumers at its pleasure, and to the limit of expediency, is to be devoured by a combination still more gigantic, still more powerful, still more wealthy. Rockefeller and Carnegie have seized the steel industry of America. The event is epochal. The cut in the price of steel rails from $25 to $17 a ton, the lowest figure at which they have ever been sold, marks an era in the country's economy. So far it is a case of trust eat trust, and the railroads are the gainers.

The following item was circulated widely at the time, but is worthy of notice here in considering this subject:

"KANSAS CITY, MO., Nov. 26, 1896--Ex-Governor David R. Francis, now Secretary of the Interior, sent the following letter to a little party of gold standard men who held a banquet at the Midland Hotel last night:

Department of the Interior,
Washington, D.C., Nov. 19, 1896

"Gentlemen: I have just received your invitation of the 25th, and regret I cannot attend the ratification of the sound money victory this evening....If some legislation is not enacted to check the growing influence of wealth and to circumscribe the powers of the trusts and monopolies, there will be an uprising of the people before the close of the century which will endanger our very institutions.

DAVID R. FRANCIS"

The following was clipped from the London Spectator:

Trusts in England

Although trusts may be termed an American invention, we quote the following from the London Spectator showing that they are not exclusively American. The writer says:

"Trusts are beginning to take possession of some of our British trades. At the present time there exists--with its headquarters in Birmingham--a combination or trust in the metallic bedstead trade throughout Great Britain, which is so cleverly arranged that it is practically impossible for any outsider to start making brass or iron bedsteads unless he joins the combination, and even then he has to sue for admittance, which will probably be denied him. If, however, he tried to start independently of it, he would be unable to buy his raw material or get any workmen used to the trade, as all the makers of iron and brass for bedsteads have agreed to only supply the combination, and the workmen are all pledged by their Union to work only for makers belonging to it. Consumers have therefore to look to foreign competition alone if prices are to be kept down. This bedstead trust is at present successful, hence many other local trades are now emulating its example."

True, these combinations of capital have in the past accomplished great enterprises which single individuals could not have accomplished so quickly or so well. Indeed, private corporative enterprise has taken and successfully carried risks which the public would have condemned and defeated if undertaken by the government. We are not to be understood as holding up vast accumulations of capital to wholesale condemnation; but we are pointing out that every year's experience not only adds largely to their financial power, but also to their sagacity, and that we are rapidly nearing the point where the people's interests and very liberties are threatened, if indeed we are not already there. Everybody says, Something must be done! but what to do nobody knows. The fact is, mankind is helplessly at the mercy of these giant outgrowths of the present selfish social system, and the only hope is in God.

True, also, these giants are usually headed by men of ability who thus far generally seem disposed to use their power in moderation. Nevertheless, the power is being concentrated; and the ability, guided in the main by selfishness, will be likely from time to time to tighten the screws upon their servants and the public as opportunities permit and circumstances favor.

*Gen. 6:4�Further reading matter on this subject FREE on application to International Bible Students Association, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Slavery dies a natural death under the modern selfish competitive system backed by mechanical inventions and the growth of population. Aside entirely from moral and religious considerations, it would now be impossible to make slavery general in populous, civilized countries: it would not pay financially. (1) Because machinery has, to a large degree, taken the place of non-intelligent, as well as of intelligent, labor. (2) Because an intelligent servant can do more and better work than an unintelligent one. (3) Because to civilize and even slightly educate slaves would make their services cost more than free labor; besides which the more intelligent and efficient slaves would be more difficult to control and use profitably than those nominally free, but bound hand and foot by necessity. In a word, the worldly-wise have learned that wars for spoils of enemies, and for slaves, are less profitable than wars of commercial competition whose results are better, as well as larger; and that the free "slaves of necessity" are the cheaper and more capable ones.

If already free, intelligent labor is cheaper than ignorant slave-labor, and if the whole world is waking up in intelligence, as well as rapidly increasing in numbers, it is evident that the present social system is as certain to work its own destruction as would an engine under a full head of steam and without a check or governor.

Since society is at present organized upon the principle of supply and demand, there is no check, no governor, upon the world's selfish competition. The entire structure is built upon that principle: the selfish pressure, the force pressing society downward, grows stronger and stronger daily. With the masses matters will continue thus, to press down lower and lower, step by step, until the social collapse in anarchy is realized.

Humanity Between the Upper and Nether
Millstones

A writer in The American Magazine of Civics, Mr. J. A. Collins, once discussed the subject of Decadence of American Home Ownership, in the light of the U.S. census. At the outset he tells us to be prepared for startling facts, and for threatening and dangerous indications. We quote as follows:

"A few decades ago the great bulk of the population was made up of home-owners, and their homes were practically free from incumbrance; today the vast bulk of the population are tenants."

Since the occupant of a mortgaged home is virtually but a tenant of the mortgagee, he finds 84 per cent of the families of this nation virtually tenants, and adds:

Comparing these figures with European statistics, Mr. Collins concludes that conditions under the greatest Republic on earth are less favorable than in Europe, except the richest and most enlightened there--Great Britain. But Mr. Collins' figures are misleading unless it be remembered that thousands of these mortgaged homes are owned by young people (who in Europe would live with their parents) and by immigrants who buy on the "instalment plan." The bare truth, however, is bad enough. With the increasing pressure of the times few of the present many mortgages will ever be cleared off, except by the sheriff.

Few probably realize how very cheaply human strength and time are sometimes sold; and those who realize it know not how to remedy the evil, and are busy avoiding its clutches themselves. In all large cities of the world there are thousands known as "sweaters," who work harder and for longer hours for the bare necessities of life, than did the majority of the southern slaves. Nominally they have their liberty, but actually they are slaves, the slaves of necessity, having liberty to will, but little liberty to do, for themselves or others.

We clip the following from the (Pittsburgh) Presbyterian Banner on this subject:

"In England almost every business is worked on this basis. The boot and shoe trade, the fur trade, the cabinet and upholstery trade, and many others, have come within the scope of the middleman, and the people are ground down to starvation wages. But it is of the ready-made clothing trade in our own land we mean to speak. In 1886 there were but ten sweater shops in New York, now there are many hundreds, and the same is true of the city of Chicago also, while other cities have their share. These shops are for the most part in the hands of Jews, and those in Boston and New York have the advantage over their brothers farther west in that they can take advantage of foreigners, freshly arrived, who cannot speak the language and are therefore easily imposed on. These employees are taken, crowded into small, illy-ventilated rooms, sometimes twenty or thirty in a room large enough for eight workers, where they often have to cook, eat and live, toiling for eighteen and twenty hours a day to earn enough to keep them alive.

"The prices paid for this kind of work are a disgrace to humanity. Men by hard work may earn from two to four dollars a week. The following figures are given by one who has made a study of the matter and who obtained his information from one of the 'boss sweaters' who gave these prices as what he received from the dealer:

For making overcoats,...........................$ .76 to $2.50
For making business coats,...................... .32 to 1.50
For making trousers,............................ .25 to .75
For making vests (per dozen),................... 1.00 to 3.00
For making knee pants (per dozen),.............. .50 to .75
For making calico shirts (per dozen),........... .30 to .45

"The maker gets ten cents for making summer trousers, and in order to complete six pairs must work nearly eighteen hours. The cloaks are made by fifteen persons, each one doing a part. Overalls, sixty cents a dozen pairs. These are a few examples, and any woman who knows anything about sewing or making clothes, knows the amount of labor involved.

"But there is retribution in all things, and sometimes the innocent or thoughtless must suffer as well as the guilty. This clothing is made under the worst conditions of cleanliness. It is made in rooms sometimes not fit for human occupancy and which are reeking with germs of disease. In Chicago, during this year, a visitor saw in one of these shops four people working on cloaks, all of whom had scarlet fever, and in another place a child lay dead of the same disease, while the work went on around it, and the contagion was inevitably spread."

"Alas that gold should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap."

The numbers of the miserably poor are rapidly increasing, and, as has been shown, competition is crowding the whole race down hill, except the fortunate few who have secured machinery or real estate; and their wealth and power correspondingly advance, until it seems as though the billionaire might soon be looked for if present conditions continue.

"If the intellect of the race is not capable of devising a better industrial system than this, we might as well admit that humanity is the greatest failure of the universe. [Yes, that is just where divine providence is leading: men must learn their own impotence and the true Master, just as every colt must be "broken" before it is of value.] The most outrageous and cruel thing in all the ages, is the present attempt to maintain an industrial army to fight the battles of our plutocratic kings without making any provisions for its maintenance during the periods in which services are not needed."

The above was written during the period of the most serious depression incident to "tariff tinkering," and happily is not the normal condition. However, there is no knowing when it may be repeated. Nevertheless, the Harrisburg Patriot, of the same year, gave the following figures under the caption, "The Number of the Unemployed":

"There are 10,000 laborers out of work in Boston; in Worcester 7,000 are unemployed; in New Haven 7,000; in Providence 9,600; in New York City 100,000. Utica is a small city, but the unemployed number 16,000; in Paterson, N.J., one-half of the people are idle; in Philadelphia 15,000; in Baltimore 10,000; in Wheeling 3,000; in Cincinnati 6,000; in Cleveland 8,000; in Columbus 4,000; in Indianapolis 5,000; in Terre Haute 2,500; in Chicago 200,000; in Detroit 25,000; in Milwaukee 20,000; in Minneapolis 6,000; in St. Louis 80,000; in St. Joseph 2,000; in Omaha 2,000; in Butte City, Mont. 5,000; in San Francisco 15,000."

"You will admit that new machines are rapidly displacing workmen. The claim that the making and caring for these new machines employs the number thus thrown out will not stand; for if that were true there would be no gain in the use of machines. The fact stands out so prominently that hundreds of thousands of men are now idle because machines are doing the work they formerly did, that any man must recognize it, if he will think but a moment. These men out of work do not buy as many goods as when employed, and this decreases the demand for goods, and thus prevents many more workmen from being employed, increases the number out of work and stops more purchasing.

"What are you going to do with these unemployed? That prices of goods, as a whole, are being cheapened, does not give these men employment. There is no occupation open to them, for all occupations are glutted with men, for the same reason. You can't kill them (unless they strike), and there is nowhere for them to go. In all seriousness I ask, what are you going to do with them? Skilled farmers are bankrupting, so what show would these men have at that, even if they had land?

"The French were warned, but they could not listen because of the gaiety of royal rottenness. Will you listen? or will the present course be permitted to run unchecked until five or six millions are clamoring for bread or the oxide of iron? The trouble, when it comes, will be intensified in the United States a hundred-fold, because of the social conditions that have prevailed here for a century. The love of liberty has grown stalwart, nursed on a hatred of kings, tyrants and oppressors. No army or navy from the masses can be relied upon to shoot their own fathers and brothers at the beck or order of untitled or titled kings. Seeing what must result from a too prolonged idleness of millions, whose conditions will soon cement a bond of fellowship, do you not think you have some interest in the conditions they are producing? Would it not be better to find and apply a remedy, to employ these men, even in public workshops, than to have the finale?

"We know what the capitalists are doing: We see them preparing the munitions of war to rule the masses by force of arms. But they are foolish. They are wise only in their own conceits. They are adopting the tactics of kings, and will be as chaff before the wind, by and by. All the fates are against their tactics. Kings, with greater armies than can be mustered to fight for capitalism here, are trembling before the steady growth of a higher civilization among the people, hurried on by the distress of this rapidly increasing army of out-of-works. Justice injures none, though it may shut off the privileges of robbers. Let us, as citizens, solve and settle the problem lawfully, not as partisans, but as citizens who think more of country than of party, and more of justice than of the king's gold."

These are strong words from one who evidently feels strongly, and there are many such. No one can gainsay that there is at least some truth in the charges.

The Conditions Universal and Beyond Human
Power to Regulate

Nor are these conditions peculiar to America and Europe: not for centuries have the millions of Asia known anything else. An American missionary in India writes that she became heartsick when asked by the natives if it were true that the people of her home have all the bread they want to eat, three times a day. She says that in India the majority rarely have sufficient food to satisfy nature's cravings.

The Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, India, is reported to have said, not long since, "Half our agricultural population never know from year's end to year's end what it is to have their hunger fully satisfied." Those who raise the grain cannot eat what nature calls for: taxes must first be paid out of it. Ten millions of India's population are hand-loom cotton-cloth weavers, and now machinery on the coast has destroyed their trade and left nothing for them but agriculture on the above hard conditions.

In South Africa, too, where millions of dollars have been freely invested during what was known as the "African Gold Craze," times are "hard" with very many, and some of the educated are faring worst. The following from a Natal, S. Africa, journal gives an idea of the conditions:

"Meantime there are no vacancies, and frequent applications have to be refused. From time to time the chairman of the committee, by means of advertisements and otherwise, finds employment for such of the men as have any knowledge of a trade or handicraft. Vacancies thus created in the gang are filled up from the ranks of those who have previously made unsuccessful application. In addition to those serving on the gang, there is a considerable number of men wandering about the town who have sought in vain for employment. They very soon find their way to the genial deputy-mayor, and he does the best he can for them, which, unhappily, often ends in failure. If employers having vacancies will wait on Mr. Jameson, they can obtain full information concerning the unemployed on his list. It must be understood that none of these men are residents proper of Durban, but have drifted there from various parts of South Africa in search of employment. Durban is by no means unique in its experience; there are only too clear evidences that similar deplorable conditions hold elsewhere.

"As has been already indicated, many of the applicants for places on the relief gang are men accustomed only to clerical work. It cannot be too often or too strongly emphasized that for such there is absolutely no chance in Natal, the market being always overstocked. But for the action of the Corporation in providing temporary work, there would have been a considerably greater amount of destitution in town. On the whole the conduct of the men on the relief gang has been highly exemplary, and warrants a continuance of the policy which the council has adopted. But what, it may be asked, is the Benevolent Society doing? That excellent institution affords relief only to residents and their families, and, as usual, its hands are full--if not with money, at any rate with deserving cases."

But will not people of intelligence who see these matters take steps to prevent the crushing of their fellow-creatures, less favored or less intelligent? Do they not see that the upper millstone is coming very dangerously close upon the lower one, and that the masses who must pass between them in competition are feeling the pressure severely, and must feel it yet more? Will not generous hearts provide relief?

No; the majority who are favored either by fortune or skill are so busy doing for themselves, "making money," diverting as much as possible of the "grist" to their own sacks, that they do not realize the true situation. They do hear the groans of the less fortunate, and often give generously for their aid, but as the number of the unfortunate grows rapidly larger, many get to feel that general relief is hopeless; they get used to the present conditions, and settle down to the enjoyment of their own comforts and special privileges, and for the time at least forget or ignore the troubles of their fellowmen.

But there are a few who are well circumstanced and who see the real situation more or less clearly. Some of these, no doubt, are manufacturers, mine owners, etc. They can see the difficulties, and wish that matters were otherwise, and long to aid in changing them; but what can they do? They can do very little, except to help to relieve the worst cases of distress among their neighbors and relatives. They cannot change the present constitution of society and destroy the competitive system in part, and they realize that the world would be injured by the total abolition of competition without some other power to take its place to compel energy on the part of the naturally indolent.

The Morning Cometh

"A better day is coming, a morning promised long,
When truth and right, with holy might, shall overthrow the wrong;

When Christ the Lord will listen to every plaintive sigh,
And stretch his hand o'er sea and land, with justice, by and by.

"The boast of haughty tyrants no more shall fill the air,
But aged and youth shall love the truth and speed it everywhere.
No more from want and sorrow shall come the hopeless cry,
But war shall cease, and perfect peace will flourish by and by.

"The tidal wave is coming, the year of jubilee;
With shout and song it sweeps along, like billows of the sea.
The jubilee of nations shall ring through earth and sky.
The dawn of grace draws on apace--'tis coming by and by.

"O! for that glorious dawning we watch and wait and pray,
Till o'er the height the morning light shall drive the gloom away;

And when the heavenly glory shall flood the earth and sky,
We'll bless the Lord for all his works and praise him by and by."