The Labor War Also by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 27, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 29.

The Labor War Also

By Editor

NOTWITHSTANDING the big war that she has on her hands, England is held in constant anxiety because of her labor difficulties. The government is taking a strong hand in the situation, and hopes to avert a domestic crisis such as a general strike would produce at this critical hour in her history. But utterances like the following from a paper published in London are not calculated to pacify the discontented laborer. This paper says:

“Such minor strikes as have occurred arose almost entirely from the greed and tyranny of the capitalists, who wished to increase their abnormal profits, due to the war, by the refusal of any increase of wages to enable their wage slaves to meet rising prices. . . . This is regrettable from our point of view; but Mr. Lloyd-George’s vilification of the people as drunken skulkers, when they were doing nearly all the fighting and all the work, . . . is inexcusable.”

The capitalist, without any question, is reaping an abundant harvest from this war. The business that has come to this country alone from the warring nations of Europe, and as a direct result of the war, has now reached something over a billion dollars. It will be said that a great deal of this money goes into the pockets of the laboring class, and that is true. Yet at the same time, it is also true that immense profits from this great business are going to the capitalists who are conducting it. The people know these facts, and they are discussing them, and this discussion is producing more and more discontent and uneasiness.

The right and the wrong of the question is a matter that does not particularly enter into the discussions in the columns of this paper; but the great fact of this struggle is a monumental fulfilment of prophecy, and this is the one thing to which we would like to keep the attention of our readers directed. It is far more important that we should see the prophecies which are fulfilling in these struggles, than that we should engage ourselves as a party to either side of the contentions that are going on.

Let the fact stand out clear and strong that God has said the last days will be made perilous because men will be lovers of self and lovers of money; and furthermore, that the striking prophecy of James informs us that intense suffering and anguish will come to those who have “heaped together treasure” at the expense of the laborer who has mowed down their fields.