The Industrial Conflict in the Light of Revelation.
By Geo. W. Rine
THE PARAMOUNT CAUSE OF POVERTY.
(Continued from last week.) PRACTICALLY, all thinkers who are in sympathy with the prevailing industrial, financial, and economic system of the Caucasian nations deny that any considerable part of the intense and wide-spread poverty of our day is owing to social or economic injustice. They insist that poverty is almost wholly the result of indolence, shiftlessness, and especially of intemperance. It is obviously true that much destitution and suffering are directly traceable to the drink habit. But systematic and painstaking observation and methodical investigation prove conclusively that by far the greater part of the wretchedness, the suffering, the squalor, and the woes incident to poverty is caused by inadequately paid labor. An eminent and conservative English writer, who is neither a socialist, nor a champion of “labor,” alleges: “We positively place a premium on dishonesty by the meager reward we offer to honest toil: we legalize the appropriation of the produce of labor, and allow men to lead idle lives of luxury. And then we are filled with virtuous indignation when some unfortunate pariah, at great personal trouble and risk, contrives to filch a purse, or, possibly, abstract a few turnips. We doom men to such wretched existence that the marvel is that so comparatively few should diverge from the path of rectitude. . . . The only remedy [for acute poverty] of any great and permanent value is the equitable remuneration of labor. Once bring about such a condition of society as that every one shall have an opportunity to engage in honest work, and be adequately rewarded, and more will be done in a single generation to diminish suffering and crime than the whole army of judges and bench of bishops will accomplish in an eternity under the existing system.” A noted jurist succinctly says that “more intemperance results from hopeless poverty than poverty from intemperance.” The late lamented president of the W. C. T. U., Miss Willard, aphoristically expressed the same truth: “It is time to cease making men comfortable by making them sober, but begin making them sober by making them comfortable.” The Russians have a proverb that runs thus: “Even a bishop will steal if he is very hungry.” The thought is that much of the wretchedness, crime, and even drunkenness would disappear if the fear, the woe, and the despair resulting from poverty could be abolished. I shall now offer undisputable proof for the contention that the paramount cause of poverty is inadequately paid labor. The Christian Organization Society, of New York, has shown in a carefully-tabulated statement that five per cent. of the cases of actual destitution in the principal cities is due to shiftlessness, dishonesty, or a roving disposition; ten per cent. to intemperance; thirteen per cent. to sickness; and forty-seven per cent. to lack of employment, or underpaid employment. The value and authority of this showing result from the fact that it is the product of systematic and painstaking visitation and inquiry by an organization that is in immediate touch with the problem, and which embraces in its affiliations more than one hundred and fifty organizations in the chief cities of this country and Canada. “When we further remember,” says a writer for the Arena, “that insufficient food and clothing are directly conducive to sickness, and that the wretchedness and despair of poverty drive men to intemperance and crime, increased emphasis is laid upon the relation of involuntary poverty to the great social problems that confront us. It becomes apparent, also, that to cut the taproot of involuntary poverty would at once and permanently relieve the situation.” “It would do more; for, however dreadful the fact of poverty itself, the fear of poverty is a far more serious fact in our complex civilization; and in removing the occasion of poverty we would also remove that anxiety regarding our own future, which permeates every grade and department of life to weaken its moral stamina and to seduce its virtue.” Is it not evident that the world to-day is in far greater need of justice than of charity between man and man? Give every person who desires to produce wealth by his labor a chance to do so, and permit him to retain a just and righteous portion of the wealth he produces, and you will soon transfigure this suffering world into a veritable Utopia. Again I must advert to that remarkable forecast of last-day industrial conditions given by the Spirit of God through the Apostle James: “Come now, ye rich. . . . Ye have laid up your treasure in the last days. Behold, the hire [wages] of the laborers who mowed your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth out; and the cries of them that reaped [toiled] have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.” How convincingly clear is the inspired testimony that in these last days, the laborer, the actual producer of wealth, will be oppressed, will be defrauded of a just share of the wealth he creates. The capitalistic employer appropriates to himself a large part of the proceeds of labor, which, in justice, belongs to the laborer. In 1890 our factory workers produced $9,250,000,000 worth of goods, but they received only a little more than $2,000,000,000 in return for their toil. Twenty per cent. of the working men of this country get less than seven dollars a week. Mr. Herbert Casson writes: “The average woman’s income [of those who are wage workers] is $269.70; her average expenses for positive needs are $261.30, leaving her $8.40 to invest in gold bonds and steam yachts.” On the other hand, the sugar trust made $236,000,000 profits in ten years. One of our trust magnates has an actual income of $40,000,000 a year. Even skilled laborers in England receive but $375 a year, if continuously employed, while of scores of their employers, each nets a profit of from one-half million to five million dollars annually. In New York alone there are 70,000 girls toiling in the horrible sweat-shops making shirts, overalls, knee-pants, etc., at from thirty to seventy-five cents a dozen. We read about women who finish an elegant cloak for four cents; about children who work twelve hours a day for a dollar a week; about women in Europe, who are glad to get a chance that offers six cents for four hours’ work. A man, interested in economical questions, recently said: “We are assured on good authority that the ‘sweating system’ is forcing men and women to work sometimes for thirty-three and even thirty-six consecutive hours to avoid starvation! How evident, then, it is that the reason why so many of the world’s toilers are distracted and harassed by poverty, while the wealthy devotees of pleasure are wallowing in luxury, is owing to the divinely foretold fact that the just wages of the laborer are fraudulently withheld. This is one reason why the ‘rich’ are enabled to heap up treasures ‘for the last days.’” Our Lord’s message to the poor, who are oppressed and afflicted, is, “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.” Do not resort to violence, mob law, boycotts, or any kind of physical coercion. To the rapacious rich God sends this warning: “Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his.” Let the oppressed toilers remember the promise of Him, who loves the poor: “He shall judge the poor of the people, He shall save the children of the needy.” Ps. 72:4.