THE 
 
 CLAIMS OF LABOE, 
 
 AND 
 
 THEIR PRECEDENCE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 CLAIMS OF FREE TEADE. 
 
 Br 
 
 STEPHEN COLWELL. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 C. SHERMAN & SON, PRINTERS. 
 
 1861 . 
 

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 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
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 The interests of that immense majority of men who 
 do not merely labor for their living, but whose industry 
 and skill produce all that is called wealth, all the ne¬ 
 cessaries, comforts, luxuries, and ornaments of civilized 
 life, deserve to be studied directly and specially, and not 
 merely as incidents of national wealth. No system of 
 social economy can be trusted which suppresses or over¬ 
 looks the duties which men owe to their fellow-men; 
 and no system of social duties can for a moment be 
 compared with that which was propounded by Him who 
 gave the commandment, “ Love thy neighbor as thy¬ 
 self!” 
 
 If the instances were not flagrant, it might be sup- 
 posed that no Christian people could adopt or tolerate 
 a system of political economy, of which human well-;:, 
 being was not at least the avowed object. The prevail¬ 
 ing systems, however, take wealth for their subject, 
 and, treating it under the special topics of production, 
 distribution, and consumption, proceed to develop it 
 mainly from a commercial point of view. The produc¬ 
 tion of wealth is its appearance in the channels of com¬ 
 merce ; that is supply: its distribution is commerce; 
 its consumption is movement to the consumers; that is 
 demand. 
 
4 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 In fact, however, the producers and consumers are 
 substantially the same. In a state of advanced civili¬ 
 zation, the extreme division of labor makes it necessary 
 to institute a system of exchange of products, which in¬ 
 volves that complicated movement for the assortment of 
 products which is called trade ; an agency which is not 
 designed to promote the interests of that class of men 
 called merchants, but to promote the comfort and well¬ 
 being of all classes of society, especially that largest 
 class, of which those who labor for a living are the 
 members. This is the class which furnishes the pro¬ 
 ducers and the chief part of the consumers. The 
 point of view, then, from which to regard social indus¬ 
 try, is not trade, but labor and social well-being. Trade 
 is but one of the branches of this industry, a depart¬ 
 ment which becomes more important as civilization ad¬ 
 vances, but can never be otherwise than subordinate to 
 the interests of the great body of producers and con¬ 
 sumers. Merchants form a necessary class, but their 
 private interests prompt them to make the largest pro¬ 
 fits possible out of their agency. It is therefore assum¬ 
 ing a false position to study the interests of those who 
 produce by the light furnished by those who merely 
 assort and distribute the commodities of industry. 
 
 Great armies are fed and clothed and all their wants 
 supplied by the agencies of officers who receive a yearly 
 salary for their services, and whose duty is to supply 
 the place of merchants in civil life to soldiers engaged 
 in duties which preclude them from attending to the 
 purchase of their own clothing, or the providing for 
 their own food. This is by far more economical for the 
 soldier and the government than if this were left to the 
 full action of a class of merchants, whose profits would 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 5 
 
 far exceed the salaries of the commissariat of an army. 
 As it would be of no advantage to an army merely to 
 increase the salaries of these commissaries; so it is no 
 advantage to a community in civil life that the mer¬ 
 chants by which it is served grow rich. 
 
 The real object to be sought in both cases is the 
 larger and better supply of those articles which go to 
 increase the comfort, health, and strength of consumers, 
 whether soldiers or citizens; and, of course, in order 
 to the increase of supplies, the attention must be chiefly^ 
 directed to the laborers, by whose skill and industry the 
 products of annual consumption are furnished; not for¬ 
 getting for a moment that those laborers are not only 
 the chief producers but the chief consumers. The 
 great social problem is not merely the largest produc¬ 
 tion, nor the freedom of the distribution, but that the 
 laborers shall be enabled to enjoy adequately the fruits 
 of their own industry. 
 
 We trust it will be a relief for the real friends of 
 humanity to turn from the pages which treat of the 
 production, distribution, and consumption of riches, to 
 some considerations upon the welfare of the man who 
 labors. Not that we intend to propound here any sys 
 tern, or to attempt more than to point out the claims 
 of laborers and insist upon their being considered. 
 When such considerations and inquiries are allowed 
 due weight, and are carried to their proper conclusions 
 under the light of Christianity, a system of social eco¬ 
 nomy will be developed, which must do more to quicken 
 the movements of industry and till the channels of 
 commerce than all the theories of wealth, or money, or 
 commerce, or political economy, which have yet been 
 announced. 
 
6 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 The claims of labor! AVhat a fruitful text! When 
 we behold the mighty results of labor in agriculture, in 
 manufacture, in the arts, in commerce, it is but just and 
 natural to inquire where are they who have achieved 
 all this 1 What is their condition, and what their pros¬ 
 pects ] Are they receiving, or have they received, a 
 just remuneration for all this labor 1 Are they enjoy¬ 
 ing the reward of all they have done ] Are they worn 
 down with toil, or are they, with due mingling of rest 
 and refreshment, the most cheerful, the most healthful, 
 and the most grateful of God’s creatures 1 It denotes 
 a deadness to human interests wholly inexcusable to 
 look upon the marvels of industry, and not give one 
 kind or anxious thought to the condition of those whose 
 bread depends day by day upon the progress of 
 works which so justly command the wonder of the 
 spectator. But, in truth, we should not need any spec¬ 
 tacle of the results of human industry to excite us to a 
 full consideration of the claims of the laborer. Man is 
 I wisely and mercifully appointed to eat his bread in the 
 sweat of his brow. 
 
 We say mercifully, because the highest condition of 
 the laboring man is the highest state of earthly happi¬ 
 ness. Laborers whose physical powers are not unduly 
 taxed, whose minds are properly cultivated, and whose 
 labors are duly requited, are the happiest men of this 
 world; seldom repining at their lot as they eat that food 
 to which toil gives a relish the relaxed idler never feels. 
 They escrjpe a thousand ills and causes of discontent 
 to which a life of opulence or even partial idleness is 
 exposed. If the mass of laborers in the world do not 
 enjoy the happiness and comfort which is due to their 
 position and their services, it is because men have 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 7 
 
 changed and perverted the appointment of God. The 
 laborer, in too many instances now, does not eat his 
 bread in the sweat of his brow; he labors, but the 
 avails come not to him; he toils far beyond the point 
 of earning his bread, but another mainly enjoys the 
 benefits. His bread is too scant for the requirements 
 of nature ; his labor is too hard for the powers of na¬ 
 ture. This is no part of the sentence, “ In the sweat 
 of thy face thou shalt eat bread, until thou return to 
 the ground.” It is man’s perversion of God’s appoint¬ 
 ment. 
 
 The claims of labor demand, then, earnest considera¬ 
 tion. No subject which concerns social interests claims 
 more conscientious and enlightened investigation. La¬ 
 bor is the power which rears the dwellings in which 
 we live, the temples in which we worship, and every 
 other triumph of architecture; which produces that in¬ 
 finite variety of food and raiment, of luxuries and ne¬ 
 cessaries, in which we revel; which achieves all the 
 wonder of art and mechanism; which builds all the 
 mighty fabrics which float upon river and sea; which 
 accomplishes all those vast works of canal and railway, 
 daily bringing the various portions of the human family 
 into closer proximity, and strengthening the feeling of 
 human brotherhood; and indeed all that the eye be¬ 
 holds distinguishing civilized from savage life comes 
 from the hands of labor. 
 
 Striking however as all these achievements of labor 
 are, they fall far short of a full exhibition. Few per¬ 
 sons whose attention has not specially been directed 
 to the subject can make even a tolerable approximation 
 of the quantity of labor required for the production of 
 their own food, and the furnishing of their own raiment, 
 
8 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 of their furniture, of their books, and the numberless 1 
 items of expenditure in which their families annually 
 indulge. Who that beholds our whole avenues of 
 warehouses, stored with commodities from every part 
 of the world, can conjecture the quantity of human 
 labor required to till depositories so numerous, and so 
 vast 1 Who can conj ecture the infinity of implements 
 and machinery which were employed in the production 
 of all these commodities, and the labor it required to 
 construct and use them 1 But, what is far more interest¬ 
 ing to know, who can tell what labors of the body and 
 the mind, what exertions of human strength, what 
 efforts of human limbs, what practice and skilful mo¬ 
 tions of the arm and hand, and what movements of human 
 fingers, all directed by human intelligence and by the 
 organs of the human senses, go to the filling the maga¬ 
 zines of commerce and art 1 It is evident upon a slight 
 examination that the quantity of human labor, the 
 actual toil, the daily and annual expenditure of human 
 exertion which is employed in this vast production, 
 yearly repeated, is far beyond our computation. We 
 can only say it is all the work of human beings under 
 sentence of labor. And as we cannot compute the labor, 
 nor ascertain the condition of the laborers by simply 
 regarding the work they have done, we are compelled, 
 in considering the claims of labor, to turn to the laborers 
 themselves, wherever they are scattered over the face of 
 the earth, to discover their actual position and prospects. 
 We can find the woman who toils day by day in the 
 yearly work of her needle, though we can never see nor 
 trace the garments which yearly leave her hands. In 
 the consideration of questions and topics touching the 
 higher human interests, and especially those wdiich con- 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 9 
 
 cern the multitudes who actually produce the commodi¬ 
 ties of the world, we must carry our own inquiries among, 
 them and not merely among their productions; we must 
 look at the laborers, young and old, male and female, at 
 their work and in their dwellings. If we would do them 
 good, we must thoroughly comprehend their condition, 
 moral, civil, and social, and the influences which combine 
 to produce that condition. It is not a mere question of 
 commerce nor of industrial production which comes 
 before us when we would consider the claims of labor ; 
 it is a question of human rights, human interests, of 
 human welfare, which demands our attention. Com¬ 
 merce and industry may make their proudest exhibi¬ 
 tions and astonish beholders with the wonders of human 
 effort, whilst the masses who contributed the work of 
 their hands to swell this display, may be suffering the 
 very extremities of human woe. The claims of labor, 
 then, the great social question not only of our day, but 
 of all time to come, must be solved as a question of 
 human well-being, not as a question of trade, or of in¬ 
 dustrial production, or of political economy. It need 
 not be feared that anything desirable, or honorable, or 
 grand in commerce, or vast in production, or of real 
 value to the human family, can suffer or be lost by im¬ 
 proving the condition of those on whom all production 
 and all commerce depends. The laborers who are 
 better fed, more comfortably clad and lodged, more 
 suitably and fully educated, whose moral or religious 
 training has been more amply and carefully attended 
 to, will certainly be none the less efficient in their in¬ 
 dustry, and their contributions to the mass of com- 
 
 « 
 
 modities in trade will be none the less abundant. It is 
 altogether more safe, then, as well as more philo- 
 
10 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 % sopliical and humane to promote the progress of industry 
 ! and production, by increasing the comforts, the health, 
 
 I strength, intelligence, and general Avelfare of laborers, 
 than by the indirect method of stimulating and en¬ 
 couraging commerce as a business or a profession. We 
 need scarcely add, that regarded from the side of 
 Christianity, there is no admissible mode of considering 
 the subject but that which places human welfare as 
 the chief corner-stone of every industrial edifice and 
 the main element of all commercial prosperity. 
 
 There is another aspect in which the claims of labor 
 are strikingly important. Labor earns, year by year, 
 the entire income of a nation; not merely the public 
 revenue out of which the whole expenditure of the 
 nation is borne, but the private income, be the same 
 more or less, of every individual who has other means 
 of living than his own labor. The whole expense of 
 I political institutions, and national as well as sectional 
 ^administration, is sustained by the annual labor of the 
 masses. This affords, however, but an inadequate 
 notion of the earnings of labor, for a true comprehen¬ 
 sion of which resort must be had to the gross products 
 of national industry, rather than to the net proceeds of 
 which public and private incomes mainly consist. 
 
 The entire annual product of labor in the United 
 States is variously estimated at from $3,000,000,000 to 
 $3,500,000,000 ; it may be safely taken at over $3,000- 
 000,000, which gives for our present population one 
 hundred dollars for each individual. This is be¬ 
 lieved to be very near the actual annual consumption 
 of our population. One-half of this consumption is of 
 food, the other of raiment, furniture, and other necessa¬ 
 ries. Of this vast expenditure, about ninety dollars is 
 expended for the products of domestic industry, and 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 11 
 
 ten dollars for foreign products by each individual, and 
 taking the average of our whole population. Domestic 
 industry, however, supplies the commodities which we 
 export, to pay for the foreign articles we import, so 
 that our own laborers furnish directly ninety per cent, 
 of our whole consumption, and indirectly the other ten 
 per cent. Our country is, therefore, a vast area of in¬ 
 dustry, in which the people are engaged in ministering 
 to each other’s wants and desires. The largest portion 
 are engaged in agriculture, which furnishes food to all; 
 nearly all the rest are employed in the various branches 
 of mechanical and manufacturing industry, which fur¬ 
 nish raiment, furniture, and lodging for all; the re¬ 
 mainder, a comparatively small number, are engaged 
 in the business of trade, domestic and foreign, thereby 
 distributing for consumption the products of industry, 
 and in professional and political life,—the labor of this 
 smaller number being essential to organized society 
 and civilized life. In our country, then, as in all others, 
 the population consists mainly of laborers in the soil ^ 
 and in the shop or manufactory. 
 
 The men of trade, and politics, and professional life 
 occupy the largest space in the eye of the casual ob¬ 
 server, but dwindle into insignificance in point of num¬ 
 bers when compared with the others. Our view of 
 labor and of laborers should cover the whole field of 
 industry, and should include all its occupants. Labor 
 is the basis of social life; the welfare of the laborer ^ 
 should be, therefore, a main object of social policy. To 
 make this policy complete, it includes the labor of the 
 mind as well as of the body, and also that division of 
 employment and of labor which conduces to skill and 
 increased production. It is from a view of these labo- 
 
I 
 
 12 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR, 
 
 rers as a whole, that we must derive the policy which 
 will best conduce to the social happiness of the whole. 
 We cannot determine what will most promote the wel¬ 
 fare of those engaged in trade by that which best suits 
 the men of professional life. We cannot determine the 
 best interests of agriculturists by consulting singly the 
 wishes of the manufacturers; nor can we ascertain or 
 promote-the interests or welfare of the whole mass by 
 consulting the men of trade and the interests of com¬ 
 merce. Each department has its separate interests and 
 its selfish views. There is a policy, however, which is 
 >^best for the whole, and that can neither be ascertained 
 nor adjusted, but by giving that consideration to each 
 class which belongs to the magnitude of its numbers, 
 its peculiar position, and its special employment. 
 
 The eye of the Christian, of the statesman, of the 
 legislator, of the philanthropist, should embrace the 
 whole field of diversified labor, without losing sight of 
 the various parts ; the head should not forget nor neglect 
 the feet, nor should the body discard the hands. All the 
 members should abide together in peace and mutual 
 confidence under their appointed guidance. The go¬ 
 vernment of the whole, instituted for the good of the 
 whole, is necessarily confined to the special nation or 
 population under its direct supervision. There are 
 principles which apply to the labor and the laborers of 
 the whole world, but as the laws of each nation operate 
 only within its bouildaries, and as the rulers of each 
 nation can only enforce their policy within these limits, 
 the main object of government and social policy must 
 be the * care of labor and laborers in the circle within 
 which special authority ia effectual. 
 
 The authorities of each separate country having, to 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 13 
 
 the extent of their wisdom and abilities, provided for 
 the special welfare of their own people, may then, in 
 conjunction with the rulers of other nations, inquire 
 what the separate governments may effect for the good 
 of the family of nations. The inquiry must constantly 
 ascend from particular nations to nations collectively. 
 If the several nations of the'world are well governed 
 and happy, they will be quite ready to promote the 
 happiness of the whole, as an additional.means of in¬ 
 creasing their own. 
 
 It is very obvious that the scene of labor which every 
 industrious community presents, should be fully covered 
 by the shield of law and social order. Civilization 
 cannot exist where industry is exposed to the attacks 
 of all who prefer a life of violence or .fraud to one of 
 useful labor. Men must be protected from each other ; 
 the various classes must also be protected from each 
 other, and the whole must be subjected to such restraints 
 as may be needful for the interests of all. Unre¬ 
 strained liberty of action in what respects the progress 
 of industry and the interchange of commodities, is no 
 more safe nor wise than unrestrained liberty of action 
 in reference to men’s persons. It is as essential to a 
 happy social system and a sound civilization that men 
 should not defraud nor oppress each other in what con¬ 
 cerns their property and the due compensation of their 
 labor as in what concerns immunity of their persons. 
 It is even more necessary to guard men’s property and 
 labor than their persons, for selfishness is a more uni¬ 
 versal and powerful motive than those which lead to 
 attacks upon the persons of men. The mass of men 
 suffer a hundred fold more injury from the selfishness 
 of their fellow-men than they do from all other causes 
 
14 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 combined. Whilst, therefore, the laws in their frame 
 and administration should carefully protect the person 
 of the laborer, they should no less sedulously have re¬ 
 spect to the labor, to the occupation, to the compensa¬ 
 tion, and to the general welfare of the class of laborers, 
 as being the most important and most numerous class 
 in every nation. This duty of every government must 
 'by its very nature be special. No general law nor sys¬ 
 tem can possibly suit for all nations. The diversities 
 of people in their habits, industry, knowledge, aptness 
 for invention, or execution, their actual condition, make 
 it absolutely necessary that each nation should be go¬ 
 verned according to its special circumstances, and with 
 a view to its special welfare. The duty of watching 
 over the interests of men who labor is therefore not 
 only undoubted, but it should be faithfully performed 
 in each separate nationality with reference to its peo¬ 
 ple as the only means of fulfilling efficiently the most 
 important end of social organization. If the produc¬ 
 tions of industry were of more importance than the 
 men who produce them, there might be some excuse for 
 overlooking the laborer in our zeal to promote produc¬ 
 tion. The wisest policy, however, even in that view, 
 would be to promote production by promoting the wel¬ 
 fare of the producer, rather than by aiming at produc¬ 
 tion as.the chief object. 
 
 In surveying the field of industry, one of the first 
 features which strikes our eyes is the real and apparent 
 conflict of interest. Each individual and each class 
 
 the avails of industry than they give. The professional 
 man is disposed to place his daily labor or professional 
 services at the highest rate he can. The officials of 
 
 are interested to draw from others a larger portion of 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 15 
 
 government constantly struggle to put their salaries and 
 fees at the highest point attainable. The capitalist 
 strives to obtain a high rate for his capital. Men ot 
 skill and men of enterprise and large undertakings 
 exert themselves to the same end; and the men of 
 daily labor, on whom all the rest mainly depend, as con¬ 
 stantly strive, though too frequently the prey of others, 
 to secure the largest possible compensation for their 
 toil. This seems to present a scene in which selfish¬ 
 ness must reign supreme. And, in point of fact, its 
 reign is under far less control than it should be; its 
 victims in the best governed states are a host. To a 
 certain extent, however, this selfishness and the spirit 
 of competition which it generates may be needful as a 
 stimulus to exertion, but when permitted too much con¬ 
 trol it is the bane of humanity, and one of the w^orst 
 enemies of general welfare. 
 
 There is a point of justice among all these conflict¬ 
 ing interests which it may be impossible strictly to de¬ 
 fine, or by any legislation to secure; but it may be ap-'^ 
 proximated in both respects by a wise public adminis¬ 
 tration. The exact adjustment of what is due from 
 man to man in all that relates to mutual kindness and 
 forbearance, belongs as well to the domain of mora¬ 
 lity and Christianity as to that of government. Public 
 authority may, however, go far under the guidance of 
 Christian principles to attain the great object of giving 
 industry its utmost development by merely promoting 
 the welfare of laborers. 
 
 In a scene of industry like that to which we refer, 
 where there are so many parties, each attentive to their 
 own interests, there must of course be some tendency 
 in the struggle to adjust itself at the right place, as 
 
16 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 
 each individual and each class in claiming what they 
 conceive to be due to them as against others, is met by 
 the very party against which the claim is made; and, 
 of course, in a community where any sense of mutual 
 justice or any control of Christianity prevailed, there 
 would be found such a spirit of concession as must ad¬ 
 just many differences as nearly at the right point as is 
 attainable. If each individual and each class were able 
 to persevere equally in the assertion of their respective ' 
 rights, the point of compromise would soon be found 
 for all; but that is never the case. Many do not un¬ 
 derstand their own rights ; some have little opportunity 
 of insisting on them, and some have little capacity for 
 the vindication of their interests, whilst many of supe¬ 
 rior opportunities and advantages in all these respects 
 soon attain a superiority of position and power which 
 rapidly places them far in advance of their less favored 
 fellow-laborers. This tendency to inequality is una¬ 
 voidable ; it belongs to the very constitution of our race, 
 in which inequality reigns in classes and individuals, 
 from infancy to age, in mind and body. It is plain from 
 this that our Creator, if He intended that peace and 
 justice should prevail among men, did not place it upon 
 the foundation of force or of mind or of mere human 
 interests, all of which would tend to violence and dis¬ 
 union or fraud. 
 
 His plan is made known to us in Hevelation. He 
 has planted in men all the energies needful to a grand 
 development of human prosperity, and He has given 
 the law of love to soften, control, and modify these 
 selfish energies and passions which incite men to ac¬ 
 tivity. Christianity, therefore, casts over the whole 
 field of human labor its benign regards; all classes of 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 17 
 
 the human hxmily are alike the objects of its care. The 
 law of kindness and love under which men are thus 
 placed is sufficient for every human emergency; there 
 can be no oppression, no undue advantage taken of 
 weakness nor of ignorance, where a due regard for this 
 law is entertained. 
 
 It is surely incumbent, then, upon all intelligent and 
 induential Christians, and especially upon all the minis¬ 
 ters of Christ, to examine and understand, as far as 
 practicable, the applications of Christianity to this 
 greatest of men’s interests in this world,—the interests 
 of labor, the mutual claims and relations of laborers. 
 There is no safe nor final solution of the innumerable 
 questions which arise in the great arena of industry 
 but that which is found in Christianity. 
 
 No other doctrine, no other philosophy can reach the 
 depths of the subject. Inequalities of mind, of body, 
 of physical strength, and activity, as well as the events 
 of human life and the course of nature, all conspire to 
 produce inequalities of wealth among men. Such in¬ 
 equalities being unavoidable are like the dissimilarities 
 in the external appearance of men, undoubtedly in the 
 order of God’s providence. The correction of this un¬ 
 equal distribution which arises from causes which can¬ 
 not be changed, nor wholly controlled, is left to Chris¬ 
 tianity, acting upon human wisdom, and directing 
 human affections, and shaping human institutions. 
 Men variously endowed accumulate unequally, but 
 having added field to field and heaped up treasures far 
 beyond those by whom they are surrounded, these 
 favored sons of fortune, as they are sometimes called, 
 come under responsibilities proportioned to their ac¬ 
 quisitions, and which they cannot avoid. The relations 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABOE. 
 
 
 created by riches and poverty and by the unequal natu¬ 
 ral endowments of men are provided for in the Christian 
 system by the duties of charity, mercy, protection, ad¬ 
 vice, and brotherly kindness, and the continual inter¬ 
 change of good offices. The man of business may 
 enlarge his possessions, but in so doing he becomes the 
 more specially a steward of Him who permits this un¬ 
 equal distribution of wealth, and as such bound to 
 employ his riches in the best manner he can for the 
 wxdfare of his fellow-men. He that is rich, or wise, or 
 powerful, or intelligent, having received these advan¬ 
 tages from the Great Giver of every good gift, is bound 
 to make the best use of the talents thus committed to 
 his charge. There rests, therefore, upon all who are 
 able to render any useful service to their fellow-men, a 
 religious duty in this respect to be discharged to the 
 utmost of their ability. To this obligation we appeal 
 for the benefit of all who live by their labor and espe¬ 
 cially of those who, not being able to retain the whole 
 avails of their labor, live upon the wages of labor. But 
 this appeal is not only made to all employers as to a 
 question of wages between them and their laborers, it 
 is made to all men of power, wealth, wisdom, and in¬ 
 telligence, to urge upon them their responsibilities in 
 reference to the compensation which is due to those 
 who give the toil of their lives to the benefit of society. 
 The problem for solution which, arises out of the con¬ 
 dition of those who must labor for a living is not merely 
 what relief is to be provided for those who, from vice, 
 improvidence, or accident, are precipitated into pauper¬ 
 ism, it is. What is the system of law or of society which 
 shall best secure an adequate reward to labor 1 What 
 will form the best barrier to inroads of poverty and 
 destitution I 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 19 
 
 Political expediency, the necessity of some degree of 
 social order, even selfishness for its own sake, may dic¬ 
 tate concessions and compromises among jarring in¬ 
 terests, clashing claims, and opposing powers, but there 
 can be no final adjustment and no principles of just 
 discrimination settled where sheer force or temporary 
 expediency are the only umpires. It is the law of love, 
 of mercy, of meekness, humility, and brotherly kind¬ 
 ness, as applied by Christianity to every possible relation 
 and position of life, which can sutficiently discriminate 
 in its intricacies and reach all the sinuosities of human 
 
 I 
 
 condition; it alone is the oil which can diffuse itself 
 over all the tumultuous and ever-varying sea of human 
 life, calm its surges, and smooth its surface. In its 
 abounding breadth if reaches every man and every class 
 of men. It does not make equals of men; it does not 
 reduce all to one level; but it is adapted to that state 
 of mental and physical inequality in which men are 
 everywhere found. There is, therefore, in human in¬ 
 firmities, in the accidents, calamities, and unhappy con¬ 
 ditions of human life, and more especially among that 
 larger portion of men of whom labor is the condition of 
 their existence, a vast field for the exercise of all the 
 graces which can adorn Christian character. It is so 
 intended not merely for their sake to whom kindness 
 is shown, but that those heavenly qualities and graces 
 which emanate from Christianity mav be cultivated to 
 the utmost, for in this way only can spiritual life and 
 energy be manifested, strengthened, and maintained by 
 those who are largely endowed in this world. And 
 after all it is highly probable that the highest attain¬ 
 ments in spiritual life and purity are made by those 
 who are denied the comforts of this life and spend their 
 
20 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 days in suffering and patient endurance. On the part 
 of the rich, and wise, and powerful, a life of active kind¬ 
 ness and useful ministration is required; they are re¬ 
 quired to follow their Master’s example in going about 
 to do good. If the whole of the responsibilities of the 
 rich were fully understood and realized, it would be no 
 small consolation to the destitute and the suffering that 
 they escape very many of the heavy cares which press 
 upon those who are apparently more highly favored in 
 this life. 
 
 There is, therefore, in Christianity an adjustment 
 made by Infinite wisdom between the powerful and the 
 . weak, the wise and the simple, and the rich and poor, 
 in reference to their respective duties and conditions; 
 and this adjustment should be thoroughly studied in 
 the Gospel by those whom it most concerns. There is 
 not a position in social life to which the principles of 
 this adjustment do not apply. The laborer can never 
 be defrauded of his just compensation where these prin¬ 
 ciples prevail; nor can he demand more than a just re¬ 
 ward for his toil. The lender and the borrower, the 
 buyer and the seller, are equally bound to respect these 
 principles in their transactions ; and so on through 
 every class of life. It is an essential part of Christianity, 
 of our daily religious duty thus to understand and 
 apply the doctrines of our Saviour. 
 
 If Christians, then, be required to study carefully, 
 and we may add religiously, the great problem of human 
 labor, that is, what is due in social life to the men of 
 toil who are the real support of civilization and social 
 happiness, how are they to commence this study and in 
 what direction are they to prosecute it. Whatever 
 may be the best mode of entering upon this vast topic. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 21 
 
 it must be important in the earliest stage of inquiry to 
 ascertain what fallacies, prejudices, or mistakes now 
 cloud our vision or lie in the path. We must get rid 
 of these if we would attain a clearer view of the around 
 
 O 
 
 we are to traverse. 
 
 In this inquiry of what is due to the men who labor, 
 we begin not as we have already said with the processes 
 of industry, nor with the products of industry; we 
 begin not with the processes of commerce, nor with the 
 principles of commerce. These belong to a more ad¬ 
 vanced stage of the investigation; they are but means 
 to the end we have in view. We begin with the men 
 of toil. It is mainly for their sake that the processes of 
 industry are devised, and the products of industry 
 brought forth; it is mainly for their sake that the dis¬ 
 tribution of commodities effected by trade is begun and 
 carried on. 
 
 The labor which men undergo is for their own ad¬ 
 vantage: the object is not merely to swell the sum of 
 human products, nor to gorge the channels of com- , 
 merce; it is chiefly applied to the production of food, of 
 raiment, of furniture, to the erection of dwellings, and 
 to the production of articles of luxury and of art. If 
 all this industry be for human benefit, then it should 
 be for the benefit of those whose industry is thus em¬ 
 ployed ; that is, the producers of all the articles re¬ 
 ferred to, after due compensation to all whose assistance 
 they have required in the progress of their industry, 
 after paying for the use of capital for professional aid, 
 for the aid of science, for religious teaching, for the edu¬ 
 cation of their children, and for the expenses of govern¬ 
 ment, should have enough left for their own food, their 
 own raiment; they should have houses and furniture. 
 
22 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 and some share in the luxuries and works of art which 
 their own hands have made. That this desirable end 
 cannot be exactly and •fully attained is very certain, 
 for that would bring about that very equality which is 
 clearly not in the order of Providence. But though 
 this exact justice be unattainable, it is nevertheless the 
 duty of men to aim at it. It is the duty of Christian 
 nien to be perfect, though it must ever be their lot to 
 fall far short of perfection. The principle to be esta¬ 
 blished is a fair apportionment of the avails of labor 
 
 according to the share which each and all may have in 
 
 # 
 
 the production; the end to be attained is the nearest 
 approximation to that adjustment which is practicable, 
 without violating other duties and principles of Chris¬ 
 tianity of equal validity and importance. 
 
 However averse many are from the discussion of this 
 subject of social justice, and whatever apprehensions 
 they may entertain of the influences of socialism or other 
 false social theories, there can be no risk in approach¬ 
 ing its consideration under the full light of Christian¬ 
 ity. We can be in no danger of doing injustice to any 
 class of men, so long as we are guided by that precept 
 which enjoins us to love our neighbor as ourselves; an 
 injunction equally binding on all classes, whatever the 
 contrast of their condition. We must apply that and 
 other Christian injunctions to the world as we find it, 
 and to men as we find them, and in this application we 
 must study and regard human nature in its develop¬ 
 ments, past and present. The obstacles to the attain¬ 
 ment of strict social justice are innumerable, and belong 
 chiefly to our sinful nature, and to the natural inequa¬ 
 lities of men. Christians have erred far more in ne¬ 
 glecting to discuss and present to the world the bearing 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 23 
 
 of Christianity upon social life, than the socialists and 
 others have erred in attempting to frame theories and 
 systems of social philosophy in which Christianity is 
 not an adequate and avowed element. There is not an 
 aspect in which the subject can be regarded, in which 
 the light of Revelation is not needed for any complete 
 elucidation. 
 
 Men are not born equal; they do not ^row to equa¬ 
 lity in physical or mental qualifications. ^. ISTo human 
 training could produce an equality evidently not con¬ 
 templated in the human constitution. Christianity is 
 designed to preside over the very inequalities to which 
 the human family is plainly appointed in this world; 
 and upon this many of its most solemn and impressive 
 injunctions are founded. The strong and the weak, 
 the rich and the poor, the wise and the unwise, are 
 placed side by side in this world, subject to the pecu¬ 
 liar and appropriate duties arising under these condi¬ 
 tions. Each must do good to the other as ability and 
 opportunity permit. In no respect do the unequal 
 positions of this life appear more glaring than in what 
 pertains to labor, and in none is there greater need for 
 the interposition of the guiding and ameliorating influ¬ 
 ences of Christianity. Some are born suitable only for 
 subordinate positions, and seem only happy in them ; 
 some are incapable of any successful application of their 
 labor except under the guidance and control of others; 
 some are so little disposed to obey the requirements of 
 labor, that they need to be continually urged, if not 
 compelled, to that duty. Without the social arrange¬ 
 ments adapted to these facts and to the circumstances 
 to which they give rise, civilization cannot exist. In¬ 
 dustry is indispensable to abundance; plenty is indis- 
 
24 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABQ,R. 
 
 pensable to civilization; Christianity is indispensable to 
 restrain and regulate the social conduct and mutual re¬ 
 lations of civilized life. The masses who labor under 
 established social and political arrangements, are like 
 horses saddled and bridled or harnessed for work; the 
 harness and the bridle may be needful for the work and 
 for his hand who guides, but Christianity alone ade- 
 Cjuately teaches the mutual duties of the driver and the 
 driven, of him who directs and him who executes, of 
 the governor and the governed. It i^ then an indis¬ 
 pensable obligation of Christians, as civilization ad¬ 
 vances and industry progresses, to develop the bearing of 
 Christianity upon the new order of things, and the new 
 relations which spring up. It is indispensable that the 
 masses should ever in their varying positions be under 
 Christian safeguards, under the protection of the great 
 law of Christian charity. If Christian brethren are 
 over them, they should always experience the benefits 
 of the relationship, and whatever the severity of the 
 toil to which they are doomed, they should never cease 
 to be treated with kindness, not merely as the most im¬ 
 portant members of the social body, buk as brethren of 
 the same Christian family. 
 
 In the complications of social and political institutions, 
 it may be very difficult to point out the bearings of the 
 great law of kindness upon the conduct and mutual 
 relations of men, but this difficulty by no means dis¬ 
 charges us from a duty, which can only become easy 
 by habitual regard to the subject, and an habitual per¬ 
 formance of its requirements. If the obligation to love 
 our fellow-men as ourselves be allowed its whole scope, 
 it must soon be perceived that a special duty will rest 
 upon all who are capable of discharging it, that of 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 25 
 
 \ 
 
 thoroughly studying social philosophy, social and politi¬ 
 cal institutions, and their influences upon human wel¬ 
 fare. Men cannot otherwise ascertain how they can 
 best promote human interests. The question of what 
 is to be done for a single pauper is frequently so difficult 
 as to create hesitation, but the more complicated and 
 important question continually meets the Christian, 
 whether he considers it or not, what is to he done for 
 the million'? It is no excuse for want of interest or 
 consideration that a million of human beings, and not 
 merely one, demand the exercise of our intelligence 
 and all the help we can give them. We may give 
 effectual help to one, but to millions sunk in the depths 
 of want, we can give no other aid than to apply our¬ 
 selves to the study of those problems of social life, upon 
 the solution of which the remedies for poverty and 
 social suffering must depend. No conceivable duty of 
 the intelligent Christian can be of higher obligation 
 than that which directs his attention to topics, in which 
 the present as well as the future welfare of millions of 
 his fellow-creatures are involved. It must be a mis¬ 
 taken notion that Christians have nothing to do with 
 politics. No assertion can be more unfounded, or of 
 more pernicious tendency. Christians are everywhere 
 submissive to constituted authority, but should not 
 be anvwhere indifferent as to the choice of these aiitho- 
 rities, or how they exercise their power. Christians 
 having nothing to do with governments, in their collec¬ 
 tive or ecclesiastical capacity, are bound in their in¬ 
 dividual capacities to use their influence and power to 
 the utmost extent for the promotion of human welfare. 
 Christianity exerts thus its beneficent power in national 
 affairs through individuals, who, if Christians indeed, 
 
 / 
 
26 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 or even merely friends of Christianity, must carry some 
 of its principles with them into every institution, politi¬ 
 cal or social, in which they move. If the people of a coun¬ 
 try are Christians, they cannot but exhibit some of the 
 aspects of Christianity in the policy and administration 
 of their government. It is the mode in which they can 
 most effectually perform the part of the good Samaritan. 
 This involves, then, we repeat it, a deep and earnest 
 study of social and political questions, and of the whole 
 range of practical legislation. It involves a persevering 
 and enlightened effort for social amelioration, greater 
 than has yet been undertaken. 
 
 In such an effort, the first consideration being the 
 man, the laborer, his welfare is the first object to be 
 secured, and that is to be secured through his labor. 
 He should be compensated in the way which is best for 
 him, and whether freeman or slave, the employer or 
 master cannot escape the obligation to deal justly with 
 his laborer, and to do the best he can for him. It is 
 often in the power of the master to afford a better com¬ 
 pensation than the mere employer. The slaves belong 
 to the family; they are of the master’s household; his 
 care of them should be patriarchal or parental. It is 
 in this aspect that the relation of master and man has 
 been neglected. The master in most cases is bound to 
 do better for his people than to turn them adrift; he 
 is bound to train them to piety, to industry, self-control, 
 and finally liberty. But what the master owes to the 
 slave is not less due from the employer, and from society 
 itself to the free laborer. The virtual slavery of the 
 workshop or the factory may be more galling, if not 
 more fatal to the man, than the actual slavery of the 
 plantation. Where the interests of humanity are con- 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 27 
 
 cerned, we must regard realities, and not merely the 
 names of things. We should search the deepest re¬ 
 cesses of society to see if men are not suffering there, 
 if they are receiving a full compensation for their labor, 
 if the opportunity of labor is not withheld, if they are 
 not oppressed and crushed by circumstances they cannot 
 control. Those who occupy the favored positions of 
 life cannot acquit themselves before God if they do 
 not honestly and faithfully make this inquisition. If 
 they love their neighbor they will do it; if they obey 
 the Divine precept they must look after and care for 
 their fellow-men. They must be-careful that the worst 
 and most hopeless kind of slavery is not imposed upon 
 those who labor for their daily bread,—the slavery of 
 circumstances, the slavery of institutions, of social cus¬ 
 toms and influences, the slavery in which he that toils 
 is governed by the unrelaxing hand of stern necessity, 
 having no single master interested in his welfare or 
 watching over him. Slaves of this kind are taught by 
 bitter experience how much harder frequently is the 
 lot of him whom society enslaves, than of him who is 
 exposed only to the caprices of a single person, deeply 
 interested in preserving his strength, his health, and 
 his life. 
 
 There is perhaps no greater source of mistake and 
 misapprehension in the study of human condition and 
 ' human interests than that which is committed by the 
 disproportionate attention given to what occurs or is 
 presented in the large cities of the world. These are 
 marts of trade or agencies in the business of foreign 
 trade. Such are the great agencies of London and 
 Liverpool, Paris and New York. Vast multitudes 
 congregate in them, and a mighty business is there 
 
28 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 concentrated. But these multitudes bear but a small 
 proportion to those whose business they transact, and 
 their whole agency, though vast, is small in comparison 
 with the value of the productions of the country in 
 which they are situate. Their business appears im¬ 
 mense only, because, being exhibited on a small stage, 
 it is more visible to the eye. The whole foreign trade 
 of any country seldom exceeds ten per cent, of the value 
 of its domestic productions, and only in a few countries 
 exceeds live per cent., whilst in many rich countries it is 
 far less. What is imported from abroad must be paid 
 for by what is produced at home. It is not to these 
 great marts, whatever other lessons of social wisdom 
 we may learn from them, that we are to look for the 
 solution of the great problems of labor. The proper 
 reform of our social and political institutions, in refer¬ 
 ence to the interests of laborers, would undoubtedly 
 carry with it many changes in these great commercial 
 agencies, in which princely merchants too often gild a 
 surface beneath which are impoverished multitudes. 
 The wealth which is amassed in such commercial cities 
 consists mainly of charges levied upon goods as they 
 pass from the hands of the laborer to the hands of the 
 consumer. It is not by increasing the quantity of 
 goods exposed to this heavy taxation that we can favor 
 the laborer. The great mass of men being producers, 
 and all men being consumers, the less expensive the 
 agency by which the interchange is made the better for 
 all. The success of merchants may be the ruin of la¬ 
 borers ; but the prosperity and increased activity of 
 laborers must increase the business of merchants. The 
 first care of the nation to give free scope to the indus¬ 
 try of its masses being fulfilled, the agencies for distri- 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 29 
 
 bution will not linger beliincl the need of them. The 
 business of the merchant is one for which men have 
 shown in all ages great predilection. It is a profession 
 celebrated for its wealth, intelligence, enterprise, and 
 generosity. Its profits, however, were never anything 
 else than charges upon industry. Men endowed with 
 more than usual quickness of perception, energy, enter¬ 
 prise, or affected with greater ambition or desire of 
 gain, have always been ready to embark by preference 
 in a pursuit in which their business was not to live by 
 their own labor so much as by the labor of others, in 
 which the opportunities of exacting large profits were 
 so much more frequent than in the more confined pur¬ 
 suits of industrial production. It is not by promoting 
 commerce, that is by increasing the number of mer¬ 
 chants who live upon the industry of others, nor by 
 increasing the weight of the charges which are thus 
 levied upon the products of industry, nor even by en¬ 
 larging the quantity of merchandise exposed to this 
 heavy tribute, that the interests of the laboring masses 
 are to be secured. Whatever the necessity and the 
 advantage of trade and great commercial agencies, their 
 very existence is subservient to that labor and to that 
 production which gives occasion for them. We make 
 a great, a fatal, but too frequent mistake when our 
 speculations, our social systems, and our legislation are 
 shaped in reference to the interests of commerce, in 
 place of the interests and welfare of those hosts of la¬ 
 borers who send forth not only the productions which 
 are so conspicuous in the channels of foreign trade, but 
 also those tenfold greater quantities of products which 
 swell the sum of domestic trade and consumption. 
 We must begin with the principals, and not with the 
 
30 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 .•y- 
 
 agents, if we hope to attain any reasonable accuracy in 
 our conclusions. Having provided for the producer, 
 we may then proceed to the consideration of those 
 agencies and classes of laborers whose business follows 
 and arises out of the former; and so proceed until our 
 survey of society is complete. We thus commence the 
 social structure with the foundation, and proceed regu¬ 
 larly upward until the whole is complete. 
 
 The picture of a great free trade among the nations 
 of the earth, in which each exchanges its respective 
 or peculiar products for those of others without un¬ 
 friendly restraint or restriction of any kind, captivates 
 many minds. This picture is an illusion which has no 
 sufficient foundation in the realities of life. It is cer¬ 
 tainly an attractive way of treating the subject, but it 
 furnishes no basis for a system of political or industrial 
 economy. On the average, not more than five per 
 cent, of the wants of any people can be supplied by 
 foreign trade. The other ninety-hve must then be the 
 product of home industry. The chief care of the na¬ 
 tion should be the producers of this ninety-five per 
 cent, of the articles of home consumption. Their wel¬ 
 fare being well assured, their production would increase, 
 and the interchange among them, by which this ninety- 
 five per cent, is distributed, woidd be quickened and 
 enlarged. The real power, wealth, and comfort of a 
 people must be found in the consumption of their do¬ 
 mestic products. Very few nations are so situated as 
 to import from abroad any considerable portion of their 
 entire consumption ; either they have no means of pay- 
 ing>, or they cannot afford to pay the expenses of trans¬ 
 portation. Thus foreign trade is subject to a limit 
 which it can never overstep, and that limit will ever 
 bear a small proportion to the whole wants of a people. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 31 
 
 In the United States, the entire annual consumption 
 of goods manuflxctured and used for raiment considera¬ 
 bly exceeds one thousand million dollars.’ Now, however 
 cheaply such goods are made abroad, we can neither 
 purchase, transport, nor pay for half that quantity. 
 Our imports of such merchandise have not hitherto ex¬ 
 ceeded ten per cent, of our consumption. Those who 
 are dependent on foreign nations for such supplies can 
 consume only what their exports will pay for, whilst 
 those who depend on home industry for their clothing 
 may consume all they can- manufacture. Home indus¬ 
 try consults home wants, and fully supplies them by 
 what is equivalent to an interchange of labor. The 
 labor of a nation cannot produce any considerable ex¬ 
 cess beyond what is required for the wants, comforts, 
 and enjoyments of its people. An exchange of com¬ 
 modities within a nation founded on the consumption 
 of the products of its labor, may proceed to the full 
 productive capacity of the people, and at the least loss 
 in transportation and other charges. This consumption 
 will not in the least be diminished by apparent high 
 prices established among themselves, because these 
 prices are their own scale by which to value labor. All 
 are paid according to this scale, and none can justly 
 complain. Above all, none should strive to enjoy these 
 high rates for what they receive, and be unwilling to 
 pay them for what they consume. 
 
 The picture then which we should first desire to see 
 is not that of foreign commerce, grand and imposing 
 in its exhibition, though representing such a small pro¬ 
 portion of the industry of any country, but that which 
 presents the millions of homes filled with industrious 
 people, fully employed in ministering to their mutual 
 
 V 
 
32 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 wants, and enjoying a full share of the products or re¬ 
 wards of their own labor. The industry of a people 
 developed upon the principle of supplying their own 
 wants first will not fail in the end to contribute even 
 more largely than others to that international commerce 
 which deserves all the favor which is claimed for it, 
 when it grows out of the industry of a well-fed, well- 
 clad, and well-educated people, and i s not put forward 
 as tlie chieif-jencLof industrial effort, the criterion of na¬ 
 tional happines&,_aiid_the very basis of political eco¬ 
 nomy. 
 
 The nation that depends upon foreign trade for its 
 
 « 
 
 'i progress in the physical well-being of its people, must 
 tax its laborers to produce goods lower than all the 
 world beside. If successful in this, the utmost that 
 can be expected is the enriching of a very small class 
 of merchants, and the utter impoverishment of a mighty 
 Imass of toiling men. The nation whose policy is not 
 chiefly to manufacture for its own people may build 
 large and rich cities, but the bulk of its people must 
 shiver and starve, and suffer what can only be conceived 
 by those who have seen the victims of this exclusive 
 devotion to the interests of commerce. 
 
 Many of the leading works upon Political Economy 
 treat labor merely as a productive agent, as the power 
 which produces the wealth of the world; the nature of 
 that power as the agency of a moral and intellectual 
 being is but little considered. So far therefore as most 
 of the propositions and reasonings of political economy 
 go, they may be regarded as not distinguishing the labor 
 of man from that of beasts, or that of machinery. 
 Political economists do not absolutely discard the labor¬ 
 ing man from their systems; they merely discard his 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 88 
 
 advantage as a governing principle or element in their 
 deductions. They pay small regard to moral conside¬ 
 rations in their treatment of the subject of wealth. 
 Even when they treat of labor, their first step, instead 
 of towards the laborer, is into the product of industry, 
 and thence into trade, distribution, consumption, and 
 other like abstractions. 
 
 This first step is, unfortunately for the science of po¬ 
 litical economy, in the wrong direction; it is‘ a step 
 from man: it should he a step towards or with him. 
 The inquirer by this first step having deserted the sole 
 ground of human advantage, is embarked upon a sea 
 of abstractions. The first inquiries should have been. 
 Who is the laborer 1 What is his condition % What is 
 the labor for 1 its object and its end X Man is the la¬ 
 borer. He is a creature of God, under whose govern¬ 
 ment and laws he is placed, and by one of these laws 
 he is ap])ointed to eat his bread in -the sweat of his . 
 brow. Another of these laws equally obligatory binds 
 him “ to love his neighbor as liimsHf.” This love is 
 the bond of society, and society is made a necessity by 
 the very constitution of man. The helplessness of in¬ 
 fancy extending to the third of his years ; the feeble¬ 
 ness of an old age consuming another third, leaves to 
 man but a few short years of the prime of manhood. 
 And these: to what interruptions of disease and acci¬ 
 dent are they exposed ! Man is endowed with won¬ 
 derful powers, both physical and mental, and yet how 
 difi&cult to conceive of a creature more dependent! The 
 law of God, the providence of God, and everything 
 in the constitution and the position of man in this 
 world goes to prove him a dependent creature. Men 
 
 are mutually dependent for earthly happiness to a de- 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 gree that cannot be over estimated. Their labor is 
 greatly affected and controlled by this mutual depend¬ 
 ence under all circumstances of society; the precise 
 extent of which control can only he defined and ad¬ 
 justed by moral and religious considerations. But 
 whilst human labor would always be thus subject to 
 the claims for succor arisiiifi^ from this condition of mu- 
 tual dependence, it must also, as between man and man, 
 be subject to the laws of justice. Under the protection 
 of justice springs up the right of private property, 
 which, while it is absolute as a matter of right between 
 men, is not free from the moral claims which may be 
 made upon it under the great law of mutual succor. 
 These elements being placed, we may safely proceed to 
 the consideration of labor as a productive power. Its 
 sole object is human advantage. Every laborer in the 
 first instance would be entitled to the whole avails of 
 Jiis own labor. In process of time this is reduced by 
 what the laborer gives for protection and guidance, and 
 what he gives under the infiuence of moral or religious 
 consideration for the aid of others; and there can be 
 no other valid claim upon men’s labor, unless it be of 
 their own making. In the origin of society labor is 
 the only valuable which men possess. v^It is first em- 
 ^ ployed in providing for their own immediate wants and 
 the wants of those immediately dependent upon them. 
 It is next employed in producing something to exchange 
 for the products of others, thereby to obtain additional 
 comforts from others. This exchange may increase in 
 importance to the parties and in quantity of products 
 until some agency is necessary to carry it on, and a 
 class of laborers become devoted to the task of receiv¬ 
 ing, transporting, and distributing to consumers. As 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 35 
 
 each man is limited in the amount he can purchase by 
 the amount he can sell, so are all the men of a com¬ 
 munity limited ; and the quantity of products disposed 
 of by all is the . precise measure of what is to be re¬ 
 ceived by all. In this exchange of the products of in¬ 
 dustry, it is but mere justice that the terms should be 
 equal, and that all should receive a fair remuneration 
 for their own labor in the labor of others ; proper dis¬ 
 crimination being made in favor of special skill, taste, 
 and inventive powers. Where men have any power to 
 exact what they regard as a just compensation for labor, 
 there will soon be some average rate by which all va¬ 
 luations will have a tendency to be fixed. In any circle 
 of laborers, however large, it must ‘be soon ascertained 
 what rate of labor will enable laborers to live comfort¬ 
 ably, and beyond the suffering condition of poverty. 
 This rate will be that which must regulate the exchange¬ 
 able value of the products of labor, because each pro¬ 
 ducer will strive to obtain for his productions other ar¬ 
 ticles which have cost as much of the labor of others. 
 The tendency of these operations would be to exchange 
 the products of equal .quantities of labor, and this 
 would in the main be the course of justice between the 
 parties, subject, however, to many variations and inter¬ 
 ruptions. 
 
 Whatever advantages of fortune, or of skill, or of ac¬ 
 cident, or whatever endowments, physical or mental, 
 may be possessed by some over others, the bulk of 
 every population must ever remain laborers. The more 
 of the favored who are exempt from the necessity of 
 toil, the more strictly must the remainder be bound to 
 that labor which yields the sustenance, necessaries, and 
 luxuries of all. 
 
36 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 The power of labor in any country is the grand item 
 of its wealth; it is a power upon which the country is 
 absolutely dependent; it is a power which insures pub¬ 
 lic and individual prosperity when in full vigor, and 
 corresponding poverty and debility when it is left to 
 languish. If to the productive labor of a country its 
 people owe all their wealth, all their enjoyments, all 
 their food and raiment, all their luxuries and necessa¬ 
 ries, and all their progress in material well-being, 
 should not that labor and its rewards be an object of 
 special study and consideration The laborers are 
 men, men who chiefly “ constitute the state men who 
 are equally candidates for comfort and for heaven with 
 the highest in the land. Can any subject of legislative 
 action be for an instant put in comparison with this '? 
 Can any wisdom, device, or skill of government be di¬ 
 rected to a happier or better purpose than that of add¬ 
 ing to the efficiency of human labor, and to the pro¬ 
 ductive power and wealth of a nation, by increasing 
 the sum of general happiness and intelligence, thus 
 making every individual man a more efficient contribu¬ 
 tor to his own comfort and to the common weal ] The 
 problem of labor cannot fail of finding its solution when 
 approached by a direct consideration of the condition 
 of men, of their necessities, their desires, their capaci¬ 
 ties, their moral and physical well-being, and their ob¬ 
 ligations to God and to each other. Such is the nature 
 of the elements from which any sound and stable sys¬ 
 tem of social economy must be developed; and any 
 system built on other foundations must lead to confu¬ 
 sion of ideas in its progress, and to unsafe or false con¬ 
 clusions in the end. 
 
 If we glance at those stages by which society in the 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 37 
 
 civilized world lias arrived at its present condition, we 
 find that the same elements were required for the solu¬ 
 tion of the problem of human well-being ; complicated 
 as it now is hy an infinity of facts and questions, which 
 time, ancient institutions, false teaching, and modern 
 prejudices have fastened upon it, no other solution can 
 be satisfactory. Human labor is becoming more and 
 more important as an item in national wealth and indi¬ 
 vidual welfare ; the life of man is of higher value than 
 formerly, and considerations of humanity have risen 
 higher than ever. It is now clearly impossible to solve 
 the problem of human progress in happiness and pros¬ 
 perity without a solution of the problem of labor. We 
 cannot tell what is due to humanity, until we have set¬ 
 tled what is due to labor, or what is due to that vast 
 array of laborers who carry forward the world in all its 
 physical and material progress, and whose labor creates 
 what is indispensable for the daily life of every nation. 
 
 When the evils of societv become severe or intolera- 
 ble to masses of men, reformers often appear who 
 would remedy all that is wrong by destroying or en¬ 
 dangering all that is good ; by upturning the whole 
 fabric of existing systems, whilst the friends of order 
 remain stupidly unprepared with plans of amelioration 
 or even a remedial suggestion. Xheir philosophy con¬ 
 sists in glorifying the past and the present; their 
 energy consists in standing still; and their words to 
 the suffering are, Bear and forbear, the evils of which 
 you complain are either the consequence of your own 
 conduct, or they are inevitable and incurable. In refe 
 rence to such questions, there is far more energy and 
 talent expended in opposing inquiry and sustaining 
 error, than might suffice to ascertain the truth; for the 
 
38 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 fear of change seems far stronger and more prevalent 
 than the love of truth. If the truth, however, were 
 only looked in the face, her benign features would 
 rapidly dissipate the apprehensions which, in reference 
 to social questions, so torment the timid ; for though it 
 might demonstrate that certain changes were necessary, 
 it would not cease to be true that one evil must not be 
 cured by perpetrating another. The consideration of 
 the reforms which are needed, involves also the con¬ 
 sideration of the manner in which they are to be ef¬ 
 fected. Remedies can only be prudently applied when 
 the disease is understood; but we should not refuse to 
 study the disease, because possibly the remedy might 
 prove to be of difficult application by those who are to 
 administer it, or unpalatable to those to whom it is to 
 be administered. 
 
 Political economy has, however, its remedy for the 
 ills of industry; it oilers a specific for these mighty 
 mischiefs. It offers the principle, so celebrated under 
 the phrase, laissez faire et laissez This is broad 
 
 enough, it is insisted, to cover the whole ground of the 
 evils under which labor suffers. But political economy 
 as a science sternly rejects moral considerations, does 
 not know humanity nor recognize Christianity. The 
 remedy proposed is not, therefore, exhibited with any 
 view to ameliorate the lot of the laboring man or the 
 laboring masses, but with a view to the interests of 
 commerce. The doctrine of laissez faire et laissez ’passer^ 
 or the let-alone principle, is that, if commerce prospers 
 labor must prosper; that if every man is left in the 
 matter of production and trade to pursue his own in¬ 
 clinations unfettered, he will follow the path most for 
 his own benefit, and by doing so, promote in the highest 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 39 
 
 degree the interest of his country, for that whicli is best 
 for each one must in the aggregate he best for all. 
 
 There is truth enough in these positions to give them 
 a degree of plausibility; but no doctrine can be more 
 unsound than this as it is attempted to be applied. The 
 liberty of the subject is likewise a favorite phrase and 
 may be taken in a sense not in the least objectionable. 
 Liberty is of inestimable value to every individual in 
 society, and the law is exceedingly jealous of every 
 attempt at its invasion. Yet whilst a free government 
 guarantees all possible liberty, it restrains that liberty 
 in a thousand ways from becoming injurious or offensive. 
 It does not permit men, however injured, to take redress 
 into their own hands, nor does it permit the commission 
 of a thousand offences which unrestrained liberty 
 prompts men to commit. Liberty is the rule indeed, 
 but the exceptions are so numerous as quite to change 
 its aspect and form a grand mass of restraints. Liberty 
 is the rule in reference to all free governments; yet 
 nearly all constitutions and laws are but the forms of 
 those restrictions of personal liberty to which indi¬ 
 viduals submit, for their own benefit and the general 
 good of a whole community. 
 
 Unrestrained liberty is the principle of savage life;, 
 that of civilized life is the due restraint of individual 
 freedom. The principle of liberty pushed too far in 
 reference to the institutions of civilization dissolves the 
 whole fabric and carries people back to barbarism. But 
 this is not more true in reference to those rights which 
 relate to the inviolability of the person than in reference 
 to property and labor, llegulation is as necessary for 
 the protection of men’s property or labor as of their 
 persons; men should no more be permitted to take re- 
 
40 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 dress into their own hands in the matter of their estates 
 than in the matter of their persons. Both persons and 
 property are necessarily placed under the restraints, 
 regulations, and protection of public law, which bears or 
 ought to bear equally upon all. The let-alone principle 
 of political economy if pursued to its logical conse¬ 
 quences would loosen, if not wholly dissolve, all these 
 ligatures of civilized society. It may be said the doc¬ 
 trine does not refer to the right of protecting persons 
 from injury or property from pillage, but to tlie right 
 of men to be guided by their own inclinations, and to 
 follow their own judgments in the manner'of accumu¬ 
 lating riches. Let there be free trade, they say; let 
 merchants be unrestrained in their operations, and the 
 result will be happy for all. A very slight examination 
 will show that this principle fully carried out is as dan¬ 
 gerous to human welfare as any the laws are employed 
 to combat. There is no career in which men show more 
 selfishness and a more constant disposition to trample 
 upon the rights of others than in the acquisition of 
 wealth. There are ten men who will take advantage 
 of their neighbor in a matter of business, or exact an 
 inordinate profit, for one who will actually steal, or 
 murder, or maim. The vast superiority of some men 
 over others in both mental and physical energies, to¬ 
 gether with innumerable other causes, gives them a 
 power over their fellow-men which they are under con¬ 
 tinual temptation to abuse. To deny that such power 
 would be obtained, and to contend that if obtained 
 it would not be abused, is to deny the history of the 
 past and to shut our eyes to the most prominent traits 
 of human nature. 
 
 To open any avenue to wealth, or power, or pros- 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 41 
 
 pcrity, and leave it -without restraint or regulation, is no 
 boon to the mass of men; all the advantages thus 
 ottered to the public -will be seized and monopolized by 
 the few wlio possess natural or accidental advantages. 
 If the trade of the world were free, as it could be made 
 by the repeal of all laws and regulations, it would very 
 speedily he usurped by a few countries, and monopolized 
 in a large degree by comparatively few in those coun¬ 
 tries. It would soon be found that trade, instead of 
 being under the regulation of public law, would be un¬ 
 der the control of private selfishness. Trade was only 
 made general when it became the object of restrictive 
 legislation. Before the reign of navigation laws and 
 tariffs the trade of the world was confined to one or two 
 countries at a time, and in them to a small number of 
 merchant princes and their immediate dependents. 
 Free trade might be an advantage to the hundreds; to 
 the millions it would prove in the end only a worse 
 slavery. Freedom from legal restraints does not always 
 confer freedom of action. How many of the toiling 
 millions in civilized countries could have their choice 
 of a career in life if all legal restraints were removed 
 Can those who hut barely obtain enough to keep up the 
 current of life step at will into another and better mode 
 of livelihood 1 Can the tenants of the poorhouse or the 
 factory betake themselves at will to the pursuits of free 
 trade 1 Surely something is due to the millions who 
 labor beyond the advantages which free trade offers of 
 manufacturing for the world at prices they have no 
 agency in fixing, a trade in which they can never par¬ 
 ticipate, a liberty of doing as they please of which they 
 are not in a condition to avail themselves. The prob¬ 
 lem of social economy is not so simple that it can thus 
 
42 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 easily be disposed of, nor should its proper solution be 
 so empty a favor to the multitude as the utmost benefit 
 which free trade could confer. 
 
 The right of doing as every one pleases, which is in¬ 
 cluded in free trade, is not then a sound social principle, 
 because it is a right which can inure only to a few ; it is 
 in fact the principle of savage rather than of civilized 
 life. We speak of it as an elementary principle; for 
 though it be utterly unsafe to develop any social system 
 from such a principle, it may he indispensable to keep 
 it constantly in view, whilst development proceeds from 
 those elements which secure justice to all and the great¬ 
 est practical happiness to the masses. Once the mind of 
 the ingenuous inquirer is upon the track, it requires 
 very little examination to perceive that the social in¬ 
 terests of the laboring masses can never be ascertained 
 nor pointed out, by regarding them from the point of 
 Free Trade among nations. That is a point so far 
 from the true starting-place of the inquiry, that the 
 very question to be settled is not proposed nor indicated 
 by it. Human welfare is forgotten by those who become 
 thoroughly involved in questions about commerce, and 
 credit, and money, and the more especially when they 
 believe that these subjects are susceptible of scientific 
 treatment, without reference to the interests of men 
 whom alone they concern. Precisely a similar error is 
 committed by the chief writers on money and institu¬ 
 tions of credit. These subjects are treated too inde¬ 
 pendently, and with too little reference to their being 
 mere agents of commerce. There can be no science of 
 money or currency as a distinct department of political 
 economy, because the employment of money is wholly 
 involved in the processes of trade, which, when fully 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 43 
 
 explained, reveal the use and theory of money. So 
 neither can the subjects of labor, production, trade, 
 consumption, distribution, nor capital, &c., be reduced 
 into the form of science or expressed in the way of 
 theory, without considering them all in connection with 
 and in subserviency to the interests of the human 
 family. Not merely the interests of those happy few 
 who may be able by advantages of fortune, or of person, 
 or of talents, or of position, to draw to themselves the 
 largest portion of the benefit, but the interests of as 
 many as it is possible to include within the scope of 
 our conclusions. However impracticable it may be to 
 raise the multitudes of any country to that degree of 
 comfort and social happiness to which they may have 
 an equal right, but which they are not fitted to assert, 
 secure, or sustain, we are by no means excused from 
 yielding them all the social good they are capable of 
 receiving, and we have it in our power to bestow. In 
 no sense is it permissible to regard laborers as merely 
 the machinery which produces the commodities of 
 trade, but least of all, in an elementary and theoretical 
 sense, because by so doing, we do the laborer vast in¬ 
 justice without being aware of it. We cannot regard 
 laborers merely as that mass of labor from which we 
 are to obtain the largest quantity of products at the 
 least possible expense. We cannot, we must not for a 
 moment forget that the main object of that labor is to 
 provide the highest practicable degree of well-being 
 for the laborer himself; that the first consideration is 
 the man who labors, next the product, next the value 
 of the product, next the mode of exchanging it for 
 what the laborer wants, and then of markets, mer¬ 
 chants, and trade, domestic and foreign. We do not 
 
44 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 forget in this that the employer and his laborers must, 
 in the first instance, be taken as one. Their interests 
 must he consulted first together, and then separately. 
 
 It is broadly laid down in books, received as author¬ 
 ity by many both in church and state, and taught in 
 our colleges, that if trade were made free, and every 
 man allowed unrestrained liberty in his commercial 
 dealings, everything must come right in reference to 
 industry. But in this view, industry is contemplated 
 only as a productive power, which might to some 
 extent he stimulated by free trade. It is not, however, 
 the quantity of products which a people send forth 
 which determines their welfare; it is the quantity of 
 products which they consume, and the whole power of 
 industry can only be fully realized by that policy which 
 promotes its productiveness, by fully rewarding the 
 producer. Trade may flourish whilst those who fill its 
 channels with merchandise are starving. Trade often 
 flourishes most when it pays the laborer least, and 
 when it charges the consumer the highest rates which 
 can be wrung from him. Trade prospers by purchasing 
 at prices so low as to be wholly unremunerating to the 
 producer, and in sales at prices so high as to rob the 
 consumer. This is its tendency, and there is no busi¬ 
 ness in life in which selfishness has fairer opportunities 
 of indulging its most ravenous propensities. It cannot 
 be, that giving a free rein to this tendency can prove 
 any boon to those who toil for a living. We protest, 
 then, earnestly against this great error of determining 
 the interests of the men of industry by the interests of 
 the men of trade. Nothing can be more certain than 
 that the welfare of the masses of any country must be 
 determined mainly upon elements peculiar to the coun- 
 
 { 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 45 
 
 try itself. As the foreign trade of any country is of 
 small account in comparison with its whole industry, 
 it is but a single element in the consideration of what 
 is due to domestic labor; let it not then be made the 
 exclusive criterion. The idea tliat the rates of com¬ 
 pensation for labor can be reduced to one standard 
 throughout the world, implies a change which may not 
 be effected in centuries, and is at this day an absurdity 
 too great to be contemplated with any patience, and yet 
 this practically is one of the tendencies, if not the aim 
 of free trade. If a nation manufactures ninety per 
 cent, of its consumption, the prices of that portion of 
 domestic products is, by this system, to be regulated 
 by the ten per cent, which is imported from those coun¬ 
 tries where the purchase could be made cheapest, and 
 ^vhere, for the most part, the compensation of the 
 laborer is least. Now whatever advantage this cheap 
 purchase may be to the few who consume foreign pro¬ 
 ducts, it is greatly overborne by the misery entailed 
 upon domestic producers, by compelling them to reduce 
 their scale of living to that of the ill-paid foreign 
 laborer. Low prices, in themselves, are no boon in any 
 country. The real object is plenty of labor and a fair 
 exchange of products.* If the people of Massachusetts 
 can purchase hour from those of Pennsylvania, at a rate 
 so low as to leave no profit to those who produce it, 
 that is of no advantage to either State, for the people 
 of Pennsylvania will consume so much less of the manu¬ 
 factures of Massachusetts. What is for the real ad¬ 
 vantage of each is, that the laborers in each should ex¬ 
 change their products at such rates, in proportion to 
 their cost in labor and skill, as will enable them re¬ 
 spectively to consume the largest quantity of each 
 
« 
 
 46 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 other’s products. The question must still be asked, 
 not what an individual laborer has produced, or what 
 a whole people has produced, but what has the man or 
 the nation enjoyed 1 The largest producers may be and 
 often are, under the practical workings of this system, 
 the greatest sufferers. 
 
 Purchasing in the cheapest market and selling in the 
 dearest are undoubted dogmas of free trade; and yet 
 the transaction may consist in purchasing from those 
 whom calamity or poverty has reduced to the necessity 
 of parting with the products of their labor upon any 
 ruinous terms the purchaser proposes, and selling in 
 the dearest market may consist in selling at enormously 
 high rates to those who are compelled to submit to any 
 demand the seller may make. Such transactions are 
 unobjectionable in the light of the received political 
 economy; they are a legitimate result of free trade. 
 They may, however, be of such a moral character as to 
 surpass larceny or robbery in evil consequences. It not 
 Unfrequently happens that buyers combine on a large 
 scale to reduce those who sell to that condition which 
 enables them to dictate the terms of purchase; and 
 sellers in like manner combine to reduce buyers to this 
 state of dependence. These purchasers and sellers are, 
 however, in the great transactions of trade the same 
 persons. In all this, merchants may be acting only in 
 the true spirit of commerce; they are merely buying as 
 cheap as they can, selling as dear as they can, and 
 making as much profit as they can. This spirit of trade 
 is but the natural dictate of selfishness placed in posi¬ 
 tions in which it can prey upon the industry of those 
 who are unable to protect themselves. 
 
 If 'the policy of a country is such that its laborers 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 47 
 
 may be duly rewarded and yet they are not, a question 
 must arise between the employer and employed, and 
 however delicate or difficult the interference might be, 
 it cannot fairly be denied that some intervention should 
 take place. It may be both impracticable and impoli¬ 
 tic for any government to define the wages of labor; 
 but it should not shrink from whatever scrutiny, or 
 whatever measure may be needful to save the laborer 
 from that oppression to which he is peculiarly exposed, 
 the oppression of being compelled to give his labor for 
 the barest subsistence, while the products of that labor 
 yield a large profit to the employer. It is this kind of 
 oppression which reduces millions of men in the world 
 to a condition worse than slaverv, because it exacts far 
 harder work and gives a far less return. It is worse 
 than the bondage of the slave without the sympathy or at 
 least interested care of a master. At the present day 
 there is no example of a civilized community, in which, 
 if slavery prevails, the master is not punishable for ex¬ 
 cessive cruelty to his slaves. Now, no cruelty to slaves 
 can exceed that social cruelty which starves the laborer 
 and reduces him to the abject destitution of a pauper. 
 It is no remedy for such cases that free laborers may 
 leave when they are unjustly treated; that is a remedy 
 for a few, but not within the power of multitudes. 
 Those who have families, and many who have not, 
 cannot change their residence without expense, for 
 which they are not prepared, and without great risk ; 
 in most cases they cannot change at all, but must sub¬ 
 mit to any terms imposed. It is, therefore, as just, as 
 necessary, as expedient, and socially as politic, to inter¬ 
 vene between the employer and his dependents as in 
 any case of justice between man and man. It is so- 
 
48 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 cially as necessary, as proper, to protect the labor of the 
 man who has no other possession, as it is to shield the 
 property and capital of employers. As to the mode of 
 intervention: that is one of the great questions which 
 await the solution of the wise and prudent, but it is a 
 question from which at least Christian wisdom and love 
 should not shrink, because Socialists, Communists, Uto- 
 pists or enthusiasts, have by their false speculations 
 cast discredit upon the inquiry. If these reformers 
 have wholly failed in solving the great problems of 
 labor, it does not follow that there are no questions to 
 solve, and that there is no consideration due to the 
 subject. And if these mistaken reformers have wholly 
 failed, if they have misled multitudes not capable of 
 detecting the fallacies of their teachings, it does not 
 follow that nothing is due to them and their deluded 
 fgllowers in the way of furnishing them a better philo¬ 
 sophy, safer elements for reasoning, and sounder con¬ 
 clusions. They are neither lovers of truth nor safe 
 guides in philosophy who refuse to enter upon a diffi¬ 
 cult subject because errorists have attempted it before 
 them. Neither are those safer or more trustworthy 
 who, assuming that human society has reached its high¬ 
 est point of perfection, refuse to stir in the path of 
 amelioration, than those who rush onward to reforms 
 which peril all that is good in the present without 
 giving any reasonable assurance of what is better in the 
 future. 
 
 Indispensable as commerce is to the progress and 
 success of industry, and nobly as individual merchants 
 may have resisted the temptations of their position as 
 intermediates between laborers and consumers, and 
 whatever may be said of placing such power unre- 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 49 
 
 St lie ted in human hands, yet surely the theory of this 
 power cannot be the theory of industry and human 
 welfare. It must be a fatal mistake, a grievous fallacy 
 to exalt the theory of the interests of merchants into a 
 social philosophy, and thus make all other interests 
 subordinate to those of commerce. The object of 
 society is not commerce; it is not even production. 
 These are means aud not ends. It would be as wise to 
 found the whole science of the physician on a know¬ 
 ledge of the drugs he employs, without any considera¬ 
 tion of the human system, to which it is alone applicable, 
 as to construct a social system upon the processes of 
 trade or industry, without taking into account their ob- 
 ject. It is needful not only to ascertain what is truth, 
 but to place our truths and facts in their proper order, 
 that we may step by step be led to right conclusions. 
 If our inductions be logical we may fall into as great 
 error by an improper arrangement of our premises or 
 propositions as by false reasoning. 
 
 It has not been intended here to controvert all the 
 dogmas of free trade; we deem it only necessary to 
 resist the use which is often made of them. -When 
 they are spread before the world as a remedy for exist¬ 
 ing social ills, as a solution of the main problems of 
 social economy, we merely deny at present their appli¬ 
 cation. So far as they are true they really form but 
 one step in the adjustment of social industry, and it 
 would be equally mischievous to assume any other step 
 in that progress upon which to construct theories of 
 social welfare. It might as well be pretended that 
 money and credit were the starting-point of social doc¬ 
 trines as free trade. 
 
 The object of the foregoing remarks has not been to 
 
 4 
 
50 
 
 THi CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 present methodically and fully the Claims of Labor, 
 but to awaken attention to their importance; it has not 
 been to ask the reader’s acceptance of ready-made 
 theories or opinions, but to urge an earnest and con¬ 
 scientious study of a subject so deeply involving the 
 interests of society and humanity. It is not to the in¬ 
 terests of any department of industry that attention is 
 invited, but to the personal claims of those who work 
 for their own living, and furnish the living of those 
 who do not labor,—of that large class which consti¬ 
 tutes the productive power of a nation. However im¬ 
 perfectly these claims have been presented, some such 
 ideas as the following must have occurred to those 
 readers whose reflections have been in the least 
 awakened. 
 
 The labor to be performed in any community is its 
 most important public interest; but the welfare of the 
 individuals who achieve that labor is of still greater 
 importance. Life, limb, and property, are such special 
 'objects of protection by law, that the statute books 
 teem with enactments having this design. When a 
 life is lost by violence or accident, a special officer holds 
 an inquiry to ascertain how, where, and by whom the 
 evil has been done. When an assault on the person is 
 committed, the offence is visited with indictment, fine, 
 and imprisonment. When the right of property is vio¬ 
 lated, the remedies are manifold and applicable to every 
 variety of case. The poor man’s labor being equally 
 as important to society and himself, should be equally 
 protected by the laws, institutions, and usages of society. 
 When men dependent for their living upon their labor > 
 can find no work though anxiously desiring it, their 
 case is as worthy of special inquiry as any for which 
 
THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 51 
 
 the law can provide. As the laws, institutions, and 
 usages of society now stand, men must sink for want 
 of work to the condition of pauperism before their 
 case secures official notice. Labor as a right and a pro¬ 
 perty, is as fully entitled to proper consideration and 
 constant protection as houses, lands, and merchandise, 
 or as life and limb. 
 
 The difficulty of affording this protection is no ex¬ 
 cuse for not attempting it. Governments do not per¬ 
 form perfectly any of their functions. If the public 
 authorities could do nothing in the case of unemployed 
 labor and suffering laborers, beyond a searching inquiry 
 into the causes, this would in due time indicate the 
 true remedies. Laborers have as much right to work 
 as to eat; it is a right they do not surrender on be¬ 
 coming members of society; and as it may be neither 
 within the province nor the power of Government to 
 secure the exercise of this right to individuals, it should 
 be very careful neither directly nor indirectly to ob¬ 
 struct it. No Government can employ any considera¬ 
 ble proportion of its population, but every Government 
 can be careful to open and extend the avenues of in¬ 
 dustry. It may not enter upon, but it can both point 
 out and promote the career of labor! And when that 
 career is obstructed, it can immediately employ all the 
 light of science and the highest social intelligence to 
 ascertain the facts and suggest the cause and the 
 remedies. 
 
 Every Government, whatever its form, should by its 
 nature be paternal. It should hold its powers for the 
 good of those over whom it is placed. This principle, 
 whether declared in constitutions or admitted by sove¬ 
 reigns or not, is inevitably inherent in the Government 
 
5'2 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF LABOR. 
 
 of every Christian country, for these men owe to each 
 other without exception, the duty of kindness. Every 
 constitution, law, or institution, is framed under the 
 obligation of this law of kindness,—their object must 
 be the public welfare and the well-being of individuals, 
 and they should be construed as having this design. 
 Where all the authority is vested in one person this 
 law of kindness bears upon him with a force propor¬ 
 tioned to his power of doing good. If this principle 
 governs, whatever be the form of Government, the at¬ 
 tention of the authorities would be strongly directed 
 to the condition of the laboring masses, for the most 
 part little above the condition of poverty, and demand¬ 
 ing therefore, not only on public grounds, but on con¬ 
 siderations of humanity, the utmost vigilance to see 
 that nothing intervened to interrupt their labor or im¬ 
 pair its effectiveness. Xext to the preservation of the 
 Government itself must be this duty of seeing that 
 multitudes who live by their labor are watdied over 
 and protected in their rights, that their productive 
 power is not needlessly wasted, and that they do not 
 come to poverty or even temporary inaction, from any 
 fault of the Government either of omission or commis¬ 
 sion. 
 
 If this regard for the interests of laborers were to 
 obtain its proper place in the minds of public men, 
 men of science, intelligence, and wealth, rapid progress 
 would be made in ascertaining the extent and nature 
 of the protection which is due to the cause of labor 
 and the well-being of the largest class of persons in 
 every nation.