and inherited estates. With reference to this last it is sufficient to quote the following from one of the leading daily papers: "The chancellor of the exchequer has received $1,100,000 as succession duty on the property of the late Duke of Buccleuch." The above is from a cablegram from London to New York, and is worthy of note. A more just and equitable tax cannot possibly be levied than that of "Succession." Why should our rich men's heirs enjoy money they never earned without paying a tax upon it? In this fourfold way let the working classes demand, and at the ballotbox secure, reduced prices for all the needful commodities of life, to begin with. 2. Then let them demand-and at the ballot-box secure it -that the present wide gulf between luxurious wealth of employers and depressing poverty of employees the extremes of capital and labor-be narrowed by some system of co-operative wages, whereby all employees shall share both the prosperity and the adversity of their employers. "If one member suffer, all should suffer with it; if one member rejoice, all should rejoice with it." This must be the law in Christian business as well as in the Christian church. As it now is, what have we in our Christian (?) communities all over the earth! The same extremes of luxurious wealth and of depressing poverty, which characterized, degraded, and at length destroyed, the mighty civilization of pagan Rome, and of all other pagan states to this day. Let us take some everywhere familiar examples. On a certain railroad, employees are getting $1.50 a day for from twelve to fifteen hours of hardest, most disagreeable, and dangerous work; and sometimes are months left without their pay at that; while the president is regularly drawing $30,000 a year for a few hours per day of sitting in a business office. The president in his easy-chair a few hours each day must regularly draw his $100 per day; while the breakman, trackman, coal-heaver must toil at $1.50 for fifteen hours of hard and dangerous work! Take another case. The receiver of a railroad-no wonder they are called receivers received one-quarter million of dollars for a few months' overseeing of the road, while hard-worked employees, from conductor and engineer down, were hardly able to keep their families from starving; and, worse still, thousands of widows and orphans all over the country were deprived, nay robbed, of their little stores put aside for a scanty livelihood by the "insolvency" of the Corporation which solicited their subscriptions, and then managed to "legally" transfer them to their own already swollen purses! Widows and orphans may be cheated, and hard-working employees' families half starved: but the employers, and especially the receivers, must receive all they can manage to lay their hands on! And the worst of it is, that the laws of our Christian (?) land are made and executed in favor of these high-handed robberies and oppressions. Another illustration, this time a wholesale one. Presidents and directors of banks and of insurance companies; of gas, water, telegraph, telephone companies; presidents and directors of mining and milling, of manufacturing, of commercial and of extensive farming companies, pile up millions, live with every luxury, have more than heart can wish-while those who do the work and really earn the money, cramped and stinted, are driven to toil from dawn to dark; and when humbly asking an hour or two taken off their long day, or a shilling or two added to their scanty wages, are gruffly told that the "company cannot afford it!" The company cannot afford it! It can afford to its well-dressed, easy and luxurious officials everything they ask-to its hard-working, self-denying employees-nothing! And, if ever the times are hard and the companies' income reduced, how do they manage it? By asking the wives and daughters of the rich officials to try and get along with fewer elegancies, and the officials themselves to smoke less expensive cigars and drink less expensive champagnes? No, no! this cannot be done! but by telling their workmen that their wages must be reduced a shilling a day, and they must be content to wear their ragged coats, and their wives and daughters their shabby dresses "during these hard times." Nay, they go further. If they must live in a cellar henceforth instead of in a garret as now; and, Lazarus-fashion, beg crumbs upon the doorsteps and from the rich tables of Dives-Dives being a president or vice-president, or director or other official of the companylet them do it "during these hard times"! "Dives in robes, Lazarus in tatters; Half-starved Lazarus, Dives full fed. "Dives in a gorgeous palace- With the dogs to lick his sores. "Let his starving children shiver, Pinched and blue with Winter's cold! And their pockets filled with gold." Yes, now as in our Saviour's day; now, as in the days of "Rome's proud climax tottering to its awful fall,” Capital— and Christian (?) Capital, as often as that which is called Pagan or Infidel-is" a monster gorged 'mid starving populations." In proud Rome, as in many another proud state and city, small fortunes were spent on a single meal; and ladies, like the famous Leullia Paulina, wore robes covered with pearls and emeralds costing a million of dollars; while tens of thousands of human beings in Italy and in other lands were without daily bread, or even a warm tunic to protect them from the winter's cold. So is it now. See the cartoons, read the recitals of poverty, for instance, in recent New York, London, Paris, Berlin, daily papers-then walk up and down the fashionable avenues in cities and towns all over our land! We must acknowledge that shiftlessness, indolence, and vice have much to do with it; but not all, not even chiefly :-It is for the most part depressing, disheartening wages, and the great gulf fixed between capital and labor-the extremes of luxury and poverty represented by employers and employees-that must bear the guilt and blame. The remedy must be some system of co-operative wages by which the prosperity of capital shall ensure a proportionate prosperity of labor-the employer and employee rising together as well as falling together. Some remaining demands which must be made, favorable to the laboring classes, need only be stated. 3. Christian governments should protect and encourage labor by suppressing all syndicates, or other monopolies, which exist for the purpose of centralizing capital and controlling markets. Such are syndicates for the ownership of lands; syndicates for the control of manufacturing industries; syndicates for speculation in grain, coal, oil, and other commodities. As a rule, "syndicates" are only a reputable name for gangs of robbers and dens of thieves. What can a small farmer, manufacturer, mechanic, merchant, or other laborers with little capital do in the face of these giant monopolies? They are gradually transforming the working classes into slaves and serfs: they can no longer produce anything themselves; they must be overshadowed, crushed out, and forced to go at the beck and call of concentrated capital. Let the word syndicate and the thing which it stands for, become a by-word and a hissing in the land, with millions of workingmen's ballots aimed at its vile heart until it is destroyed. This we say, and pray, in the name of the Ever-living Christ-Amen. 4. In every city, town, and village of Christian lands governments must establish and control bureaus of industry,-employment offices, not almshouses,--for aiding employees in finding suitable employment; and, in particular, for guaranteeing that work, at reasonable prices, shall always and everywhere be furnished to those who cannot secure it themselves. Not charity, but work; not alms, but respectable labor, at reasonable prices, is what Christian government must henceforth provide for all able-bodied men and women who are in need of it and cannot find it for themselves. 5. In addition governments must organize and sustain such institutions as savings banks, guaranteeing absolute security for the small savings of the working classes; which must be free, of course, from taxation. 6. And finally, the working women must demand for the same work the same pay as the working man: in schools, factories, stores, everywhere. How shall the working woman demand this, as she has no vote and almost no voice in public affairs? She may demand it now by her private appeals and influence; and ere long, let us hope, Christian governments will become so truly Christian, that they will give and guarantee the ballot to woman, the same as to man. But now to sum up. While atheists and anarchists will doubtless continue to try and right their wrongs by mobs, violence, and revenge-all to their own harm-no one who is a Christian or a gentleman-nay, no one who is a humanitarian or a patriot in any true sense-will have anything to do with such methods of relief. They will stand by their bargains, and be content with present compensations, as long as they can. And when they must do otherwise, they will seek their ends quietly, leaving vengeance and compulsion to Almighty God. Trusting ever in a kind and wise over-ruling Providence, they will adopt and prescribe peaceful agencies for righting their wrongs-such as agitation, legislation, the ballot-box. Through these agencies it is now high time to seek vigorously the reforms mentioned; bearing ever in mind the workingman's Beatitude, falling sweetly from the lips of him who was The Ideal Working Man-" Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God." The same lips pronounced also the Beatitude which must mould the methods, temper the spirit, and direct the life of every truly Christian Capitalist or Employer-"Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy." XLVII.—" FIRST PURE, THEN PEACEABLE." This may be-nay, must be-taken as the Motto, the Watch-word, and also as the War-Cry of Renascent Christi |