and causing the greatest liberation on record of heretofore restricted energies, the laborers might then begin to see that here lies their only hope; that Liberty, after all, and not Government, is to be their saviour; that their first duty is to abolish the credit monopoly and let credit organize itself; that then they will have to ask nobody for work, but everybody will be asking work of them; and that then, instead of having to take whatever pittance they can get, they will be in a position to exact wages equivalent to their product, under which condition of things the reign of justice will be upon us and labor will have its own. Then Mr. Herbert's work for Liberty will no longer be a struggle, but an unmixed pleasure. He will no longer have to breast the current by urging workmen to self-denial; he can successfully appeal to their self-interest, the tide will turn, and he will be borne onward with it to the ends that he desires.
SOLUTIONS OF THE LABOR PROBLEM.
[Liberty, September 12, 1891.]
Apropos of Labor Day, the Boston Herald printed in its issue of September 6 a collection of proposed solutions of the labor problem, received in response to a question which it had invited certain students and labor leaders to answer. The question was this: "How is a just distribution of the products of labor to be obtained?" The answers were from two hundred to five hundred words in length; below I give the essence of each:
George E. McNeill, general organizer of the Federation of Labor:—By a reduction of the hours of labor.
Edward Atkinson, political economist:—If laborers think themselves inadequately rewarded, they should work for themselves. The "scabs" should have unions of their own.
Edward S. Huntington, secretary of the First Nationalist Club:—By the organization of an all-inclusive trust by the laborers.
Albert Ross (Lynn Boyd Porter), novelist:—No individuals can justly distribute the products of other men's labor. Hence the State must do it.
Charles E. Bowers, Nationalist:—By national control and management of industries.
