Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/628

passengers had rapidly increased, what would have occurred? Suppose the cotton machinery had turned into the market millions of yards of cotton, where hundreds answered before (as is actually the case), and the manufacturers had charged the old prices, what would have happened? It is obvious that in the first case not one extra traveler would have gone from home, and the much-needed railroads would have been a nuisance; while, in the second, the manufacturers would have been deluged with their own stock, been compelled to close their factories and howl "Over-production!" Whatever arrests the descent of prices, entails upon society just such a state of affairs as we are passing through. It stops wide distribution, as the owners of such goods are unable to cope with the traders of foreign markets. Protectionists aid in this part of the trouble. It accumulates a heavier supply than is demanded in the home-market. It overwhelms factories with their own goods, and drowns the manufacturer in bankruptcy, unless he stops work. It turns worthy, as well as unworthy, working-men adrift. It brings on all the horrors so piteously complained of. What can avert such consequences? There are, doubtless, factors in this problem unnoticed here, but this to me appears to be the main one. Allow wages to descend steadily, as the market demands, instead of holding them up till a crisis is reached. When crises come, they hurl them down like an avalanche far below the true level at which they should rest. Let the machinery of society have free, unimpeded action. Teach laborers to give way to the inevitable, without clogging the wheels by "strikes." They must learn to give in to the decrees of Fate without a murmur. They frighten themselves with a bugbear of starvation from low wages, and bring in a real bear with their acts. "O ye of little faith!" Will they never learn that eight hours' work at one dollar, with goods at half-price, is far better than four hours' work at the same, with goods at full price? Trades'-unions are waging war against natural law. Wages must come down! Profits must decrease! It is absolutely impossible to keep these up and have business proceed. If not satisfied with the pay offered by one employer, seek another. Unions, when other than a council of working-men aiming at the common good, are positive evils. Society must learn to frown down every interference on their part with the workings of trade, or we will be continually subject to recurrences of business stagnation and violence. They thwart their own purposes and entail the very miseries they profess to cure. Labor, like everything else in the market, is worth neither more nor less than supply and demand put upon it. It is sheer madness to battle fact by saying it should be worth more. Imagine an astronomer as insane as this, insisting upon it that the sun ought to revolve around the earth, and therefore refusing to reason upon the fact that the earth revolves around the sun! Merchants have no right to force each other, by mob