There is a great work the Labor Party can do. There are imperfections in our government, and these it should take up and remedy. It is a well-established fact, as every one knows, that a government that is not a representative of the minorities as well as of the majorities is not a government of freedom, equality and justice. If imperfections exist even in the much revered Constitution, it should not be held so sacred that none of its faults can be remedied. If there are inconsistencies in it, or if it contain provisions which the present has outgrown, let it be thoroughly amended, and as often as it can be, and made better. We do not believe in anything being held so sacred as not to be submitted to a complete analysis, so that it may be determined just what there is good, and what there is which can be bettered. We are inclined to the opinion that the whole Constitution should be revised, clarified and simplified, and made so plain that there would be no possibility of different constructions being put upon any part of it.
Our government should soon be so formulated, and the people so well informed upon the true principles of government, that all existing administrations should exist by the unanimous consent of all the people. The strife should not be for party, representing different principles, but for the best representative men to administer the Constitutional principles which all would be agreed upon.
There will a party arise having these objects in view, and it need not be predicted that such a party, once organized, will begin a new era in the history of governments, for sufficient comprehension of what the future will be exists to make this a foregone conclusion. The Labor Party should make itself that party. Has it the requisites?
New York, November 25, 1870.
PAPERS ON LABOR AND CAPITAL.
NO. XVI.
In the full and legitimate consideration of this subject the range should extend beyond the things immediately attaching to the capitalist and the laborer as persons, and merge into the question of Philosophic Equality, out of which consideration arises the true relations of the extremes of it represented by these two classes. Under a true republican form of government the inherent right to equality on the part of all its citizens should not only be recognized but guaranteed. Equality, except as a mythical name, does not exist in practice in this country; nor for that matter in any country, except where each individual is his own governor, to the extent of his power to maintain such authority; and each individual being possessed of this right to maintain it, comprises that equality. Philosophic Equality presupposes the right of each individual to exercise all the powers possessed by him, in which exercise the rights of no other individual would be interfered with, but which exercise should not be aided or protected by any device of law. The moment a law is made to assist an individual, or any number of individuals, in the performance of his or their undertaking, that moment equality on the part of all other citizens ceases. Not only is this true specifically, but it is a great deal more; it is true generally that if an individual or a class of individuals receive aid, comfort and protection from the law, in their pursuits, all other individuals of all pursuits are rendered unequal in their competition with them in all of their respective pursuits.
That is to say, if a person is protected in the manufacture of salt by the law, which imposes a heavy tax on all foreign salt imported into the country, the manufacturer or producer of grain is at once placed by the law in a condition of inequality with him, and in a double sense if he be a consumer of salt; for not only is the price of the home manufactured salt increased by the imposition of the tax, while the price of the home grown grain is not proportionately increased, but the producer of the grain is obliged to pay the increased price for the salt which he consumes. The same rule is applicable to all things wherein individuals are obliged to seek protection from foreign importations, to be able to produce the same at home.
The argument in favor of this course is, that while protection, extended to certain interests, increases the prices of their productions to the consumers of them, the consumers by it are also enabled to obtain higher prices for what they have to place upon the market. This is all very well so far as it has any application, but what is the effect upon the very large proportion of the working people of the country who are not producers of anything in their own right, but are simply laborers for such producers? If there is only an equality maintained to the employers of such labor, how can the benefit extend to the employed?
In making this complex argument, it is forgotten that real wealth and real prosperity do not consist in high prices for everything, but in the quantity which is actually possessed. Prices under protection must ever fluctuate, and a person rich this year may be rendered poor next year, by the depreciation of his property. Witness the fall of real estate in this city for an exemplification of what we mean. High prices are not the ultimatum to be gained by any people of any country; but, on the contrary, the true point to attain is the employment of the industry of a country in those directions, wherein the most can be produced at the least cost, in the accumulation of the proceeds of which the country, as a whole, must become wealthy more rapidly than in the pursuit of the other extreme, which is the production of the least at the greatest cost; or in any modification of this proposition.