OUTLOOK FOR FOREIGN INDUSTRIAL COMPETITION APPALLING.

But just at this juncture a new field for enterprise and capital, but not for labor, opens up. Japan and China are awakening to Western civilization from a sleep of centuries,

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to an appreciation of steam, electricity, machinery and modern inventions in general. We should remember that Japan's population about corresponds to that of Great Britain; and that China's population is more than five times that of the United States. Let us remember, too, that these millions are not savages, but people who generally can read and write their own language; and that their civilization, although different, is far older than that of Europe—that they were civilized, manufacturers of China wares and silk goods when Great Britain was peopled with savages. We need not be surprised, therefore, to learn that Capital is seeking engagement in China, and especially in Japan—to build railroads there, to carry thither machinery, to erect there large manufacturing establishments;—that thus they may utilize the skill, energy, thrift, patience and submissiveness of those millions accustomed to toil and frugality.

Capital sees large rewards in a land where labor can be had at from six to fifteen cents per day for each employee—accepted without a murmur, and with thanks. Considerable capital has already gone to Japan, and more awaits concession in China. Who cannot see that it will require but the short space of a very few years to bring the whole manufacturing world into competition with these millions of already skillful and apt-to-learn peoples? If present wages in Europe are found insufficient; and if because of previous munificent wages in the United States and the (as compared with Europe and Asia) extravagant ideas and habits cultivated here, we consider present wages "starvation wages" (although they are still double what is paid in Europe and eight times what is paid in Asia), what would be the deplorable condition of labor throughout the civilized world after thirty more years of inventing and building of labor-saving machinery; and after all the labor

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of the world has been brought into close competition with the cheap labor of the far East? It would mean not only fifteen cents a day as pay, but in addition six men for every job at even that pittance. The public press years ago noted the removal of a cotton mill from Connecticut to Japan, and since then other manufacturers have gone thither, in order to secure a field of cheaper labor and of consequently larger profits.

The German Emperor evidently saw this "industrial war" approaching; he symbolically represented it in the celebrated picture drawn by an artist under his guidance and presented to the Czar of Russia. The picture represents the nations of Europe by female figures clad in armor standing in the light shining from a cross in the sky above them, and at the direction of an angelic figure representing Michael looking to a black cloud arising from China and floating toward them, from which hideous forms and faces are developed by the flashing lightning. Under the picture are the words: "Nations of Europe! Join in the defense of your Faith and your Homes."

THE YELLOW MAN WITH WHITE MONEY.

The following was extracted from an able paper in the Journal of the Imperial Colonial Institute (English), by Mr. Whitehead, a member of the Legislative Council, Hong Kong, China. He said:

"So far, the Chinese have made but a beginning in the construction of spinning and weaving factories. On the river Yang Tsze and in the neighborhood of Shanghai, some five mills are already working, and others are in course of construction. It is estimated that they will contain about 200,000 spindles; and some of them have commenced work. The capital employed is entirely native, and with peace restored in these regions, there is, with honest, capable management, while our present monetary system

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continues, really no limit to the expansion and development of industries in Oriental countries."

Here we notice along the same lines a Washington, D.C., dispatch as early as '96, announcing a report to the Government by Consul General Jernigan, stationed at Shanghai, China, to the effect that the cotton industry there is receiving great attention; that since 1890 cotton-mills are being introduced and prospering; that a cotton-seed-oil plant was being started; and that as in China the area suitable for the cultivation of cotton is almost as limitless as the supply of very cheap labor, "there can be no doubt that China will soon be one of the greatest cotton producing countries in the world."

Mr. Whitehead discussing the 1894 war between China and Japan, declares that in it rested the chief hope of China's industrial resurrection. He continues:

"The outcome of the present war may help to relieve the Chinese people from the trammels of the mandarins. China's mineral and other resources are known to be enormous, and at the very door they have millions of acres of land admirably adapted to the cultivation of cotton, which, though of short staple, is suitable for mixing with other qualities. In the Shanghai River in December, 1893, there were at one time no less than five ocean-going steamers taking in cargoes of China-grown cotton for transportation to Japan, there to be converted by Japanese mills and Japanese hands into yarn and cloth. The Japanese are now importing for their mills cotton direct from America and elsewhere. After this terrible awakening, should China, with her three hundred millions of intensely industrious people, open her vast inland provinces by the introduction of railways, her interior waterways to steam traffic and her boundless resources to development, it is impossible to form an estimate of the consequences. It would mean the discovery of practically a new hemisphere, thickly populated with industrious races, and abounding in agricultural, mineral and other resources; but so far from the opening of China, which we may reasonably hope will be one of the results

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of the present war, being a benefit to English manufacturers, unless some change is made, and that soon, in our monetary standard, the Celestial Empire, which has been the scene of so many of our industrial victories, will only be the field of our greatest defeat."

Mr. Whitehead's view is purely capitalistic when he speaks of "defeat"—really the "defeat" will fall still heavier upon English labor. Continuing, he glances at Japan, as follows:

"The neighborhood of Osaka and Kioto is now a surprising spectacle of industrial activity. In a very brief period of time no less than fifty-nine cotton spinning and weaving mills sprang into existence there, with the aid of upwards of twenty millions of dollars, entirely native capital. They now have 770,874 spindles, and in May last competent authorities estimated the annual output of these mills at over 500,000 bales of yarn, valued roughly at forty millions of dollars, or at the present exchange, say, eight million pounds sterling. In short, Japanese industries, not only spinning and weaving, but of all classes, have increased by leaps and bounds. They have already carried their success to a point from which they may to a great extent disregard British industrial competition."

Mr. Whitehead proceeds to show that the capitalists of Europe and the United States, having demonetized silver, have nearly doubled the value of gold, and that this nearly doubles the advantage of China and Japan. He says:

"Let me explain that silver will still employ the same quantity of Oriental labor as it did twenty or thirty years ago. The inadequacy of our monetary standard therefore allows Eastern countries to employ now at least one hundred per cent. more of labor for a given amount of gold than they could do twenty-five years ago. To make this important statement quite clear allow me to give the following example: In 1870 ten rupees was the equivalent of one sovereign under the joint standard of gold and silver, and paid twenty men for one day. To-day twenty rupees are about the equivalent of one sovereign, so that for twenty rupees forty men can be engaged for one day, instead of

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twenty men as in 1870. Against such a disability British labor cannot possibly compete.

"In Oriental countries silver will still pay for the same quantity of labor as formerly. Yet, as now measured in gold, silver is worth less than half of the gold it formerly equaled. For example, a certain quantity of labor could have been engaged in England twenty years ago for, say, eight shillings. Eight shillings in England now will pay for no more labor than formerly, wages being about the same, and they have still by our law exactly the same monetary value as formerly, though their metallic value has, by the appreciation of gold, been reduced to less than sixpence each. The two dollars exactly similar to the old ones, can employ the same quantity of labor as before, but no more, yet at the present gold price they are only equal to four shillings. Therefore it is possible now to employ as much labor in Asia for four shillings of our money, or the equivalent thereof in silver, as could have been employed twenty years ago for eight shillings, or its then equivalent in silver. The value of Oriental labor having thus been reduced by upwards of fifty-five per cent. in gold money compared with what it was formerly, it will be able to produce manufactures and commodities just so much cheaper than the labor in gold-standard countries. Therefore, unless our monetary law is amended, or unless British labor is prepared to accept a large reduction of wages, British industrial trades must inevitably leave British shores, because their products will be superseded by the establishment of industries in silver-standard countries."

Mr. Whitehead might truthfully have added that the silver standard countries will soon not only be prepared to supply their own needs, but also to invade the gold standard countries. For instance, Japan could sell goods in England at prices one-third less than prevail in Japan; and, by exchanging the gold money received into silver money, can take home to Japan large profits. Thus the American and European mechanics will not only be forced to compete with the Asiatic cheap and patient labor and skill, but in addition will be at the disadvantage in the

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competition by reason of the difference between the gold and silver standards of financial exchange.

Commenting upon Mr. Whitehead's lecture, the Daily Chronicle (London) calls attention to the fact that India has already largely supplanted much of England's trade in cotton manufacture. It said:

"The Hon. T. H. Whitehead's lecture last night at the Colonial Institute drew attention to some astonishing figures in relation to our eastern trade. The fact that during the last four years our exports show a decrease of £54,000,000 has unfortunately nothing disputable about it. The returns of the sixty-seven spinning companies of Lancashire for 1894 show an aggregate adverse balance of £411,000. Against this the increase in the export of Indian yarns and piece goods to Japan has been simply colossal, and the cotton mills at Hiogo, in Japan, for 1891, showed an average profit of seventeen per cent. Sir Thomas Sutherland has said that before long the Peninsular and Oriental Company may be building its ships on the Yang-tze, and Mr. Whitehead believes that Oriental countries will soon be competing in European markets. … Statements like these from the mouths of experts afford matter for serious reflection."

A German newspaper, Tageblatt (Berlin), carefully looked into the matter of Japan's decided victory over China, and was surprised at the intelligence it found. It pronounced Count Ito, the Japanese Prime Minister, another Bismarck; and the Japanese in general quite civilized. It concluded with a very significant remark respecting the industrial war which we are considering, saying:

"Count Ito shows much interest in the industrial development of his fatherland. He believes that most foreigners underrate the chances of Japan in the international struggle for industrial supremacy. The Japanese women, he thinks, are equal to the men in every field of labor, and double the capacity for work of the nation."

The Editor of the Economiste Francais (Paris), commenting upon Japan and its affairs, says, significantly:

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"The world has entered upon a new stage. Europeans must reckon with the new factors of civilization. The Powers must cease to quarrel among themselves, and must show a combined front, and they must remember that henceforth the hundreds of millions in the far East—sober, hard-working and nimble workmen—will be our rivals."

Mr. George Jamison, British Consul General at Shanghai, China, wrote on the subject of Oriental Competition, showing that the demonetization and hence depreciation of silver, leaving gold the standard money in civilized lands, is another item which depresses Labor and profits Capital. He said:

"The continual rise in the value of gold, as compared with that of silver, has changed everything. British goods got so dear in their silver value that the Orient was forced to make for itself, and the decline in the value of the white metal has so helped it in its work that it cannot only make sufficient for itself but is able to export them to advantage. The rise in the value of gold has doubled the silver price of British goods in the East and has made their use almost prohibitive, while the fall in the value of silver has brought down by over a half the gold price of Oriental goods in gold using countries, and is continually increasing the demand for them. The conditions are so unequal that it seems impossible to continue the struggle long. It is like handicapping the champion by giving to his opponent half the distance of the race.

"The impossibility of the European competing with the Oriental in the open field has been proved in America. The Chinese there by their low wages so monopolized labor that they had to be excluded from the country or the European workmen would have starved or been driven out. But the European countries are not threatened with the laborer himself as the Americans were (he knew the price of European labor, and could learn, understand, how much he should get himself), but with the products of that labor done at Oriental wages. Besides, it would be easy enough to refuse to employ an Oriental to do your work while it is difficult to decline to buy goods made by him, especially

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as they improve in quality and get cheaper in price. The temptation to buy them becomes all the greater as the money earned by the British workmen gets less. He is the more prone to do so, and declines to buy his own make, but dearer goods. Protective countries are better off. They can impose increased duties on Oriental goods, and so stop them from flooding their markets. But England with her free trade has no defence, and the brunt of the burden will fall upon her workmen. The evil is getting greater. Every farthing in the increase of the price of gold as compared with that of silver makes English goods one per cent. dearer in the East, while every farthing decrease in the price of silver makes Oriental goods one per cent. cheaper in gold-using countries. These new industries are growing very rapidly in Japan, and what is being done there can and will be done in China, India and other places. Once well established, the Orient will hold on to them in spite of all opposition, and unless some speedy remedy is found to alter the currency system of the world, their products will be spread broadcast all over the world to the ruin of British industries and untold disaster to thousands and thousands of workmen."

Mr. Lafcadio Hearn, who for several years was a teacher in Japan, in an article in the Atlantic Monthly (Oct. '95), pointed out as one of the reasons why Japanese competition is so sharp, that the poor can live and move and have their being, comfortably, according to their ideas of comfort, at almost no expense. He explains that a Japanese city is made up of houses of mud, bamboos and paper, put up in five days, and intended to last, with endless repairing, only so long as its owner may not desire to change his abode.

There are, in fact, no great buildings in Japan except a few colossal fortresses erected by the nobles while feudalism prevailed. The modern factories in Japan, however extensive their business or however beautiful and costly their products, are but long-drawn shanties, and the very temples must, by immemorial custom, be cut into little pieces every twenty years, and distributed among the pilgrims.

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A Japanese workman never roots himself or wishes to root himself. If he has any reason for changing his province he changes it at once, dismantling his house, the paper and mud hut which is so picturesque and cleanly, packing his belongings on his shoulder, telling his wife and family to follow, and trudging off with a light step and a lighter heart for his far-away destination, perhaps five hundred miles off, where he arrives after an expenditure of perhaps, at the outside, 5s. ($1.22), immediately builds him a house which costs a few shillings more, and is at once a respectable and responsible citizen again. Says Mr. Hearn:

"All Japan is always on the move in this way, and change is the genius of Japanese civilization. In the great industrial competition of the world, fluidity is the secret of Japanese strength. The worker shifts his habitation without a regret to the place where he is most wanted. The factory can be moved at a week's notice, the artisan at half-a-day's. There are no impedimenta to transport, there is practically nothing to build, there is no expense except in coppers to hinder travel.

"The Japanese man of the people—the skilled laborer able to underbid without effort any Western artisan in the same line of industry—remains happily independent of both shoemaker and tailor. His feet are good to look at, his body is healthy and his heart is free. If he desire to travel a thousand miles, he can get ready for his journey in five minutes. His whole outfit need not cost seventy-five cents; and all his baggage can be put into a handkerchief. On ten dollars he can travel a year without work, or he can travel simply on his ability to work, or he can travel as a pilgrim. You may reply that any savage can do the same thing. Yes, but any civilized man cannot; and the Japanese has been a highly civilized man for at least a thousand years. Hence his present capacity to threaten Western manufacturers."

Commenting on the above the London Spectator says:

"That is a very noteworthy sketch, and we acknowledge frankly, as we have always acknowledged, that Japanese

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competition is a very formidable thing, which some day may deeply affect all the conditions of European industrial civilization."

The character of the competition to be expected from this quarter will be seen from the following, from the Literary Digest on

"THE CONDITION OF LABOR IN JAPAN."

"Japan has made astonishing progress in the development of her industries. This is in no small measure due to the intelligence and the diligence of her laborers, who will often work fourteen hours per day without complaining. Unfortunately, their complaisance is abused to a great extent by their employers, whose only object seems to be to overcome foreign competition. This is specially the case in the cotton manufacture, which employs large numbers of hands. An article in the Echo, Berlin, describes the manner in which Japanese factories are run as follows:

"The usual time to begin work is 6 A.M., but the workmen are willing to come at any time, and do not complain if they are ordered to appear at 4 A.M. Wages are surprisingly low; even in the largest industrial centers weavers and spinners average only fifteen cents a day; women receive only six cents. The first factories were built by the government, which afterward turned them over to joint stock companies. The most prosperous industry is the manufacture of cotton goods. A single establishment, that of Kanegafuchi, employs 2,100 men and 3,700 women. They are divided into day and night shifts and interrupt their twelve hours' work only once, forty minutes, to take a meal. Near the establishment are lodgings, where the workers can also obtain a meal at the price of not quite one and a half cents. The Osaka spinneries are similar. All these establishments possess excellent English machines, work is kept going day and night, and large dividends are realized. Many of the factories are opening branch works, or increasing their original plant, for the production is not yet up to the consumption.

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"That the manufacturers have learned quickly to employ women as cheap competitors to male laborers is proved by the statistics, which show that thirty-five spinneries give work to 16,879 women and only 5,730 men. The employers form a powerful syndicate and often abuse the leniency of the authorities, who do not wish to cripple the industries. Little girls eight and nine years of age are forced to work from nine to twelve hours. The law requires that these children should be in school, and the teachers complain; but the officials close their eyes to these abuses. The great obedience and humility of the workmen have led to another practice, which places them completely in the power of their employers. No mill will employ a workman from another establishment unless he produces a written permit from his late employer. This rule is enforced so strictly that a new hand is closely watched, and if it is proved that he already knows something of the trade, but has no permit, he is immediately discharged."

The British Trade Journal also published an account of the industries of Osaka, from a letter of a correspondent of the Adelaide (Australian) Observer. This correspondent, writing directly from Osaka, is so impressed with the variety and vitality of the industries of the city that he calls it "The Manchester of the Far East:"

"Some idea of the magnitude of the manufacturing industry of Osaka will be formed when it is known that there are scores of factories with a capital of over 50,000 yen and under, more than thirty each with a capital of over 100,000 yen, four with more than 1,000,000 yen, and one with 2,000,000 yen. These include silk, wool, cotton, hemp, jute, spinning and weaving, carpets, matches, paper, leather, glass, bricks, cement, cutlery, furniture, umbrellas, tea, sugar, iron, copper, brass, sake, soap, brushes, combs, fancy ware, etc. It is, in fact, a great hive of activity and enterprise, in which the imitative genius and the unflagging pertinacity of the Japanese have set themselves to equal, and, if possible, excel, the workers and artisans of the old civilized nations of the West.

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"There are ten cotton mills running in Osaka, the combined capital of which is about $9,000,000 in gold, all fitted up with the latest machinery, and completely lighted by electricity. They are all under Japanese management, and, it is said, all paying handsome dividends, some as much as eighteen per cent. on the invested capital. Out of $19,000,000 worth of cotton imported into Japan in one year the mills of Kobe and Osaka took and worked up about seventy-nine per cent."

A silver "yen" is now worth about 50 cents in gold.

Note also the following telegram to the public press:

"SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., June 6.—The Hon. Robert P. Porter, editor of the Cleveland World and ex-superintendent of 1890 U. S. Census, returned from Japan on the steamer Peru, yesterday. Mr. Porter's visit to the empire of the Mikado was for the purpose of investigating the industrial conditions of that country with regard to the effect of Japanese competition upon American prosperity. After thorough investigation of the actual conditions in Japan, he expresses the belief that this is one of the most momentous problems which the United States will be obliged to solve. The danger is close at hand as evinced by the enormous increase of Japanese manufactures within the past five years, and its wonderful resources in the way of cheap and skillful labor. Japanese export of textiles alone have increased from $511,000 to $23,000,000 in the last ten years; and their total exports increased from $78,000,000 to $300,000,000 in the same period, said Mr. Porter. Last year they purchased $2,500,000 worth of our raw cotton, but we purchased of Japan various goods to the amount of $54,000,000.

"To illustrate the rapid increase he mentioned matches, of which Japan manufactured $60,000 worth ten years ago, chiefly for home consumption, while last year the total output was $4,700,000 worth, nearly all of which went to India. Ten years ago the exports of matting and rugs was $885 worth; last year these items amounted to $7,000,000 worth. They are enabled to do this by combination of modern machinery and the most docile labor in the world. They … can employ children at any age. Children, seven,

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eight and nine years of age work the whole day long at one to two American cents per day.

"In view of the growing demand for our cotton and the growth of their exports of manufactured goods to us, a Japanese syndicate was formed while I was there, with a capital stock of $5,000,000 to build and operate three new lines of steamships between Japan and this country, the American ports designated being Portland, Oregon, Philadelphia and New York."

The reporter saw and interviewed Mr. S. Asam, of Tokio, Japan, a representative of the above mentioned steamship syndicate, who arrived on the same steamer with Mr. Porter, to make contracts for building said steamers. He explained that the Japanese government had recently offered a large subsidy for vessels of over 6,000 tons burden, between the United States and Japan, and that their syndicate had formed to take advantage of the same, and would build all of its vessels still larger—of about 9,000 tons capacity. The syndicate proposed to do a very heavy business, and to this end would cut freight and passenger rates very low. A $9 passenger rate between Japan and our Pacific coast is contemplated.

U. S. CONGRESS INVESTIGATES JAPANESE COMPETITION.

The following, taken from a report of a U. S. Congressional Committee, should be considered reliable beyond question, and it fully confirms the foregoing:

"WASHINGTON, June 9, '96.—Chairman Dingley, of the House ways and means committee, to-day made a report on the menace to American manufacturers by the threatened invasion of the cheap products of Oriental labor and the effect of the difference of exchange between gold and silver standard countries upon United States' manufacturing and agricultural interests, these questions having been investigated by the committee.

"The report says the sudden awakening of Japan is being followed by an equally rapid westernizing of her

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methods of industry; that, while the Japanese do not have the inventive faculty of Americans, their imitative powers are wonderful. Their standard of living would be regarded as practical starvation by the workmen of the United States, and their hours of labor average 12 a day. Such skilled workmen as blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, compositors, tailors and plasterers receive in Japanese cities only from 26 to 33 cents, and factory operatives 5 to 20 cents per day in our money, and nearly double those sums in Japanese silver money, while farm hands receive $1.44 per month.

"The report continues: Europeans and Americans are recognizing the profitable field afforded for investment and factories. Sixty-one cotton mills controlled ostensibly by Japanese companies, but promoted by Europeans, and several small silk factories are in operation, with something over half a million spindles. Japan is making most of the cotton goods required to supply the narrow wants of her own people, and is beginning to export cheap silk fabrics and handkerchiefs.

"Recently, a watch factory with American machinery was established by Americans, although the stock is held in the names of Japanese, as foreigners will not be permitted to carry on manufacturing in their own names until 1899. The progress made indicates that the enterprise will prove a success.

"It is probable the rapid introduction of machinery into Japan will, within a few years, make fine cottons, silks and other articles in which the labor cost here is an important element in production, a more serious competitor in our markets than the products of Great Britain, France and Germany have been.

"According to Mr. Dingley, the competition will differ, not in kind, but in degree from European competition. The committee knows no remedy, outside of the absolute prohibition enforced against convict labor goods, except the imposition of duties on competing goods equivalent to the difference of cost and distribution. An argument for this policy is made; it being said to accomplish a double purpose, the collection of revenue to support the government and the placing of competition in our markets on the

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basis of our higher wages. This is said to be not for the benefit of the manufacturer in this country, for the manufacturer has only to go to England or Japan to place himself on the same basis as he is placed here under duties on competing imports equivalent to the difference of wages here and there, but to secure to all the people the benefits which come from home rather than foreign production."

The Japanese government gives no protection to foreign patents. The civilized world's most valuable labor-saving machinery is purchased and duplicated cheaply by her cheap craftsmen who, though not "original," are, like the Chinese, wonderful imitators. Thus her machinery will cost less than one half what it costs elsewhere; and Japan will soon be prepared to sell Christendom either its own patented machinery or its manufactured products.

Under the caption, "Japanese Competition," the San Francisco Chronicle wrote:

"Another straw showing which way the wind of Japanese competition blows is the transfer of a great straw matting manufactory from Milford, Ct., to Kobe, one of the industrial centers of Japan. Those who affect to pooh-pooh the subject of Japanese competition and airily speak of the superiority of Western intellect, entirely overlook the fact that the mobility of capital is such that it can easily be transferred to countries where cheap labor can be had, so that all that is necessary is for the superior intellects of America and Europe to invent machines, and the owners of capital can buy them and transfer them to countries where they can be operated most cheaply."

Hon. Robert P. Porter, referred to above, contributed an article to the North American Review some time ago in which he points out that, notwithstanding the United States tariff against foreign-made goods, the Japanese are rapidly making inroads upon United States manufactures. They can do this by reason (1) of their cheap and patient labor, and (2) by reason of the one hundred per cent. advantage of their silver standard over the gold standard of civilized

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countries, which far more than offsets any tariff protection that would be considered feasible.

We give some extracts from the article in question as follows:

"The Japanese have, metaphorically speaking, thrown their hats into the American market, and challenged our labor and capital with goods which, for excellence and cheapness, seem for the moment to defy competition, even with the latest labor-saving appliances at hand."

After giving a statistical table of various Japanese articles imported into the United States, he says:

"Within the last few months I have visited the districts in Japan and inspected the industries reported in the above table. The increase in the exports of textiles, which was over forty-fold in ten years, is due to the fact that Japan is a nation of weavers."

The Japanese, it seems, are sending large quantities of cheap silks and all kinds of cheap goods into America, but what they have done is as nothing to what they are about to do:

"The Japanese are making every preparation, by the formation of guilds and associations, to improve the quality and increase the uniformity of their goods."

Incidentally Mr. Porter intimated that the cotton mills of Lancashire, England, which have no protection, are doomed. In Japan, he says:

"Cotton spinning in 1889 gave employment to only 5,394 women and 2,539 men. In 1895 over 30,000 women and 10,000 men were employed in mills that for equipment and output are equal to those of any country. The future situation of the cotton industry, at least to supply the Asiatic trade, is bound to be in China and Japan. England is doomed so far as this trade is concerned, and nothing can save her—not even bimetallism, as some imagine. Cotton mills are going up rapidly, both in Osaka and Shanghai, and only actual experience for a period of years will demonstrate which of these locations is the better.

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My own judgment, after a close examination of every item in the cost of production, is Japan.

"Should Japan take up the manufacture of woollen and worsted goods as she has done cotton, her weavers could give Europe and America some surprises and dumbfound those who claim there is nothing in Japanese competition. A constant supply of cheap wool from Australia makes it possible, while the samples of Japanese woolen and worsted cloth and dress goods which I examined while there indicate that in this branch of textiles the Japanese are as much at home as in silk and cotton. They are also doing good work in fine linens, though so far the quantities produced are small.

"The sudden influx of the Japanese umbrella, something like 2,000,000 exported a year, has caused anxiety among umbrella makers in the United States."

The Japanese themselves do not hesitate to boast of their approaching triumph in the "industrial war." Mr. Porter said:

"When in Japan I had the pleasure of meeting, among other statesmen and officials, Mr. Kaneko, Vice-Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. I found him a man with intelligence and foresight, and of wide experience in economical and statistical matters. Educated in one of the great European universities, he is up to the spirit of the age in all that relates to Japan and her industrial and commercial future."

Mr. Kaneko afterwards made a speech to a Chamber of Commerce, in which he said:

"The cotton spinners of Manchester [England] are known to have said that while the Anglo-Saxons had passed through three generations before they became clever and apt hands for the spinning of cotton, the Japanese have acquired the necessary skill in this industry in ten years' time, and have now advanced to a stage where they surpass the Manchester people in skill."

A dispatch from San Francisco we quote as follows:

"M. Oshima, technical director of the proposed steel works in Japan, and four Japanese engineers, arrived on

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the steamer Rio de Janeiro from Yokohama. They are on a tour of inspection of the great steel works of America and Europe, and are commissioned to buy a plant costing $2,000,000. They say they will buy just where they can buy the best and cheapest. The plant is to have a capacity of 100,000 tons. It will be built in the coal fields in Southern Japan, and both Martin and Bessemer steel are to be manufactured.

"Mr. Oshima said: 'We want to put our nation where it properly belongs, in the van, as a manufacturing nation. We will need a vast amount of steel and do not want to depend on any other country for it.'"

Marching closely behind Japan comes India, with its population of 250,000,000, and its rapidly growing industries; and next comes the new Chinese Republic, with its 400,000,000, awakened by its recent rebellion to a recognition of Western civilization, which enabled Japan with only 40,000,000 to conquer it. China's late Prime Minister, Li Hung Chang, some years ago toured the world, negotiating for American and European instructors for his people, and freely expressed his intention to inaugurate reforms in every department. This is the man who so impressed General U. S. Grant on his tour of the world, and whom he declared, in his judgment, one of the most able statesmen in the world.

The significance of this bringing together of the ends of the earth is that British, American, German and French manufacturers are to have shortly as competitors people who, until recently, were excellent customers; competitors whose superior facilities will soon not only drive them out of foreign markets, but invade their own home markets; competitors who will thus take labor out of the hands of their workmen, and deprive them of luxuries, and even take the bread out of their mouths by reason of wage competition. No wonder, in view of this, that the German Emperor pictured the nations of Europe appalled by a

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specter rising in the Orient and threatening the destruction of civilization.

But it cannot be checked. It is a part of the inevitable, for it operates under the law of Supply and Demand which says, Buy the best you can obtain at the lowest possible price—labor as well as merchandise. The only thing that can and will cut short and stop the pressure now begun, and which must grow more severe so long as the law of selfishness continues, is the remedy which God has provided, the Kingdom of God with its new law and complete reorganization of society on the basis of love and equity.

If the people of Europe and America have had the whole world for customers, not only for fabrics but also for machinery, and yet have gotten to a place where the supply is greater than the demand, and where millions of their population seek employment in vain, even at low wages, what is their prospect for the near future when more than double the present number will be competitors? The natural increase will also add to the dilemma. Nor would this outlook be so unfavorable, so hopelessly dark, were it not for the fact that these nearly seven hundred millions of new competitors are the most tractable, patient and economical people to be found in the world. If European and American workmen can be controlled by Capital, much more can these who have never known anything else than obedience to masters.

THE LABOR OUTLOOK IN ENGLAND.

Mr. Justin McCarthy, well known English writer, in an article in Cosmopolis, once declared:

"The evils of pauperism and lack of employment ought to strike more terror to the heart of England than any alarm about foreign invasion. But English statesmanship has never taken that error seriously, or even long troubled

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about it. Even the one trouble caused by disputes between employers and workingmen, the strike on the one hand and the lock-out on the other, has been allowed to go on without any real attempt at legislative remedy. The reason is that any subject is allowed to engross our attention rather than that of the condition of our own people."

Keir Hardie (Member of Parliament and Labor Leader) in an interview some years ago is reported to have said:

"Trades-unionism is in a bad way in England. I sometimes fear that it is practically dead. We workingmen are learning that capital can use its money in organization, and by using it beat us. Manufacturers have learned a way of beating the men and the men are helpless. Trades unions have not won an important strike in London in a long time. Many of the once big unions are powerless. This is especially true of the dockers. You remember the great dock strike? Well, it killed the union that made it, and did not help the men at all. The trades-union situation in London is distressing.

"The Independent Labor Party is socialistic. We shall be satisfied with nothing but Socialism, municipal Socialism, national Socialism, industrial Socialism. We know what we want, and we all want it. We do not want to fight for it, but if we cannot get it in any other way we will fight for it, and when we fight we shall fight with determination. The avowed object of the Independent Labor Party is to bring about an industrial commonwealth, founded on the socialization of land and industrial capital. We believe that the natural political divisions must be on economical lines.

"Of the wrongs of the present system, I should say that the greatest single oppression upon British workingmen is the irregularity and uncertainty of employment. You may be aware that I have made this question a specialty, and know that I am speaking facts when I say that in the British islands there are over 1,000,000 able-bodied adult workers, who are neither drunkards, loafers nor of less than average intelligence, but who are still out of employment through no fault of their own, and utterly unable to get work. Wages appear to be higher than they

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were half a century ago, but when the loss of time through lack of employment is taken into consideration it is found that the condition of the worker has really retrograded. A small, steady wage produces greater comfort than a larger sum earned irregularly. If the right to earn a living wage were secured to every worker, most of the questions which vex us would be solved by natural process. The situation is surely melancholy. During the recent dreadful cold weather relief works were opened at which men could have four hours' work at sweeping the streets, at 6 pence an hour. Thousands gathered outside the yard gates as early as 4 A.M. in order to be at the front of the line. There they stood, shivering and shaking in the cold, half-starved and filled with despair, until 8 A.M., when the yards were opened. The rush which followed was little less than a riot. Men were literally trampled to death in that horrible scramble for the opportunity to earn 2 shillings (48 cents). The place was wrecked. Hungry men in a solid mass, pushed on by thousands in the rear, crushed the walls and gates in their anxiety to find employment. These men were no loafers.

"The average wage of unskilled labor in London, even when it keeps up to the trades-union standard, is only 6 pence an hour. In the provinces it is less. Careful study has shown that nothing under 3 guineas a week will enable the average family (two adults and three children) to enjoy common comfort, not to mention luxuries. Very few workers in England receive this sum or anything like it. That skilled workman is fortunate who gets 2 guineas a week the year round, and that laborer is lucky who manages to earn 24 shillings ($5.84) in the course of each seven days, one-third of which must go for rent. So in the best-paid classes of workers the family can only keep itself at the poverty line. A very short period of enforced idleness is invariably sufficient to drag them below it. Hence our vast number of paupers.

"London contains now over 4,300,000 persons. Sixty thousand families (300,000 persons) average a weekly income per family of less than 18 shillings a week, and live in a state of chronic want. One in every eight of the total population of London dies in the workhouse or in the

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workhouse infirmary. One in every sixteen of the present population of London is at the present moment a recognized pauper. Every day 43,000 children attend the board schools, having gone without breakfast. Thirty thousand persons have no homes other than the 4-penny lodging houses or the casual ward."

The foregoing statistics show that a few years would be ample allowance for the development of this competition. Thus the Almighty is bringing the masses of all nations, gradually, to a realization of the fact that soon or later the interests of one must be the interests of the other, that each must be his brother's keeper if he would preserve his own welfare.

Nor is it wise or just to denounce Capital for doing the very same thing that Labor does and has always done, seeking its own advantage. Indeed, we can all see that some of the poor are equally as selfish at heart as some of the rich; we can even imagine that if some now poor were given the positions of the wealthy, they would be more severely exacting and less generous than their present masters. Let us not, therefore, hate and denounce the rich, but instead hate and denounce the selfishness general and particular which is responsible for present conditions and evils. And, thoroughly abhorring selfishness, let each resolve that by the Lord's grace he will mortify (kill) his own inherent selfishness, daily, and more and more cultivate the opposite quality of love, and thus be conformed to the image of God's dear Son, our Savior and Lord.

HON. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN'S PROPHETIC WORDS TO BRITISH WORKMEN.

Note the views of Joseph Chamberlain, once Colonial Secretary of Great Britain, and one of the shrewdest statesmen of our day. In receiving a deputation of unemployed

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shoemakers who came to advocate municipal workshops, he showed them clearly that what they wanted would not really aid them, except temporarily; that such shops would merely oversupply the demand and throw others, now doing fairly well, out of work, and that the true policy would be to cultivate trade with the outside world, and thus find customers for more boots, which would speedily bring a demand for their services. He said:

"What you want to do is not to change the shop in which the boots are made, but to increase the demand for boots. If you can get some new demand for boots, not only those who are now working but those out of employment may find employment. That should be our great object. In addition to the special point before me, you must remember that, speaking generally, the great cure for this difficulty of want of employment is to find new markets. We are pressed out of the old markets (out of the neutral markets which used to be supplied by Great Britain) by foreign competition. At the same time, foreign Governments absolutely exclude our goods from their own markets, and unless we can increase the markets which are under our control, or find new ones, this question of want of employment, already a very serious one, will become one of the greatest possible magnitude, and I see the gravest reasons for anxiety as to the complications which may possibly ensue. I put the matter before you in these general terms; but I beg you, when you hear criticisms upon the conduct of this Government or of that, of this Commander or of that Commander, in expanding the British Empire, I beg you to bear in mind that it is not a Jingo question, which sometimes you are induced to believe—it is not a question of unreasonable aggression, but it is really a question of continuing to do that which the English people have always done—to extend their markets and relations with the waste places of the earth; and unless that is done, and done continuously, I am certain that, grave as are the evils now, we shall have at no distant time to meet much more serious consequences."

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NATIONAL AGGRESSION AS RELATED TO INDUSTRIAL INTERESTS.

Here we have the secret of British aggression and empire-expansion. It is not prompted merely by a desire to give other nations wiser rulers and better governments, nor merely by a love of acreage and power: it is done as a part of the war of trade, the "industrial war." Nations are conquered, not to pillage them as of old, but to serve them—to secure their trade. In this warfare Great Britain has been most successful; and, in consequence, her wealth is enormous, and is invested far and near. The first nation to have an oversupply, she first sought foreign markets, and for a long time was the cotton and iron factory of the world outside of Europe. The mechanical awakening which followed the United States civil war in 1865 made this land for a time the center of the world's attention and business. The mechanical awakening spread to all civilized nations turned their attention to finding outside demand. This is the foreign competition to which Mr. Chamberlain refers. All statesmen see what he points out; namely, that the markets of the world are fast being stocked, and that machinery and civilization are rapidly hastening the time when there will be no more outside markets. And as he wisely declared, "grave as are the evils now, we shall have at no distant time to meet much more serious consequences."

In 1896, Mr. Chamberlain, as Colonial Secretary for the British Empire, had in London delegates from the British Colonies who had come thousands of miles to confer with him and each other respecting the best means of meeting industrial competition. Ever since Great Britain found that her workshops produced more wares than her population could consume, and that she must seek her market abroad, she has been the advocate of Free Trade,

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and, of course, has kept her colonies as near to her free trade policy as practicable without force. This conference was with a view to an arrangement by which Great Britain and her many colonies might erect a protective tariff wall about themselves to measurably shut out the competition of the United States, Germany, France and Japan.

The conquests of France, Italy and Great Britain in Africa meant the same thing; that they feel the commercial warfare severely, and see it increasing and would, perforce, have some markets under their control. The following press dispatch is in evidence on this subject:

"WASHINGTON, June 9, '96.—Taking as his starting point the official announcement of the annexation by France of Timbuctoo, the principal place in the Djallon country, a district larger than the state of Pennsylvania and quite as fertile, United States' Consul Strickland, at Goree-Dakar, has made a most interesting report to the State Department upon the dangers threatening United States' trade with Africa, owing to the rapid extension of the colonial possessions of the European nations. He shows how the French, by the imposition of a discriminating duty of 7 per cent. against foreign goods, have monopolized the markets of the French colonies, and have thus crushed out the lucrative and growing trade which the United States already enjoyed in that part of the world. He says that the process has now begun of fortifying perhaps the whole continent of Africa against us by protective tariffs; for, if one nation can even now do it with effect, the remainder will in time have to in order to equalize things among them."

Truly, men's hearts are failing them for fear and for looking forward to those things coming upon the earth [society]; and they are preparing, as best they can, for what they see coming.

But let no one suppose for a moment that the aforesaid "expanding of the British Empire" and the other empires of the earth, and the general war for trade, are inaugurated

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or sustained solely for the purpose of supplying British, Italian and French workmen with employment. Not at all! The workman is merely an incidental. It is chiefly to enable British capitalists to find new fields wherein to garner profits, and to "heap together riches for the last days"—James 5:3.

THE SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL WAR IN GERMANY.

Herr Liebknecht, leader of the Social Democratic party in the German Reichstag, who visited Great Britain in July, 1896, submitted to an interview for the columns of the London Daily Chronicle, from which we extract the following:

"'Our Social Democratic party is the strongest single party in the German Parliament. At the last election we polled 1,880,000 votes. We are expecting a dissolution on the question of expenditure on a great fleet, which the Reichstag will not sanction. At that election we look forward to polling another million votes.'

"'Then jingoism is not very strong in Germany?'

"'Jingoism does not exist in Germany. Of all the people in Europe, the Germans are the most sick of militarism. We Socialists are at the head of the movement against it.'

"'And do you think this movement against militarism is extending throughout Europe?'

"'I am sure of it. In the Parliaments of France, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Denmark the Socialist Deputies (and we have a good many in each) are fighting it to the death. When the International Congress takes place this year in London, all the Socialist Deputies present will hold a meeting for the purpose of arranging for common action. As for Germany, it is being totally ruined by its military system. We are a new country. Our manufacturers are all young, and if we have to compete with England'——

"'Then you, too, have a cry about foreign competition?'

"'Of course we have, only to us it is something very real. We have, as I will show you, no liberty of the Press and no liberty of public meeting. You, on the contrary,

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have both, and that is how I account for the fact that the present economic system is more deeply and firmly rooted in England than anywhere else; and, above all, we have the doctrine of the divine right of kings to contend against, and you English found out two hundred years ago that the divine right of kings and political liberty for the people could not exist together.'

"'Then you look for great changes before long?'

"'I do. The present system in Germany is causing such discontent that they must come.'

"'And now can you tell me anything about the economic position of Germany? You have an agrarian question there, as we have here.'

"'We have in Germany five million peasant proprietors, and they are all going to ruin as fast as they can. Every one of them—and I use the word advisedly—is mortgaged up to and beyond the full value of his holding. Our peasantry live on bread made from a mixture of rye and oats. In fact, food of all kinds is cheaper in England than in Germany.'

"'And your manufactures?'

"'As a manufacturing country we are only just beginning. Our present industrial system only dates from 1850, but already its results are becoming far greater than in your country. We are being rapidly divided into two classes—the proletarians, and the capitalists and land-owners. Our middle classes are being literally wiped out by the economic conditions that obtain. They are being driven down into the working classes, and to that more than to anything else I attribute the extraordinary success of our party.

"'You must remember that we have not two sharply-defined parties, as you have in England. We Social Democrats work with any party, if we can get anything for ourselves. We have only three great parties: the others may be disregarded. There is our party, the Conservatives and the Catholic Center party. Our Conservatives are very different from yours. They want to go back to feudalism and reaction of the worst type. Economic conditions are splitting up the Center party, and part will come over to us and the rest go to the Conservatives. And then we shall see what will happen.'

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"Herr Liebknecht gave the history of the Socialist movement. The rapidity of the growth of Social Democracy in Germany was caused by the newness of industrial commercialism in that country, and the fierce competition which Germany had had to face to keep pace with England and France in the struggle for commercial supremacy."

It will be noticed that the questions recognized by this able man as those which press upon the people and are causing the distress and the division of the people into two classes—the poor and the rich—are thus clearly stated as being (1) the Agrarian or land question, especially affecting agriculturists; (2) the Economic question, or the money question, including the relationship between Capital and Labor; (3) the Industrial question, or question of finding profitable employment for mechanics,—related to foreign and home competition, supply and demand, etc. These are the same questions which are perplexing every civilized nation, and preparing for the approaching world-wide trouble—revolution, anarchy—preparatory for the Millennial Kingdom.

Herr Liebknecht was a delegate to the Trades Union Congress (London, July, '96). At that Convention the following resolution was passed:

"That this international meeting of workers (recognizing that peace between the nations of the world is an essential foundation of international brotherhood and human progress, and believing that wars are not desired by the peoples of the earth, but are caused by the greed and selfishness of the ruling and privileged classes with the single view to obtain the control of the markets of the world in their own interests and against all the real interests of the workers), hereby declares that between the workers of different nationalities there is absolutely no quarrel, and that their one common enemy is the capitalist and landlord class, and the only way of preventing wars and ensuring peace is the abolition of the capitalist and landlord system of society in which wars have their root, and it therefore

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pledges itself to work for the only way in which that system can be overthrown—the socialization of the means of production, distribution and exchange; it further declares that till this is accomplished every dispute between nations should be settled by arbitration instead of by the brutality of the force of arms; further, this meeting recognizes that the establishment of an International Eight Hours Day for all workers is the most immediate step towards their ultimate emancipation, and urges upon the Governments of all countries the necessity of having a working day of eight hours by legal enactment; and, further, considering that the working class can only bring about their economic and social emancipation by their taking over the political machinery of to-day in the hands of the capitalist class; and, considering that in all countries large numbers of workingmen and all working women do not possess the vote and cannot take part in political action, this meeting of workers declares for and pledges itself to use every endeavor to obtain universal suffrage."

HUMANITY ATTACKED FROM STILL ANOTHER QUARTER. GIANTS IN THESE DAYS.

Another result of competition has been the organization of large corporations for commerce and manufacturing. These are important elements in preparation for the coming "fire." Before these giant corporations the small shops and stores are being rapidly crowded out, because they can neither buy nor sell as profitably as can the large concerns. These large concerns, in turn, being able to do more business than there is for them, are forming combinations, called Trusts. These, originally organized to prevent competition from destroying all but the largest of its kind, are found to work very satisfactorily to those whose capital and management they represent; and the plan is spreading, the Great Republic leading the world in this direction. Notice the following list published in the New York World, Sept. 2, '96, under the caption, "The Growth of Trusts."

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"LIST OF 139 COMBINATIONS TO REGULATE PRODUCTION, FIX PRICES, MONOPOLIZE TRADE AND ROB THE PEOPLE IN DEFIANCE OF LAW."

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The same issue of the same journal notes the power and tendency of one of these trusts in the following editorial, under the caption, "What the Coal Advance Means:"

"The addition of $1.50 to the price of every ton of anthracite coal means that the eleven members of the Coal Trust will pocket not less than fifty and perhaps more than sixty millions of dollars. On the basis of last fall's competition and resulting fair prices, this money rightfully belongs to those who use coal.

* Estimated.

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"The enormous addition to the cost of coal means that many manufacturers who were going to start again this fall cannot do so because they cannot add such a large item to the cost of their product and still compete with those who get coal at natural prices. It means that many manufacturers will cut wages to make up for this increase in the cost of production. It means that every householder of moderate means will pinch on some modest luxury or comfort. He must buy coal, and as the officers he has helped to elect will not enforce the law, he must pay the trust's prices. It means finally that the poor will have to buy less coal. The old prices were hard enough. The new prices are sharply restrictive. And so the poor must shiver in the coming winter.

"On the one side is more luxury for a few. On the other side is discomfort, and in thousands of cases positive misery, for the many. Between the two is the broken and dishonored law."

Take another illustration of the power of trusts: In the Spring of 1895 the Cotton Tie Trust was formed. (The cotton tie is a plain band of iron used in baling cotton.) The price at that time was seventy cents a hundred. The following year the trust concluded that it would make a little extra profit, and advanced the price to $1.40 per hundred—so near the time for baling cotton that foreign ties could not be imported in season.

All trusts have not similarly abused their power; possibly favorable opportunities have not yet been offered to all; but no one will dispute that "the common people," the masses, are in serious danger of injury at the hands of such giant corporations. All know what to fear from power and selfishness in an individual, and these "giant" trusts not only have immensely more power and influence than individuals, but in addition, they have no consciences. It has become a proverb that "Corporations have no souls."

We clip the following dispatch to the Pittsburg Post in illustration of

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THE PROFITS OF TRUSTS.

"NEW YORK, Nov. 5, '96.—The liquidating trustees of the Standard Oil Trust met to-day and declared the regular quarterly dividend of $3 per share and $2 per share additional, payable December 15. The total original issue of Standard Oil Trust certificates was $97,250,000. During the fiscal year just closing there has been 31 per cent. in dividends declared, making a total distribution of earnings amounting to $30,149,500. During the same period the American Sugar Refining Company, known as the sugar trust, has paid $7,023,920 in dividends. In addition to these payments of earnings to stockholders, the trust is said to have a surplus in raw sugar, bills receivable and cash amounting to about $30,000,000."

The same journal, subsequently, said editorially as follows:

"The Wire Nail Trust was probably one of the most rascally combinations to plunder and extort money from the people that was ever gotten up in this country. It defied the laws, bribed, bullied and ruined competitors, and ruled the trade with autocratic powers. Having done this, and advanced prices from two hundred to three hundred per cent., it divided millions among its members. No anarchy here, of course. In fact, it is the anarchists who protest against such robbery and defiance of law. So at least thinks Mr. A. C. Faust, of New Jersey, of the nail trust, who writes the World that its exposures of the enormities of the trust 'feed the flame of popular discontent.' This is getting things down to a fine point. The illegal and plundering trusts are to be allowed free sway, and attempts to hold them in check are not to be tolerated because 'they feed the flame of popular discontent.' On one side we have the people of the country, and on the other the licensed robbers, the trusts, But there must be no exposures or protest, or the 'flame of popular discontent' will make it hard for the trusts. Could impudence and arrogance go further?

"The Coal Trust in the anthracite product is now plundering the people at the rate of fifty million dollars a year by an advanced price of $1.50 per ton. Rev. Dr. Parkhurst

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paid his respects the other day to this particular band in these words: 'If the coal companies or coal combines or coal trusts use their power to the end of draining off into their own treasury as much of the poor man's money as they can or dare, to the impoverishment of the poor, to the reduction of their comfort and to the sapping of the currents of health and life, then such companies are

POSSESSED OF THE DEMON OF THEFT AND MURDER.

And this is no more applicable to dealers in coal than to the dealers in any other commodity.'

"While Rev. Dr. Parkhurst was denouncing them as 'possessed by the demon of theft and murder,' another New York preacher, Rev. Dr. Heber Newton, to velvet pews and a millionaire flock, praised the trusts as a necessary and beneficent part of our advancing civilization."

Anent the sudden drop in the price of steel rails from $27 to $15 per ton the Allegheny Evening Record said:

"The great 'Steel Pool,' formed to keep up prices, is practically smashed. This gigantic combination of capital and power, made to control the output of one of the greatest industries of America, to run prices up or down by its simple mandate, to tax consumers at its pleasure, and to the limit of expediency, is to be devoured by a combination still more gigantic, still more powerful, still more wealthy. Rockefeller and Carnegie have seized the steel industry of America. The event is epochal. The cut in the price of steel rails from $25 to $17 a ton, the lowest figure at which they have ever been sold, marks an era in the country's economy. So far it is a case of trust eat trust, and the railroads are the gainers.

"It is safe to say that neither Mr. Rockefeller nor Mr. Carnegie has been led into their great enterprise by any considerations of sentiment for the public. They saw a chance to crush competition and they took advantage of it. They now own the most remarkable source of supply in the world, the Mesaba range, above Duluth, described as a region where it is not necessary to delve at vast expense, but merely to scoop the ore off the surface. Rockefeller has strengthened his advantage in securing this source of supply by building a fleet of barges of immense capacity

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to carry his raw material to the docks of Lake Erie. When he completed his cycle by the alliance with Carnegie, with his furnaces and mills, he had the 'Railmakers' Association' at his mercy. The whole affair has been carried out by a masterly combining of existing facilities. The present result, at least, is a benefit to great numbers of people. Whether Messrs. Rockefeller and Carnegie, having gotten this vast power into their hands, will be content to reap reasonable profits and let the public benefit, or will, once having crushed their opponents, use this power for ruthless extortion, is a grave problem. The fact that they have the power is a menace in itself."

The following item was circulated widely at the time, but is worthy of notice here in considering this subject:

"KANSAS CITY, Mo., Nov. 26, '96.—Ex-Governor David R. Francis, now Secretary of the Interior, sent the following letter to a little party of gold standard men who held a banquet at the Midland Hotel last night:—

Department of the Interior,

Washington, D. C., Nov. 19, 1896.

"Gentlemen:—I have just received your invitation of the 25th, and regret I cannot attend the ratification of the sound money victory this evening. … If some legislation is not enacted to check the growing influence of wealth and to circumscribe the powers of the trusts and monopolies, there will be an uprising of the people before the close of the century which will endanger our very institutions.

DAVID R. FRANCIS."

The following was clipped from the London Spectator:

"We have in our hands a decision by Judge Russell, of the New York Supreme Court, which shows the extent to which the 'Trust' system, or system of using capital to create monopolies, is pushed in the United States. A National Wholesale Druggists' Association has been formed which includes almost every large drug-dealer in the Union, and which fixes the price of drugs. If any private dealer undersells the Association the latter warns the whole trade by circular not to deal with him, and as a rule succeeds in ruining the business of the refractory firm. John D. Park and Sons' Company resolved to resist the dictation, and

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applied for an injunction, which was refused in the particular instance, but granted as a general principle, all men being enjoined to abstain from 'conspiring' to enforce 'a restraint of trade.' The case is an extreme one, because it is clear that a Trust of the kind is, or may be, playing with human life. It does not matter much if they raise the price of patent medicines, which seems to have been the specific grievance, to a guinea a drop; but suppose they put drugs like quinine, opium, or the aperients out of the reach of the poor. It will be remembered that Mr. Bryan's followers place the Trust system in the forefront of their charges against capital, and cases like this give them an argumentative foothold."

TRUSTS IN ENGLAND.

Although trusts may be termed an American invention, we quote the following from the London Spectator showing that they are not exclusively American. The writer says:

"Trusts are beginning to take possession of some of our British trades. At the present time there exists, with its headquarters in Birmingham, a combination or trust in the metallic bedstead trade throughout Great Britain, which is so cleverly arranged that it is practically impossible for any outsider to start making brass or iron bedsteads unless he joins the combination, and even then he has to sue for admittance, which will probably be denied him. If, however, he tried to start independently of it, he would be unable to buy his raw material or get any workmen used to the trade, as all the makers of iron and brass for bedsteads have agreed to supply the combination only, and the workmen are all pledged by their Union to work only for makers belonging to it. Consumers have therefore to look to foreign competition alone if prices are to be kept down. This bedstead trust is at present successful, hence many other local trades are now emulating its example."

Controlling capital of hundreds of millions of dollars, these combinations or trusts are indeed giants; and if

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matters continue for a few years, as they have during the past twenty, they will soon control the world with the financial lever. Soon they will have the power, not only to dictate the prices of the goods consumed by the world, but, being the chief employers of labor, they will have the control of wages.

True, these combinations of capital have in the past accomplished great enterprises which single individuals could not have accomplished so quickly or so well. Indeed, private corporative enterprise has taken and successfully carried risks which the public would have condemned and defeated if undertaken by the government. We are not to be understood as holding up vast accumulations of capital to wholesale condemnation; but we are pointing out that every year's experience not only adds largely to their financial power, but also to their sagacity, and that we are rapidly nearing the point where the people's interests and very liberties are threatened, if indeed we are not already there. Everybody says, Something must be done! but what to do nobody knows. The fact is, mankind is helplessly at the mercy of these giant outgrowths of the present selfish social system, and the only hope is in God.

True, also, these giants are usually headed by men of ability who thus far generally seem disposed to use their power in moderation. Nevertheless, the power is being concentrated; and the ability, guided in the main by selfishness, will be likely from time to time to tighten the screws upon their servants and the public as opportunities permit and circumstances favor.

These giants threaten the human family now as literal giants threatened it over four thousand years ago. Those giants were "men of renown"—men of wonderful ability and sagacity, above the fallen Adamic race—they were a hybrid race, the result of a new vitality united to the

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Adamic stock.* So with these modern corporate giants: they are great, powerful and cunning, to an extent which discourages the thought of their being conquered without divine interference. Their marvelous powers have never yet been fully called into service. These giants, too, are hybrid: they are begotten by a wisdom that owes its existence to Christian civilization and enlightenment acting in combination with the selfish hearts of fallen men.

But man's necessity and God's opportunity are simultaneously drawing near; and as the giants of "the world that was before the flood" were swept away in the flood of waters, so these corporative giants are to be swept away in the coming flood of fire—the symbolic "fire of God's jealousy" or indignation, already kindling; "a time of trouble such as was not since there was a nation." In that "fire" will be consumed all the giants of vice and selfishness; they will fall, and will never rise again—Is. 26:13, 14; Zeph. 3:8, 9.

BARBARIC SLAVERY VERSUS CIVILIZED BONDAGE.

Contrast for a moment the past with the present and future, respecting the supply of labor and the demand for it. It is only within the last century that the slave trade has been generally broken up and slavery abolished. At one time it was general, but it gradually merged into serfdom throughout Europe and Asia. Slavery was abolished in Great Britain no longer ago than the year 1838, the general government paying to the slave-holders the sum of £20,000,000, or nearly $100,000,000 indemnity. France emancipated her slaves in 1848. In the United States slavery continued in the southern states until 1863. It

* Gen. 6:4—Further reading matter on this subject FREE on application to the publisher.

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cannot be denied that Christian voices and Christian pens had much to do with putting a stop to human slavery; but, on the other hand, it should be noticed that the changing conditions of the labor market of the world helped to give the majority a new view of the matter, and with the indemnity fund helped to reconcile the slave owners to the new order of things. Christian voices and pens merely hastened the abolition of slavery; but it would have come later, anyway.

Slavery dies a natural death under the modern selfish competitive system backed by mechanical inventions and the growth of population. Aside entirely from moral and religious considerations, it would now be impossible to make slavery general in populous, civilized countries: it would not pay financially. (1) Because machinery has, to a large degree, taken the place of non-intelligent, as well as of intelligent, labor. (2) Because an intelligent servant can do more and better work than an unintelligent one. (3) Because to civilize and even slightly educate slaves would make their services cost more than free labor; besides which the more intelligent and efficient slaves would be more difficult to control and use profitably than those nominally free, but bound hand and foot by necessity. In a word, the worldly-wise have learned that wars for spoils of enemies, and for slaves, are less profitable than wars of commercial competition whose results are better, as well as larger; and that the free "slaves of necessity" are the cheaper and more capable ones.

If already free, intelligent labor is cheaper than ignorant slave-labor, and if the whole world is waking up in intelligence, as well as rapidly increasing in numbers, it is evident that the present social system is as certain to work its own destruction as would an engine under a full head of steam and without a check or governor.

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Since society is at present organized upon the principle of supply and demand, there is no check, no governor, upon the world's selfish competition. The entire structure is built upon that principle: the selfish pressure, the force pressing society downward, grows stronger and stronger daily. With the masses matters will continue thus, to press down lower and lower, step by step, until the social collapse in anarchy is realized.

HUMANITY BETWEEN THE UPPER AND NETHER MILLSTONES.

It is becoming more and more manifest to the masses of men that in the present order of things they are between a nether and an upper millstone whose rapid revolutions must eventually, and at no distant date, grind them down to a miserable and ignoble serfdom, unless interfered with in some way. Such, indeed, is the actual condition of things: human necessity is the feed-pipe which presses the masses between the millstones; the lower millstone is the fixed law of supply and demand which is crowding the rapidly increasing and growingly intelligent population of the world closer and closer to the pressure of the upper millstone of organized selfishness, driven by the giant power of mechanical slaves, assisted by the cogs and levers and pulleys of financial combinations, trusts and monopolies. (It is pertinent, that the Bureau of Statistics at Berlin estimated in 1887 that the steam engines (power slaves) then at work in the world represented approximately one thousand million men, or three times the working population of the earth; and the steam and electric powers have probably more than doubled since then. Yet these engines are nearly all in civilized lands, whose populations represent only about one-fifth of the total.) Another part of the driving power of the upper millstone is its fly-wheel, ponderous

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with the weight of concentrated and hitherto undreamed of wealth and selfishly quickened and trained brain power. As partially illustrating the result of the grinding process, we note a report that in London, Eng., there were 938,293 poor, 316,834 very poor and 37,610 of the most destitute—a total of 1,292,737, or nearly one-third of the population of the greatest city in the world living in poverty. Official figures for Scotland have shown that one-third of the families lived in one room, and more than one-third in only two rooms; that in the city of New York during a severe winter 21,000 men, women and children were evicted because unable to pay their rent; and that in a single year 3,819 of its inhabitants were buried in the "potter's field," too poor to either live or die decently. This, remember, in the very city which has already been shown to number among its citizens thousands of millionaires.

A writer in The American Magazine of Civics, Mr. J. A. Collins, once discussed the subject of Decadence of American Home Ownership, in the light of the U. S. census. At the outset he tells us to be prepared for startling facts, and for threatening and dangerous indications. We quote as follows:

"A few decades ago the great bulk of the population was made up of home-owners, and their homes were practically free from incumbrance; to-day the vast bulk of the population are tenants."

Since the occupant of a mortgaged home is virtually but a tenant of the mortgagee, he finds 84 per cent. of the families of this nation virtually tenants, and adds:

"Think of this startling result having been produced in so short a time, with the vast domain of free lands in the West open to settlers, with the great fields of industry open and offering employment at good pay; and then consider what is to be the result with the great West all occupied,

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or its lands all monopolized, a population increased by the addition of millions, both by natural increase and by immigration, the mineral lands and mines controlled by syndicates of foreign capital; the transportation system controlled in the interest of a few millionaire owners; the manufactures operated by great corporations in their own interest; with the public lands exhausted, and the home sites monopolized and held by speculators beyond the reach of the industrial masses."

Comparing these figures with European statistics, Mr. Collins concludes that conditions under the greatest Republic on earth are less favorable than in Europe, except the richest and most enlightened there—Great Britain. But Mr. Collins' figures are misleading unless it be remembered that thousands of these mortgaged homes are owned by young people (who in Europe would live with their parents) and by immigrants who buy on the "installment plan." The bare truth, however, is bad enough. With the increasing pressure of the times few of the present many mortgages will ever be cleared off, except by the sheriff.

Few probably realize how very cheaply human strength and time are sometimes sold; and those who realize it know not how to remedy the evil, and are busy avoiding its clutches themselves. In all large cities of the world there are thousands known as "sweaters," who work harder and for longer hours for the bare necessities of life, than did the majority of the southern slaves. Nominally they have their liberty, but actually they are slaves, the slaves of necessity, having liberty to will, but little liberty to do, for themselves or others.

We clip the following from the (Pittsburgh) Presbyterian Banner on this subject:

"The sweater system had its birth and growth in foreign lands before it was transplanted to American soil, bringing its curse with it. It is not confined to the departments of

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ready-made clothing, but it includes all others which are worked by a middleman. The middleman or contractor engages to procure goods for the merchant at a certain price, and in order to supply the great buying public with bargains and at the same time give the dealer and the middleman their profits, this price must be fixed at a low rate, and the poor workmen must suffer.

"In England almost every business is worked on this basis. The boot and shoe trade, the fur trade, the cabinet and upholstery trade, and many others, have come within the scope of the middleman, and the people are ground down to starvation wages. But it is of the ready-made clothing trade in our own land we mean to speak. In 1886 there were but ten sweater shops in New York, now there are many hundreds, and the same is true of the city of Chicago also, while other cities have their share. These shops are for the most part in the hands of Jews, and those in Boston and New York have the advantage over their brothers farther west in that they can take advantage of foreigners, freshly arrived, who cannot speak the language and are therefore easily imposed on. These employees are taken, crowded into small, illy-ventilated rooms, sometimes twenty or thirty in a room large enough for eight workers, where they often have to cook, eat and live, toiling for eighteen and twenty hours a day to earn enough to keep them alive.

"The prices paid for this kind of work are a disgrace to humanity. Men by hard work may earn from two to four dollars a week. The following figures are given by one who has made a study of the matter and who obtained his information from one of the 'boss sweaters' who gave these prices as what he received from the dealer:

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"A large percentage is taken from this list of prices by the boss sweater as his profit, and after deducting the cost of carting, which the workman pays, it can easily be imagined

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how hard and how long men and women must labor to obtain the ordinary necessities of life. For knee pants, for which the 'boss' gets sixty-five cents a dozen from the manufacturer, the sweater gets only thirty-five cents.

"The maker gets ten cents for making summer trousers, and in order to complete six pairs must work nearly eighteen hours. The cloaks are made by fifteen persons, each one doing a part. Overalls, sixty cents a dozen pairs. These are a few examples, and any woman who knows anything about sewing or making clothes, knows the amount of labor involved.

"But there is retribution in all things, and sometimes the innocent or thoughtless must suffer as well as the guilty. This clothing is made under the worst conditions of cleanliness. It is made in rooms sometimes not fit for human occupancy and which are reeking with germs of disease. In Chicago, during this year, a visitor saw in one of these shops four people working on cloaks, all of whom had scarlet fever, and in another place a child lay dead of the same disease, while the work went on around it, and the contagion was inevitably spread."

"Alas that gold should be so dear,

And flesh and blood so cheap."

The numbers of the miserably poor are rapidly increasing, and, as has been shown, competition is crowding the whole race down hill, except the fortunate few who have secured machinery or real estate; and their wealth and power correspondingly advance, until it seems as though the billionaire might soon be looked for if present conditions continue.

That such a condition of things should continue forever is not possible; even the operation of the natural law of cause and effect would eventually bring retribution. Nor could we expect that the justice of God, which arranged that law, would permit such conditions forever. God, through Christ, has redeemed, and has espoused the cause of our unworthy humanity, and the time for its deliverance

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from selfishness and the general power of the evil one is nigh at hand—Rom. 8:19-23.

The following, from a Western journal some years ago, clearly represented the situation at that time, and which today is still more appalling. It said:

"The unemployed in this country to-day number two millions. Those dependent upon them probably number four times as many more.

"Perhaps you have heard this before. I want you to think about it until you realize what it means. It means that under 'the best government in the world,' with 'the best banking system the world ever saw,' and everything else at the top notch, and with unparalleled productions of food and every other comfort and luxury of existence, one-seventh of our population has been reduced to absolute beggary, as the only alternative to starvation. People are going hungry in sight of warehouse and elevators filled with grain that can't be sold for enough to pay the cost of raising. People are shivering and almost naked in the shadow of store rooms filled to bursting with clothing of every sort. People are cold and fireless, with hundreds of millions of tons of coal easily accessible in thousands of mines. And the shoemakers who are idle would be glad to go to work and make shoes for the men who mine the coal in exchange for fuel. So would the latter be glad to toil in the mines to get shoes. Likewise the half-clad farmer in Kansas, who is unable to sell his wheat to pay for the harvesting and threshing bills, would be delighted to exchange it with the men in the eastern factories who spin and weave the cloth he needs.

"It is not lack of natural resources that troubles the country to-day. It is not inability or unwillingness on the part of the two millions of idle men to labor and produce desirable and useful things. It is simply that the instruments of production and the means of exchange are congested in the hands of a few. How unwholesome a state of affairs this is we are beginning to realize; and we shall understand it more and more fully as the congestion grows more severe. People are idle, cold and starving because they cannot exchange the products of their labor.

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In view of such results as this, is not our boasted present day civilization pretty near a dead failure? The unemployed in this country formed in ranks four abreast and six feet apart would make a line six hundred miles long. Those who depend upon them for subsistence would in the same order reach 2,400 miles. This army thus formed would extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific—from Sandy Hook to the Golden Gate.

"If the intellect of the race is not capable of devising a better industrial system than this, we might as well admit that humanity is the greatest failure of the universe. [Yes, that is just where divine providence is leading: men must learn their own impotence and the true Master, just as every colt must be 'broken' before it is of value.] The most outrageous and cruel thing in all the ages, is the present attempt to maintain an industrial army to fight the battles of our plutocratic kings without making any provisions for its maintenance during the periods in which services are not needed."

The above was written during the period of the most serious depression incident to "tariff tinkering," and happily is not the normal condition. However, there is no knowing when it may be repeated. Nevertheless, the Harrisburg Patriot, of the same year, gave the following figures under the caption, "The Number of the Unemployed":

"There are 10,000 laborers out of work in Boston; in Worcester 7,000 are unemployed; in New Haven 7,000; in Providence 9,600; in New York city 100,000. Utica is a small city, but the unemployed number 16,000; in Paterson, N. J., one-half of the people are idle; in Philadelphia 15,000; in Baltimore 10,000; in Wheeling 3,000; in Cincinnati 6,000; in Cleveland 8,000; in Columbus 4,000; in Indianapolis 5,000; in Terre Haute 2,500; in Chicago 200,000; in Detroit 25,000; in Milwaukee 20,000; in Minneapolis 6,000; in St. Louis 80,000; in St. Joseph 2,000; in Omaha 2,000; in Butte City, Mont., 5,000; in San Francisco, 15,000."

We give below an extract from The Coming Nation,

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entitled "A Problem You Must Solve." It shows how very plainly some men see the present situation. All these warning voices do but reiterate the solemn counsel of the inspired prophet, "Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings [all in any measure of authority and power]; be instructed, ye judges of the earth." It says:

"You will admit that new machines are rapidly displacing workmen. The claim that the making and caring for these new machines employs the number thus thrown out will not stand; for if that were true there would be no gain in the use of machines. The fact stands out so prominently that hundreds of thousands of men are now idle because machines are doing the work they formerly did, that any man must recognize it, if he will think but a moment. These men out of work do not buy as many goods as when employed, and this decreases the demand for goods, and thus prevents many more workmen from being employed, increases the number out of work and stops more purchasing.

"What are you going to do with these unemployed? That prices of goods, as a whole, are being cheapened, does not give these men employment. There is no occupation open to them, for all occupations are glutted with men, for the same reason. You can't kill them (unless they strike), and there is nowhere for them to go. In all seriousness I ask, what are you going to do with them? Skilled farmers are bankrupting, so what show would these men have at that, even if they had land?

"These men are multiplying like leaves of the forest. Their numbers are estimated by millions. There is no prospect of many of them getting employment, or if they do, it is only to take the places of others now employed who would then be added to the out-of-works. You think, perhaps, that it is none of your concern what becomes of them, but, my dear sir, it is your concern, and you will realize it before many seasons. It is a subject that cannot be dismissed by turning on your heel and refusing to listen. The French people thought that, once upon a time, but they learned differently, even if the present generation has forgotten the

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lesson. The present generation in the United States must solve this question, and will solve it in some way. It may be in peace and love and justice, or it may be by a man on horse-back trampling down the rights of all, as you now carelessly see the rights of some trampled. We repeat, you will answer these questions within a very few years.

"The French were warned, but they could not listen because of the gaiety of royal rottenness. Will you listen? or will the present course be permitted to run unchecked until five or six millions are clamoring for bread or the oxide of iron? The trouble, when it comes, will be intensified in the United States a hundred-fold, because of the social conditions that have prevailed here for a century. The love of liberty has grown stalwart, nursed on a hatred of kings, tyrants and oppressors. No army or navy from the masses can be relied upon to shoot their own fathers and brothers at the beck or order of untitled or titled kings. Seeing what must result from a too prolonged idleness of millions, whose conditions will soon cement a bond of fellowship, do you not think you have some interest in the conditions they are producing? Would it not be better to find and apply a remedy, to employ these men, even in public workshops, than to have the finale?

"We know what the capitalists are doing: We see them preparing the munitions of war to rule the masses by force of arms. But they are foolish. They are wise only in their own conceits. They are adopting the tactics of kings, and will be as chaff before the wind, by and by. All the fates are against their tactics. Kings, with greater armies than can be mustered to fight for capitalism here, are trembling before the steady growth of a higher civilization among the people, hurried on by the distress of this rapidly increasing army of out-of-works. Justice injures none, though it may shut off the privileges of robbers. Let us, as citizens, solve and settle the problem lawfully, not as partisans, but as citizens who think more of country than of party, and more of justice than of the king's gold."

These are strong words from one who evidently feels strongly, and there are many such. No one can gainsay that there is, at least some truth in the charges.

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THE CONDITIONS UNIVERSAL AND BEYOND HUMAN POWER TO REGULATE.

Nor are these conditions peculiar to America and Europe: not for centuries have the millions of Asia known anything else. An American missionary in India writes that she became heart-sick when asked by the natives if it were true that the people of her home have all the bread they want to eat, three times a day? She says that in India the majority rarely have sufficient food to satisfy nature's cravings.

The Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, India, is reported to have said, not long since, "Half our agricultural population never know from year's end to year's end what it is to have their hunger fully satisfied." Those who raise the grain cannot eat what nature calls for: taxes must first be paid out of it. Ten millions of India's population are hand-loom cotton-cloth weavers, and now machinery on the coast has destroyed their trade and left nothing for them but agriculture on the above hard conditions.

In South Africa, too, where millions of dollars have been freely invested during what was known as the African Gold Craze, times are hard with very many, and some of the educated are faring worst. The following from a Natal, S. Africa, journal gives an idea of the conditions:

"Those who do not come directly in contact with European immigrants in search of employment can have little idea of the amount of destitution which prevails among this class in Durban. It is gratifying to find, however, that the Relief Committee of the Town Council realize that, on the grounds of humanity, they have a duty toward the unfortunates who have been stranded here. In course of a chat this week with Mr. R. Jameson, the indefatigable convener, who has entered heart and soul into this philanthropic movement, I ascertained that the relief works at the Point afford a temporary employment to something like fifty men. It is distressing to find that men who

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have been trained to clerical pursuits, as well as skilled artisans, should find themselves so 'down in their luck' that they are only too ready to accept the Corporation's allowance of 3s. per day and shelter, in return for eight hours' shoveling sand under a broiling sun.

"Meantime there are no vacancies, and frequent applications have to be refused. From time to time the chairman of the committee, by means of advertisements and otherwise, finds employment for such of the men as have any knowledge of a trade or handicraft. Vacancies thus created in the gang are filled up from the ranks of those who have previously made unsuccessful application. In addition to those serving on the gang, there is a considerable number of men wandering about the town who have sought in vain for employment. They very soon find their way to the genial deputy-mayor, and he does the best he can for them, which, unhappily, often ends in failure. If employers having vacancies will wait on Mr. Jameson, they can obtain full information concerning the unemployed on his list. It must be understood that none of these men are residents proper of Durban, but have drifted there from various parts of South Africa in search of employment. Durban is by no means unique in its experience; there are only too clear evidences that similar deplorable conditions hold elsewhere.

"As has been already indicated, many of the applicants for places on the relief gang are men accustomed only to clerical work. It cannot be too often or too strongly emphasized that for such there is absolutely no chance in Natal, the market being always overstocked. But for the action of the Corporation in providing temporary work, there would have been a considerably greater amount of destitution in town. On the whole the conduct of the men on the relief gang has been highly exemplary, and warrants a continuance of the policy which the council has adopted. But what, it may be asked, is the Benevolent Society doing? That excellent institution affords relief only to residents and their families, and, as usual, its hands are full—if not with money, at any rate with, deserving cases."

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But will not people of intelligence who see these matters take steps to prevent the crushing of their fellow-creatures, less favored or less intelligent? Do they not see that the upper millstone is coming very dangerously close upon the lower one, and that the masses who must pass between them in competition are feeling the pressure severely, and must feel it yet more? Will not generous hearts provide relief?

No; the majority who are favored either by fortune or skill are so busy doing for themselves, "making money," diverting as much as possible of the "grist" to their own sacks, that they do not realize the true situation. They do hear the groans of the less fortunate, and often give generously for their aid, but as the number of the unfortunate grows rapidly larger, many get to feel that general relief is hopeless; they get used to the present conditions, and settle down to the enjoyment of their own comforts and special privileges, and for the time at least forget or ignore the troubles of their fellow men.

But there are a few who are well circumstanced and who see the real situation more or less clearly. Some of these, no doubt, are manufacturers, mine owners, etc. They can see the difficulties, and wish that matters were otherwise, and long to aid in changing them; but what can they do? They can do very little, except to help to relieve the worst cases of distress among their neighbors and relatives. They cannot change the present constitution of society and destroy the competitive system in part, and they realize that the world would be injured by the total abolition of competition without some other power to take its place to compel energy on the part of the naturally indolent.

It is evident that no one man or company of men can change the present order of society; but by the Lord's power and in the Lord's way, as pointed out in the Scriptures, it can and will be changed by and by for a perfect

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system, based, not upon selfishness, but upon love and justice. And to introduce this the present conditions must be entirely overthrown. The new wine will not be put into the old bottles, nor a new patch upon the old garment. Hence, with sympathy for both rich and poor in the woes near at hand, we can pray, "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven," even though it be introduced with "the fire of God's indignation," for which we see the "elements" already in preparation.

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THE MORNING COMETH.

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"A better day is coming, a morning promised long,

When truth and right, with holy might, shall overthrow the wrong;

When Christ the Lord will listen to every plaintive sigh,

And stretch his hand o'er sea and land, with justice, by and by.

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"The boast of haughty tyrants no more shall fill the air,

But aged and youth shall love the truth and speed it everywhere.

No more from want and sorrow shall come the hopeless cry,

But war shall cease, and perfect peace will flourish by and by.

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"The tidal wave is coming, the year of jubilee;

With shout and song it sweeps along, like billows of the sea.

The jubilee of nations shall ring through earth and sky.

The dawn of grace draws on apace—'tis coming by and by.

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"O! for that glorious dawning we watch and wait and pray,

Till o'er the height the morning light shall drive the gloom away;

And when the heavenly glory shall flood the earth and sky,

We'll bless the Lord for all his works and praise him by and by."

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