"distress haunts us; 99 and "the Scripture teaching concernfuture retribution, is one which with our present knowledge, we cannot adjust to our moral sentiments and convictions." Does he discover any tendency to a solution of the contradiction, other than the growing rejection of certain parts of " orthodox" exegesis? With the growth and refinement of the Christian temper in him and in others, does he see any tendency of sympathy and those "moral sentiments and convictions to become feebler or to yield to the offensive doctrine? Or does he expect that added "knowledge" will so change his nature after the suggestion of Jonathan Edwards, that the love and sense of justice which now forbid him to rest and find peace in the damnation of his brother man, and which movement of his soul he now thinks to be the highest there is within him, will be changed to indifference concerning others or to hatred of them? Now we are commanded to love our enemies, that we may be like our Father in heaven. Then shall we be commanded to hate them? That a father and a mother may rejoice at the sight of their wayward child in an endless hell, is love to become hate or to be done away! If so, away with it! Let it be crucified! O, men of the New Orthodoxy, Love was crucified once. Shall it be so again!

No. Thank God there is a better way. The logic of the situation must soon be manifest and accepted. The progressive orthodox teach:

1. That the Christian conscionsness is right.

2. That the Christian consciousness is Universalist 3. [Here they seem to have stopped thinking.]

But they are sincere men; the stop will not be long. And then in the language of one of them; "Old doctrines will be seen to have a better meaning, neglected truths will be restored to their proper relations, and the church will rejoice in a larger freedom and life."

George T. Knight.

ARTICLE XXX.

Can Wages be Raised by Vote?

IF Mr. Powderly had recommended this question for discussion at the meetings of the several labor oganizations throughout the United States and instructed these bodies not to report the issue of the debate until the end of six months, a very different result would have been reached from that which we have witnessed.

A little reflection will show that this question is fundamental. If it is found upon examination that the rate of wages does not depend upon any arbitrary conventional arrangement; that it is not a question to be decided by resolution or vote, but depends upon causes far above political or individual action, then much of the discussion that has taken place was irrelevant and the action proceeding therefrom was the result of mistake.

The assumption at the beginning was that the rate of wages could be raised by vote; that it was only a matter between the employer and employed, that if one demanded and the other acceded to the demand the matter was settled. Another assumption was that an increase in the price of labor was the same thing as an increase of wages.

Let us see how far this is true or whether it is true at all. The price of labor is the nominal sum the laborer receives for his work The rate of wages is the purchasing power of the sum received. Thus his wages are high when they can be exchanged for a large amount of commodities, and low when he can obtain a comparatively small amount in exchange, no matter how the nominal sum of his wages may be expressed. These two elements must be taken together to determine the compensation the laborer receives.

For example, let us suppose a man who earns ten dollars a week and that his earnings will buy a barrel of flour. He strikes for twenty per cent advance and gets it. By and by he wants a barrel of flour. He calls upon his grocer and is told

that in consequence of labor movements the price of flour has advanced; that it is now twenty per cent. higher, or twelve dollars a barrel, just the amount of his advanced wages.

It will be seen that here is no increase of wages; and this results from the very simple operation of an increased cost of production that arises from an advance in the price of labor. If one cancels the other there is no increase in the purchasing power of wages.

But the objection from the workingman's stand-point is that an advance of wages-so called-need not be followed by an increased cost of production, and hence, in the case above cited flour should not have been sold at a higher price.

This is a vital point; and if the objection is well taken, the rate of actual wages can be advanced whenever organizations of workingmen unite in sufficient numbers to secure cooperative action. The question now arises if there is no increase in the cost of production when labor, the chief element of cost in every product made by human industry, received a higher reward, by what law or legerdemain are the deductions of mathematics to be set aside?

Perhaps it will be said that while the cost of production may be increased so far as the employer is concerned who pays an advanced price, yet this is not such an advance as will compel the purchaser to pay a higher price for the product. This leads to the conclusion that the profits of the manufacturer or dealer, or both, are enormous and can be curtailed. This assumption is utterly groundless. The average rate of profits is fixed by a law as inexorable as any that govern the movements of trade. Abnormal profits arising from exceptional conditions are sometimes gained; but these exceptions only show the rule to be otherwise.

There is a popular delusion concerning the rate of profits. It is generally supposed that if manufacturers and employers were so disposed, the rate of wages could be easily advanced and still leave ample reward for invested capital and the skill and enterprise required in the conduct of business. The history of industrial enterprises completely overthrows this as

sumption. It has been clearly proved that the profits of cotton manufacture have been less rather than more than six per cent for the last fifty years. It is more than probable that the same can be said of the manufactures of wool and iron. The current belief of the large profits of trade arises from the error of ignoring the doctrine of averages. An exceptional short period of business is taken as the gauge of average results. The marked prosperity of a few superior business men is taken as the measure of common success in trade. No account is made of the hundreds whose profit in business net them only a comfortable living, and no reckoning is kept of hundreds more in every considerable community whose unsuccessful attempts end in bankruptcy.

To arrive at just results a period long enough to include a business cycle must be covered. A decade of unusual prosperity may show great fortunes made from this or that branch of trade. But this is only one side of the account. The next decade will bring depression and financial panics that will not only cut off all chances of successful business, but will sweep away much of the accumulations of prosperous years. Alternate periods of favorable and unfavorable conditions must be taken together and the results of both will give the true equation of profits.

The question then is Are the profits of business large enough to admit of any general marked increase of wages within short periods of time? Evidently not. If we get a clear idea of the source from which wages must be paid it will be seen that any great increase is impossible. It has been estimated upon the basis of our national Census, and from industrial reports from every part of the country that to add fifteen cents a day to the pay of the wage-earners of the nation, an increase of nearly eleven thousand millions of dollars, ($1,100,000,000) in value would be required, an amount representing more than one tenth of the entire products of the country for any entire year. The estimated annual profits of capitalists are put at four hundred and fifty million dollars ($450,000,000) -less than one half the sum required to in

crease the pay of wage-earners fifteen cents a day. It is esti mated that the savings of the people, who may be considered small capitalists, represent a like sum, or an aggregate of nine hundred millions of dollars,-($900,000,000).

The history of the industrial development of the great nations of the world clearly points to the fact that the basis of that development is increased production. This increased production enters the channels of trade, enhancing the wages of the laborer with which this increased production must be bought. The connection between wages and production is constant and inseparable. Though sometimes obscured by the complexity of industrial phenomena, the rivalries of business and the competitions of trade, the relation cannot be broken. The law of supply and demand will assert itself, and though obstructed for a time, the law persists; and like the force of gravity does its accustomed work as soon as the obstruction is removed.

The conclusiveness of this argument will appear if we follow this line of industrial development and mark how production of every kind has out-stripped the increase of population. The gain in the great cereal crops of our country keeps largely in advance even of our rapid growth in numbers swelled as they are by unparalleled immigration. The increase of minor crops and especially of garden and orchard products is enormously greater still. A similar increase is seen in clothing and in all wearing material. When we bear in mind that that this annual product is perishable-absolutely so in the case of food, and practically so with clothing by the dictate of fashion-we shall see how inevitable is the logic that connects increased production with increased means of subsistence for the masses. Consult any veteran dealer in any consumable product who remembers the conditions of trade and the resources of his customers forty years ago. He will tell you there has been a large increase in the consumption of nearly every commodity and most of all in those articles sparingly or never used in former times because regarded as too expensive luxuries. A hundred articles could be named that were