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Record   and  Guide.





March 31, 1888





restricting work, but would it not negative the results of labor-
saving machinery ? Why not put a stop to invention at once ? If
Mr. Gunton is right, then tbe ordinary labor cry for more wages
and less work is the correct thing, and the fine-spun theories of the
Socialists, Henry George, Karl Mars, and the pohtical economists
are mere vain imaginings.

E.—That certainly seems to be Mr.   Gunton's contention.    He
proves from the factory legislation of Great Britain that tbe succes¬
sive shortening of the hours of labor in that country was accom¬
panied by an improvement of the condition of the working classes
and by larger profits to everyone engaged in the industries affected
by tbe legislation.    It is a curious fact tbat it was a Tory, the Earl
of Shaftsbury, who was the great champion of tbe various bills for
reducing the hours of labor, wliile the most violent opponents to
shorter hours were Richard Cobden and John Bright.    They were
sc   backed up by manufacturers, by tbe press and by the educated
rig. classes generally, but the evidence is overwhelming that every suc¬
tion ^essive reduction proved a benefit to every interest in the nation
existed to the employers most of all.    In 1803 sixteen hours a day was
womie rule ; by successive bills tbe legal working hours of England to
have ly are only nine hours and a half.

for p- Sm 0.—Of course there is no contending agamst facts. We know
womhat the physical, material and moral condition of tbe English
people has vastly improved during the past century. It is also indis¬
putable tbat the horrors of the English factory system is one of tbe
darkest pages in tbe liistory of the race. Tbis was wheu tbere was
no legal restraint preventing the employer from exacting aU that
he could in the way of time from the laborer. But tell us more of
Mr. Gunton's eight-hoiu- panacea.

E.—He says tbat according to the census of 1880 there were
something like 10,500,000 wage receivers. In other words, about
34 per cent, of the whole population who actually participate in
industrial pursuits. Cutting off two hours a day would bave the
immediate effect of making a market for tbe labor of every tmem-
ployed person in tbe country, and would force a higher average of
wages in every iudusti-ial pursuit. This would increase the consum¬
ing power of the country enormously, which would of course
beneflt every employer and every investor in all departments of
business. Production would not be lessened, but under the stimu-
. lus of higher prices would be increased, invention would be stimu¬
lated, and labor-saving machines be more in demand. The result
would be cheaper production tn time without interfering with the
prosperity of the country.

giK 0.—All tbis is very fine, but if cutting off two hours would
be so beneficial wby not say four hours?

E._It is easy to apply the rule of reductioad absurdum to any
proposition. Tlie Irisliman, when told that if he bought a certain
stove he would save half the fuel orchnarily used, promptly declared
he would buy two stoves and then save all of it. I hope the readers
of The Record and Guide will get Mr. Gunton's book and study it
carefully, for it contains a vast store of useful facts and sound
deductions.

Sir 0.—It vrill be of no use. Each employer is intentupon cheap
production ; hence he is determined to get his labor at the lowest
rate. He will not consider the other side of the problem ; though
it is as clear as daylight that high wages for aU laborers is the prime
condition of prosperous times. If the present effort to reduce the
wages of labor succeeds, and I tbink it wiU, we must expect several
years of harder times which wOl impoverish the laborers and em¬
ployers alike.





Mayor Hewitt is a very pecuhar person. We have been praising
him ever since he delivered that magnificent oration on the opening
of the Brooklyn Bridge. Every act of Ms official career has been
warmly commended in these columns, yet, because we criticised
him for the part he took in tbe Lehigh Valley Coal Combination
which provoked the strike he talked about suing us for libel. But,
all the same, we admire aud support Mayor Hewitt. It is a refresh¬
ing novelty to have a public officer wbo does not fear the press
and can speak bis miud freely even at the risk of offending power¬
ful organizations. He does not seem to care for the Irish or the
Germans, the labor unions or the pension-hunting Grtind Army
people. Tlie only other man who has been in pubhc life wbo
resembles bim is Roscoe Conkling. We have always regretted this
statesman's disappearance from pubhc hfe because of his unlikeness
to tbe average American politician. He always respected himself
too much to flatter or play tbe demagogue. The ex-Senator was
not without bis faults, but it will be always remembered to his
credit that though he was the leader of his party, and had at his
command both power and patronage, he left his seat in the Senate
a poor man. Abram S. Hewitt's future is a problem. He has made
thousands of enthusiastic personal admirers; but wiU pohticians
consider bim available as a candidate for any other office? Wfil
they not fear the Irish, the labor unions and the Grand Army, as
well as tbe newspaper editors whom be bas snubbed so cavaherly.





The death offiChief Justice Waite ;and the great age of the other





Justices of. the Supreme Court makes it possible tbat the pohtical
complexion of that body wih be radically changed should Mr. Cleve¬
land be re-elected for another four years. It is of vital moment to
the nation tbat the Judges of our Court of last resort should be
broad-minded jurists with statesmanhke habits of mind. The
danger is that President Cleveland wiU appoint lawyers who repre¬
sent the State's right and strict construction of the Constitution
school. Speaker Carlisle has been mentioned for Cliief Justice. He
is an able man in his way and honest, but his speeches show him to
be an extremely narrow legist. There is no evidence tbat he is
aware of the changes made by tbe civil war, or the progress through¬
out the world in using governmental authority for tbe good of the
community. Judge Cooley has also been mentioned, but he too is a
strict constructionist, as his book on " Constitutional Limitations"
shows. There is danger that our lawyer rulers will keep us behind
other nations in their adherence to precedents and old modes of
thought and action.

The Grand Jury's presentment on tbe subject of filegal voting was
a very disquieting document to all good citizens. Reading between
tbe lines and putting it into plain language the implication seems to
be tbat there was a conspiracy between tbe criminal classes and the
poUce to elect John R. Fellows District-Attorney. Judging from
the way things were going we said, previous to the election last
November, tliat it made no difference bow our citizens voted. Fel¬
lows was sure to be declared elected. It is even said that we are
indebted to the same sinister influences for the very excellent
Mayor New York uow possesses. There are hundreds of people who
beheve that Heni-y George got tbe plurahty vote forMayor in the
election of 1886, but the machine interests were so overpowering
that Abram S. Hewitt was counted in in his place. A few elections
like the last two, as described  by the  Grand Jury, migbt result in

a Vigilance Committee.

——«—-------

Men and TMags.

***
J, S. Moore, otherwise known as the Parsee merchant, recently gave a

dinner in Washington to Speaker Carlisle and other noted Democratic Con¬
gressmen. The Tribunecorrespondentintimatestliatthe dinner was paid for
by British gold, and that Mr. Moore is in the pay of the English free
traders. This is a very unhandsome thing to say, but there is certainly a
good deal of mystery about this Parsee merchant. He is a German Jew
who, it is reported, faded in business in India. Soon after he arrived in
this country he obtained employment in the Custom House as an expert in
the value of certain specialties. He seemed to have plenty of leisure, and
was always on hand in Washington whenever any changes in the tariff
were suggested. Although appointed and kept in offlce by a Protectionist
Repubhcan administration he was openly an avowed free trader, and was
aUowed to write his able and witty Parsee letters in the World newsjiaper
of Manton Marble's time without losing his position. It is not believed
that Moore is his real name. He has wi-itten a great deal lately for the New
York Times on the tariff question, and he is evidently an authority with the
Democratic Ways and Means Committee. He was at one tfane associated
with James R. Keene in the Silver Cliff and other mining enterprises.
Altogether he is a remarkable man, very genial in social intercourse, witty
when he wishes to be so in articles contributed to the press, whUe his statis¬
tical abilities and knowledge of the value of manufactured products is
something quite remarkable.

***                                      ,    ,

We have not scrupled to condemn Jay G-ould when he has been in the
wrong. He has done many things which ought to have landed him in
States prison. But there are certain features of this Kansas Paciflc bond
trust business which looks as if in that case, at least, certain persons were
trying to blackmail hira. His own acts have beeu so questionable in the
past tbat he is marked out as a prey for adventurous and dishonest legal
harpies. Jay Gfould's influence in our courts is waning. There was a time
when he couid do as he pleased with our judges, but several years ago he
discharged his corps of able and unscrupulous and very costly lawyers as a
matter of economy, and now tbe chances are all against him when he goes
into court. The '' whirhgig of time brings its revenges," and it is not at all
unlikely that the same legal machinery which be has so often used to work
injustice to others may yet be manipulated to punish him on some false
issue like that raised in this Kansas Pacific bond suit.

***
Sales of pictures are tbe rage just at present. Of course Spencer coUec-
tions do not make their appearance every season; they are the accidents of
a decade. Of the numerous paintings now to be seen, the American Art
Galleries pi-esent a fair sample, and the Christian H. Wolff coUection is
worth visiting, containing as it does many works of merit. The Jordan
L. Mott—Edward Kearney—exhibition was above the general average, the
two productions of Bougereau, that of Rosa Bonheur and a few others being
wefi worthy of purchase. Many of the pictm-es in these sales brought
absurdly low figures. Johnson's rooms on 5th. avenue contain some very
good works of the Prench masters, amongst them being " The Ii-onworker's
Strike," by Lubin, which was inspired by the French poem, " La Grfevedes
Forg^rons."

***

If we should ever have Woman's Suft'rage our pohtical canvassers wfil
become very personal. This is shown by an episode in connection witb
the present gathering of women at Washington to commemorate the
beginning of the Woman's Suffrage agitation. It seems that Mrs. Ashton
Dilke aud Miss Helen Taylor were both invited to participate. The latter
declined, after having first accepted, objecting to th  compaQionship of Mr a





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