A WARNING TO THE SOCIALISTS.
THE enterprise and sound judgment of the Manchester Examiner enable English readers to learn something of the real progress of social and political events in the United States at not unfrequent intervals. As a rule, the telegrams from the other side of the Atlantic have plenty to say as to how Mr. Irving or Mr. Wilson Barrett was received in Hamlet, of the sums paid to Patti, of the amount of this or that millionaire's property, and of the trivial details of the public scandal of the moment, but nothing as to matters of infinitely greater interest and importance. The Manchester Examiner's series of American notes—not telegraphic summaries, but carefully written reports—are, however, doing something to take away so great a reproach from the English Press, and to enable the public to hear of facts which otherwise would pass almost unnoticed. In a recent number, that of Monday last, there is an account of the practical collapse of the famous organisation known as the Knights of Labour, which at this moment has a special significance, and should be taken to heart by those among English workmen who are inclined to exaggerate the power of such combinations. The organisation in question, which, though it originated among the tailors of Philadelphia in 1869, did not become prominent till about 1884 or 1885, seemed at one period of its career as if it were going to succeed just where the famous International had failed. Confined to no one trade or class, its professed object was to organise the labourers in such a way as to compel obedience to their demands. If,' ran the argument, the whole of the workers of the United States hold together, and make and. enforce their claims in common, they must win. A general strike, affecting all the means of transport, locomotion, and. pro- duction, is a weapon which cannot possibly fail in its effects, and hence we have only to draw the labourers into our combination to place the employers absolutely at our mercy.' Theoretically, nothing could possibly look more promising, and for a time all went well. Very soon the Knights of Labour appeared to have become a power in the land. Large numbers of working men joined them, and in "the boycott "—the American form of the phrase— the "sympathetic strike," the "walking delegate,' and the decisions of a secret and highly centralised administration, the workmen seemed to have found almost irresistible instruments for accomplishing their purpose. Yet, in spite of all these advantages, the Society of the Knights of Labour proved in practice a complete failure. It enrolled a great many members, it organised several large strikes, it caused a considerable amount of riot and disorder, and it produced one or two pieces of thoroughly bad. and unworkable legislation ; but when it is asked what it did to ameliorate permanently the condition of the labourers, the answer must be,—absolutely nothing.
The history of the organisation is worth sketching in detail. The zenith of its power and influence may be said to have been reached in 1886. In that year it numbered no less than 750,000 paid-up members. The full signifi- cance of this fact can, however, only be realised by remem- bering that—excluding the Indians, the Negroes, the Chinese, and the inhabitants of Alaska—there were not more than forty-eight million men, women, and children at that date living in the Union. But of this number, the Census analyses show that not more than three millions could have been adult males, able to pay their subscriptions to an organised body, and engaged in non-agricultural manual labour. We may take it, then, that very nearly one working man in every four belonged to the Knights of Labour in 1886. Whatever was the cause of failure, it was not any inability to attract the working men in large numbers. Assuredly the belief of a body so large and so highly organised that it could paralyse production, trade, and commerce, was not one which could prima' facie be called absurd. Yet in reality it has proved so. In spite of the fact that no sort of legislative or administrative pressure was brought to bear upon the Knights, and that the politicians rather flattered and encouraged than denounced them, the Order has in three years' time gone utterly to pieces, and without accomplishing anything worth speaking of. Last year its annual report showed dwindling numbers and a diminishing exchequer, and this year the 750,000 paying members have come down to 80,000 men, who are only kept on the books by the remis- sion of arrears, and of fees and dues. The funds are reported to be so low, indeed, that bankruptcy must ensue within the next few weeks, while the handsome and luxuriously furnished offices in Philadelphia, built some four years ago at a cost of £10,000, have been mort- gaged to meet current expenses. The collapse has thus been complete. In the words of the correspondent of the Manchester Examiner, "the dissolution of local assemblies is taking place by the thousand throughout the length and breadth of the country ; and, indeed, the revul- sion of sentiment in the matter displayed by the working classes is almost beyond belief." No doubt, to a cer- tain extent, the tide of unpopularity has been augmented by the knowledge that the hard-earned contributions of the working men were being spent to support the executive officers of the movement in comfort ; but it is to the general failure of the Order to accomplish any of its objects that must in reality be attributed the abandonment of support which has taken place throughout the States. If Master- Workman Powderley had contrived to secure a permanent increase in the remuneration of labour, the working men would not have grudged him the £1,000 a year and free quarters, and free hotel and travelling expenses, which he enjoyed during the palmy days of the Order. No doubt, under present circumstances, these liberal payments, and the equally generous remuneration of Mr. Powderley's colleagues, hastened the downfall of the Society ; but had there been anything to show for the money, the salaries question would have borne a very different complexion. As it is, the announcement that the Grand Master-Workman has found the meams and the time to fit himself for joining the Bar will hardly assist any effort that may be made to resuscitate the moribund organisa- tion. Failure plus big salaries is not a record upon which a fresh appeal to the country for support could well be made. The Order, however, in spite of these facts, is said to contemplate making a fresh start in England and on the Continent. It will be as well, then, for the labourers of the Old World to remember the history of the organisa- tion in America, should they be asked in the future to enrol themselves as European Knights of Labour. Many persons compelled to admit the failure of a general labour organisation to raise wages by means of strikes in this particular instance, will doubtless argue that there is at the same time no reason why there should. not be some day a more successful attempt. We think, however, that such a proposition can be shown to be unsound. The socialistic theories of which such action as that actually attempted by the Knights of Labour, and. so enthusiastically contemplated by the International, are the outcome, are, in truth, based upon a fallacy,—the belief that society is divided into distinct classes of labourers and capitalists, rich and poor. In reality, such divisions are totally illusory. Society con- sidered accurately is a slope, not a flight of steps, and though for convenience we call one part of it by one name and another by another, there are no definite ridges on the incline. One portion fades imperceptibly into the next. This fact, however, is constantly ignored, and only becomes apparent when some attempt is made to strike at all capital together in the name of universal labour. Then the working man at last discovers that, though he is a labourer in one trade, he is an employer in a hundred others, and realises practically, if not theoretically, that he cannot, in effect, spend his wages without hiring the work of his fellow-men. Hence, the moment a general strike is organised, the workman is face to face with the un- pleasant fact that he is ' injuring himself, and that if labour generally is successful, he will be exactly in the same position as when he started, for as the remuneration of the total body of workmen will have increased, so will the purchasing-power of his wages have diminished. In fact, he encounters the old dilemma that besets Protection when stripped of the sophisms with which the politicians have encumbered. it. Either Pro- tection must be partial, privileged, and. unfair, or else it must affect all commodities equally, and so fail to benefit any class. No doubt, for sentimental or philanthropic reasons, a general strike of labour might be organised in order to raise wages in one trade only. That, however, would be a purely eleemosynary movement. Thus, though it might occasionally be used with effect, it would not, in all likelihood, be often applied. Strikes within a par- ticular trade, or series of allied trades, have in the past been, and will again be successful in raising wages. They must not, however, be regarded as if they increased the value of labour by some dark and mysterious process. They are merely incidents in the higgling of the labour market, —one of the processes by which bargains are made between employer and employed. The employer has to offer a wage which will secure him a supply of labour. A strike, speaking in the region of abstract considerations, is the intimation that his offer has ceased to attract. The strike's success, or want of success, indicates whether the master or the men have more accurately gauged the ratio between supply and demand. In truth, then, there is no chance of a Socialist revolution being brought about by a general strike, for its effects would be more severely felt by the working men than by any other portion of the community. Of course, it is conceivable, in spite of this, that the working men might try the experiment. That they will do so, however, we do not believe, since a couple of days would, teach them the requisite lesson. You may drive out political economy with the pitchfork, but she returns as certainly as outraged Nature.
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