i STEAM COAL - Clpdigital.org

32 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.
in a larger valuable product at a lower labor cost.
It should not be forgotten, however, that the apprentice
system has been in past centuries, and
is still to some extent, an unjust and unprofitable
method. It was a slow and wasteful way to
teach a trade, and was liable to great abuses
through the selfishness and brutality of employers.
Any bright and diligent youth can learn a deal
more in three years at a good trade-school than
in seven years of apprenticeship, and at lower cost
in money as well as time.
"No boycott." A boycott is a mean and illegal
attack by a multitude of men on an individual
trader, worker or producer. It is, of course, a
savage attack on the liberty of the individual. So
long as organized and federated labor uses this
detestable weapon in the interests of labor monopoly,
so long must employers' associations endeavor
to protect their members against this
dangerous form of monopolistic assault.
"No sympathetic strike." Here again the policy
of the employers' association looks toward liberty.
It promises to prevent the use of a formidable
weapon to cripple a single firm or factory and
To ENFORCE A BOYCOTT.
"No sacrifice of the independent workman to
the labor unions." Until within times still recent
employers have neglected to observe the principle
here stated; yet there is no more fundamental and
righteous principle than this, and none more
essential to the preservation of industrial liberty.
The violations of this principle occur, of course,
in those industries the continuity of which is allimportant
to the owners or to the community,
like the industries concerned with transportation
or with the supply of coal, water or food. Continuity
in these industries is so important to the
entire community that employers in them are
required by public sentiment to make every effort
to prevent any interruption in them. Accordingly,
when a strike occurs in such an industry,
the employers or owners enlist non-union men
who are willing to risk their lives and fortunes,
and endeavor to carry on operations with these
new recruits; but in a few weeks the strike may
be settled, with or without compromise. Whereupon
the owner or employer turns adrift all the
non-union men who have come to his aid at their
own proper peril, and takes back all the strikers
in a body. They are, of course, more valuable to
him than his new recruits, because they know the
work better; and he sacrifices the strike-breakers
to his immediate interest. A meaner or more
short-sighted policy it would be difficult to imagine.
Is it not clear that such a policy on the part
of the employers must work against a just industrial
liberty? Is it not clear that it is the duty,
and in the long run the plain interest, of every
employer suffering from a strike not only
To PROTECT EVERY MAN
who comes to his help, but to make sure that that
man continues to be employed, if in any reasonable
time he can learn the business? One of the
main reasons for the frequency of strikes for
trivial reasons is the sure belief on the part of
the strikers that they are only to be out a few
days or weeks, or, at worst, a few months and
that then they will all return to their jobs. This
belief on the part of strikers, and of people who
are thinking to strike, has been fully justified
until recently by the unjust and dangerous policy
of employers towards strike-breakers. A large
majority of strike-breakers in any single case will
probably be green hands; but it is the interest
and duty of employers to convert them gradually
into experienced hands. If only this principle
of this new association of employers could be
generally enforced—"No sacrifice of the independent
workman to the labor union"—we should see
that workmen would strike only for serious reasons;
for they would feel that in striking they
were risking the permanent loss of their jobs,
and were making themselves liable to a complete
change of residence or of occupation. I know no
more valuable principle or method for the promotion
of general industrial liberty than this
statement—"No sacrifice of the independent workman
to the labor union."
Finally, "No compulsory use of the union label."
Is that a regulation which tends toward liberty?
Let us observe that the union label is, next to
the closed shop, the most effective weapon for
securing to the labor union in any trade a complete
monopoly. Its direct effect is to secure and
maintain a monopoly, and to facilitate the enforcement
of serious penalties for disobedience to the
union.
I find every one of these eight principles to be
in defence of
PRIVATE AND PUBLIC LIBERTY.
They all bear that test. It is not to industrial
affairs alone that this test may be safely and
wisely applied. I am sure it should be applied
to every educational policy. It is only when the
governmental policy of school, college or university
tends towards liberty—that is, tends to give
play to the free spirit of youth—that the policy
will have any hope of long life or large hope of
conferring practical benefits on the community.
So it is with wars and with governmental policies.
Have there been any wars which later generations
remember with gratitude except those
out of which came some increase, or development,
or protecting of public liberty? Are there any
promising or even prudent policies in government
except those which do away with some restraint
of freedom, or give freer play to the native
human instinct for liberty?