DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.13852#0142
94 CREATION OF A WORLD-CENTRE.
_J.-
r
their counterfeit? Will not the revolt against them be infinitely more bloody,
degrading and terrible, if they are not unmasked and crushed ? Is it not the
desire of all nations to mete out to operatives a just award ?
The labourer looks eagerly forward for the governments of all nations to
settle this vital question. He feels the need for suggestion and counsel emanat-
ing from some central power. If possible, he wants his wrongs righted by
the highest scientific and human authority, by those who can see the spiritual
and material outcome of his labour, who can put him upon a sure basis of
realising the benefit of his efforts so that he may be able to produce, maintain
and educate his family healthily and hygienically, and that his old age may be
secured against poverty and degradation. He will follow the leaders of nations
when he feels that these make an effort to understand his need and require-
ments.
When men serve governments, the latter are bound to protect them. But
when they serve corporations, these bodies often handle them as they please,
in carrying out their own desires and aims, which as history proves, are not
unfrequently corrupt and unjust. Even when protected by laws, the labourer
is sometimes reduced to starvation and degradation.
It is true, of course, that a great number of technical disputes of labour
and capital can only be rightly dealt with through local law and administra-
tion; yet the questions of more than local, or even national, importance are
constantly increasing; and these are so vital in the development and progress
of all mankind, that thev necessarily become international.
The appeal for world unification of effort grows slowly but surely.
Despotism and slavery are things of the past. Science and progress have taken
the place of ignorance and stagnation. All industries, to extend their sphere
of activity, depend upon capital. The great army of workers that gives its
strength and life to building it no less than capitalists themselves must be pro-
tected by a juster organisation, built upon ideas of sympathy, and framed
on an international, scientific basis by united governmental legislation. The
strongest human sympathies, outside family ties, must be directed towards
the great duty of uniting all working people of all nations as they toil upward
from poverty. Their welfare means peace and prosperity to all countries.
A World Centre of Communication, open to all nations for the purpose
of encouraging the highest human sympathies, for the reception of delegates
capable of making a scientific and economic study of the labourer and the
capitalist and of their essential needs and requirements would aid in forming
a practical and ideal solution of the world-perplexing question of labour and
capital and would do more to prevent war, crime, degradation, degeneration and
starvation than any possible thing that the human mind can conceive. By the
mere fact of this prevention and by giving a righteous solution and value to
all human efforts, it would give the strongest impetus to the spiritual, educa-
tional and social requirements that are so earnestly sought for by all men.
_J.-
r
their counterfeit? Will not the revolt against them be infinitely more bloody,
degrading and terrible, if they are not unmasked and crushed ? Is it not the
desire of all nations to mete out to operatives a just award ?
The labourer looks eagerly forward for the governments of all nations to
settle this vital question. He feels the need for suggestion and counsel emanat-
ing from some central power. If possible, he wants his wrongs righted by
the highest scientific and human authority, by those who can see the spiritual
and material outcome of his labour, who can put him upon a sure basis of
realising the benefit of his efforts so that he may be able to produce, maintain
and educate his family healthily and hygienically, and that his old age may be
secured against poverty and degradation. He will follow the leaders of nations
when he feels that these make an effort to understand his need and require-
ments.
When men serve governments, the latter are bound to protect them. But
when they serve corporations, these bodies often handle them as they please,
in carrying out their own desires and aims, which as history proves, are not
unfrequently corrupt and unjust. Even when protected by laws, the labourer
is sometimes reduced to starvation and degradation.
It is true, of course, that a great number of technical disputes of labour
and capital can only be rightly dealt with through local law and administra-
tion; yet the questions of more than local, or even national, importance are
constantly increasing; and these are so vital in the development and progress
of all mankind, that thev necessarily become international.
The appeal for world unification of effort grows slowly but surely.
Despotism and slavery are things of the past. Science and progress have taken
the place of ignorance and stagnation. All industries, to extend their sphere
of activity, depend upon capital. The great army of workers that gives its
strength and life to building it no less than capitalists themselves must be pro-
tected by a juster organisation, built upon ideas of sympathy, and framed
on an international, scientific basis by united governmental legislation. The
strongest human sympathies, outside family ties, must be directed towards
the great duty of uniting all working people of all nations as they toil upward
from poverty. Their welfare means peace and prosperity to all countries.
A World Centre of Communication, open to all nations for the purpose
of encouraging the highest human sympathies, for the reception of delegates
capable of making a scientific and economic study of the labourer and the
capitalist and of their essential needs and requirements would aid in forming
a practical and ideal solution of the world-perplexing question of labour and
capital and would do more to prevent war, crime, degradation, degeneration and
starvation than any possible thing that the human mind can conceive. By the
mere fact of this prevention and by giving a righteous solution and value to
all human efforts, it would give the strongest impetus to the spiritual, educa-
tional and social requirements that are so earnestly sought for by all men.