The climax of civilisation / by Correa Moylan Walsh.

  • Correa Moylan Walsh
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The climax of civilisation / by Correa Moylan Walsh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    already provided for. In the first case, the advantages al- ready attained have been to a great extent due to combination on the part both of the employers and the employés; which has inspired hopes in both of still greater adantages from still greater combination, in the employers leading to monopoly, in the employés to power sufficient to enable them to seize con- trol of the industries and to share among themselves all the profits and in consequence still further reduce the hours of labour. Meanwhile “trusts’’ are formed by the employers, and by the employés regulations are passed forbidding emula- tion and putting a damper on diligence by the best of them in behalf of the worst of them; and by all it is agreed that com- petition is an evil and a thing of the past. Thus far the present. For the future, while the employers lie low and do not formulate their plans, the employés look forward to their own supremacy. They promise, however, that all shall be admitted to their ranks, that is, all may become labourers, all owners of the means of production with which they labour. This is socialism. It flatters by a picture of future peace and happiness in a millennium and more of plenty, bountiful na- ture continuing to supply mankind in return for less and less labour with all the good things of life, so that strife for them will no longer be necessary, and with the triumph of man over nature the struggle of man with man will cease, and mankind will live in a Christ-like brotherhod and become perfect on earth without waiting for translation to heaven. In the other case, the admission of women to the indus- tries alongside of men, with prospect of adding to the future brotherhood also a sisterhood, is already beginning to have the effect of taking women out of the homes, putting them in rivalry with men, and breaking down that mutual depend- ence of men and women on each other and that dependence of children on their parents which are the basis of marriage; while the diminution and even the destruction of the old household employments by the new manufacturing industries is bring- ing idleness into the well-to-do homes where the women have remained, and thereby tends to drive these women out in pur- suit of amusement and distraction, which, indeed, are being more and more provided for them. The eventual result may be the placing of all women outside the home alongside of