Wise Words

Whenever Archbishop Ireland has anything to say on questions of general public concern, what he says is worthy of thoughtful consideration. This is because he always in his discussion of such issues handles them from the standpoint of enlightened and patriotic American citizenship. His recentspeech to the Locomotive Engineer's convention at St. Paul was no exception. He says: The interests and rights of labor ! Often have I pleaded for them and lovingly do I plead for them now. I hate that view of labor which makes of it a mechanical forcé, purchasable at a mere market valué. I demand for the laborer and his family, so far as through just and rational measures we can reach thereto, means of decent livelihood, the opportunities to develop intellect to care for bodily health and moral and reiigious growth, to receive a due portion of the joys of human existence in recompence of the toil which will not fail to press upon them. Let me now enter my brief plea for capital. Property is he very foundation stone of the ocial fabric; it is the incentive and reward of industry and energy. He who menaces property is an anarchist and the anarchist is the deadly oe of. order, of right, of society. He is the wild beast, solely bent on destructioru from which security and civilization never can drift. Without capital the millions of willing workmen are idle and factory doors remain closed, fields are untilled, mines hold heir treasures in concealment, no hips plough the seas, no railroads pancontinents. Without capital, la)or is a latent, unproductive energ.y. Vhy today are there among us legions of unemployed? Because captal hies away from us. It is an asy matter in club room and on Dublic square to discuss capital and ts obligations. Asamatterof fact, capital is timid f its life. It will shun you and eave you to beat the air with your die arms. The laws of the financial world are as inflexible as those of the four seasons of the year; the 'state of the country in which, through mob riots or expressive statutes, property is endangered or ! made unproductive, will be surely abandoned to their own sterile resources. I am iiot afraid to mention the word strike. Nor will I say i that it never should be counselled. : I say thi's much, however, of strikes: ! They are in the industrial world '■ what wars are between pepple - to I be dreaded for the ruin they cause and never to be urged except when all other counsels have faüed and ; where great interests are at stake; ! and when strikes do take place they must be like wars among civilized nations - conducted under the dictates of justice and humanity. Amid the utmost fury of strikes, property must be held sacred and the liberty of other men allowed, as we demand that our liberty be allowed. These are the imperious laws of social justice and of good religión. This is an age of reason, as distinguished from previous ages of semi-barbarism. Why, then, cannot nations cease putting their pride in their power to murder men and arbítrate their difference? And why cannot employers and employés equally avoid discord by peaceful arbitration?"