Ethics of the Social Question.

Professor Peabody gave the fourth lecture in his series on the Ethics of the Social Question in Sever 11 last evening. He spoke on the labor question. Here, said he, the individual is seen in his relation to the modern industrial world. None can be unconscious of the unrest of the laboring masses, nor indifferent as to its meaning.

This unrest has come, not because their position is growing worse, but because they see those above them bettering their condition at a much faster rate than can they. It is not then an outcry caused by economic hardship, but it is a moral protest. Popular education, in fact, really lies behind all this unrest.

There never was a labor question till popular education began and there is today no labor question where there is no popular education. Through education, the people have come to recognize their situation; now they demand a proportionate share in the profits of industry.

The forces of labor and capital have been marshalled against each other. Both expect and all are ready for war. Arbitration would only mean patching up a treaty, without destroying the hostility between the two armies. Some more radical remedy then is necessary. The great problem is, what shall this remedy be.

Some trust to evolution, or the natural development of forces already present in society. Others would lay violent hands on our present society and fashion it as they will. The communists would solve the question by running away from it. They throw up our present civilization in despair and draw themselves into simple and even primitive conditions of life.

The socialist would abolish the despotism of capital and establish absolute control by the state. The anarchists would push the ideas of the socialists to their greatest logical conclusions. Having escaped from the despotism of capital, they say let us escape from the despotism of state control also. Their ideal would be unrestrained individualism.

Opposed to all these, are the remedies suggested by evolution. In a system of profit-sharing the employer gives added fidelity to his employed as his part of the capital, but certainly this idea is not feasible in every business. Cooperation would carry the matter farther, would fuse the functions of employer and employed, and thus utilize the higher business abilities that are now latent in the common people. In his next lecture, Professor Peabody will consider the philosophy of the movement.