The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas Et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1886. AMERICAN RIOTS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1419, 18 May 1886, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas Et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1886. AMERICAN RIOTS.

Thk recent labor riots in America have attracted a great deal of surprised attention. An impression has gone abroad that the United States form a working man’s Arcadia ; that the great cities and plains of the mighty continent offer constant and remunerative employment to all sorts and conditions of men. The Protectionists ol this colony point with a self-satisfied air to the social and commercial conditions of tne Slates, and aver that their policy—the policy of robbing Peter to pay Paul —has already built up a happy and prosperous nation, has minimised pauperism,alleviated distress, and almost removed poverty. The Americans themselves would have us believe that in their “ great” country the proverb, “ Providence helps those who helps themselves,” has no application, and that the simple foice of circumstances compels the laborer to become an employer, and the employer to become a millionaire. They will not admit that the riots which disturbed Chicago a fortnight ago bear any resemblance to the riots which took place in London a few weeks earlier. The outbreak in Trafalgar Square, they tell us, was the natural protest of starving thousands; the outrages in Chicago, they would have us believe, were, entirely, the fruits of Socialists’ machinations. But the fact is, America is rapidly approaching a crisis in her history which has been foreseen and predicted by many of her more discriminating statesmen. There will soon be as little room in America for people who do not exercise some degree of fore thought and self-denial os there is in any other part of the world. The Government of the United States committed a cardinal error in making land free and without restrictions ; under a sound policy land would have been sold and the proceeds expended in providing good roads and public buildings. This would have induced concentration instead of wasteful expansion. Virgin land in its native condition is useful for grazing purposes, but land which has been allowed to go out of cultivation is an unmitigated nuisance; instead of producing useful grasses it grows noxious weeds, which impede the cultivation of adjoining farms. The profusion and waste of land have been the bane of American agriculture, and so long as it has been abundant we have looked in vain for those concentrated efforts which produce such wonders in thickly populated countries. But this waste cannot go on indefinitely, and we are disposed to think that the diminution in the American grain crop is not due to merely accidental or temporary circumstances, but to the ’approaching exhaustion of the country’s prolific wealth of vergin land. A time will shortly arrive when America may be more fairly judged by the standard we apply to less favoured countries. She has hitherto lived and grown on her own immense national resources ; she has taken no pains to preserve those resources, and there are already indications that this generation will see her struggling with of social difficulties similar to those that have invaded older countries. Even at the present moment penniless men or women are not wanted in the United States. They have no better chance of employment there than in England ; almost every kind of business is hampered with a license tax, which prevents competition; and nearly all the necessaries and luxuries of life are raised in price by the prevalence of protective duties. Thus employment is restricted, and living made dearer. We cannot believe that a majority of the rioters of Chicago were differently situated to a majority of the rioters of London. Both mobs were mainly composed of \agrants, offshots of social misery and commercial depression, evils whicl cannot be remedied by the police o either country