* Sept. 24,1893.
Whatever else may be thought about the present coal-strike, or lock-out,
as it might be more accurately described, it will be admitted by
many persons who do not rail at Political Economy that the miners are
following a sound instinct in demanding that a decent wage shall be a
fixed element in price. To dig coal out of the earth is worth a minimum
of (say) thirty shillings a week, and if it will not yield that
modest remuneration to the worker let it stay where it is, and let the
community do without coal altogether. Morally speaking, society has no
right to demand that an important industry shall be carried on under
conditions involving the misery, and still less the degradation, of
those employed in it. Nor is this a wild, revolutionary doctrine; it is
eminently conservative, in the best sense of the word; and it will have
to be admitted, and acted upon, in the interest of social order. Of
course it means an inroad on rent and speculative profit, but that is
not an immeasurable calamity.
So much, by way of introduction, on the moral and economic aspects
of the matter. Our special object is rather theological. We desire to
notice the part which religion plays in the struggle between capital
and labor; or, more properly perhaps, between the "haves" and the
"have-nots."
Everyone with an elementary knowledge of the social and political
history of the last hundred years must be aware that the working
classes, as such, have had no help whatever from Christian Churches.
Here and there an individual clergyman has spoken a word on their
behalf, but the great mass of the men of God have been on the side of
"the powers that be," and have insulted and derided the advocates
and leaders of Trade Unionism, whom they are still fond of calling
"pestilent agitators." Yet the Gospel, and especially the Sermon on the
Mount, is stuffed with platitudes about the blessings and virtues of
poverty, and the curse and wickedness of wealth. Logically, therefore,
judging by the letter of scripture, the clergy should have been on the
side of the poor, the wretched, and the oppressed. But this is a case in
which "the letter killeth," and with an eye to their own interests and
privileges, to say nothing of their ease and comfort, the clergy found
that "the spirit" of the Gospel meant the preservation of the existing
conditions of society. It would be bad for the rich, and well for the
poor, in the next life; but, in this life, they were to keep their
relative places, and remain content in the positions which Providence
had assigned them.
It is not surprising, then, that the Christian Churches--with all
their wealth, power, and at least pretended influence--should be idle or
unctuously hypocritical spectators of the struggles of labor to obtain a
fair share of the blessings of civilisation. They extend just sufficient
verbal patronage to labor to save themselves from being howled at, and
throw all their real weight in the scale against it. And it is folly to
expect any better of them. The religion and the training of the clergy
make them what they are, and they can no more alter than the Ethiopian
can change his skin or the leopard his spots. Religion is always the
consecration of the past; never the spirit of the future working in
the present; and the clergy, who, as Sidney Smith said, are a third
sex--neither male nor female, but effeminate--are instinctively
conservative, thoroughly enamored of what is, and obstinately averse to
all radical changes. Their timidity would be quite phenomenal, if they
were _not_ the third sex; and, like all timid people, they can shriek
and yell and curse and foam at the mouth when they are well frightened.
Were it otherwise, were Christianity a real agency for social
improvement, and the clergy the moral leaders of the people, we should
have seen by this time a tremendous alteration in the condition, and the
relations, of all classes of society. There might still be differences,
but they would be on a higher plane, and less grievous and exasperating.
As the case stands, all the best of the clergy can do is to preach
harmless platitudes once a week. One Bishop has been actually
harangueing the miners, and only provoking contemptuous remarks about
his salary. The truth is, that Christian ministers are, in the main,
only fit to preach kingdom-come. That is their proper work, ana they are
exactly cut out for it.
We are not in love with all the details of the elaborate ecclesiasticism
of Comte's Religion of Humanity, but we are bound to say that a
philosophical priesthood, such as he planned, would be better fitted
than a Christian priesthood for the work of moral control and social
diplomacy. There is an ethical as well as an economical element in
most of these disputes between labor and capital; and a philosophical
priesthood, vowed to study and simplicity of life, would be able to
intervene with some effect. It would be something, indeed, to have the
deliberate judgment of a dispassionate though sympathetic tribunal, even
though it had--and could and should have--no authority to enforce its
decisions. At present, however, all this is Utopian, and perhaps it
always will be so. We will return, therefore, to our immediate object,
which is to point out the utter uselessness of Christianity in the midst
of class antagonisms. It cannot control the rich, it cannot assist the
poor. Its chief idea is to stand between the two, not as an ambassador
of justice, but as a dispenser of charity. And _this_ charity, instead
of really helping the people, only serves to obscure the problems to be
solved, and to perpetuate the evils it affects to relieve.